Family Hike Garibaldi Lake - Beach Day in the Snow!

In our family, like many others, it is a tradition that the birthday boy or girl chooses something special to do on their "special" day.  You can imagine my delight, when my daughter, Emma, suggested an overnight hike to Garibaldi Lake to celebrate her 20th birthday.

Creek Crossing on trail to Garibaldi Lake

We have spent many a vacation camping, hiking and paddling with our children, and now that they are all grown up it brings us such great pleasure to see them planning and embarking on their own adventures in the outdoors.  It only gets better when we are invited to join the "expeditions!"  I literally jumped at the chance to hike with Adam and Emma to one of my favourite destinations - Garibaldi Provincial Park.  This 195,000 hectare park is located in the heart of the British Columbia Coast Mountains and features over 90 kms of hiking trails.  Visitors can choose from 5 different access points as a starting point for their visit to the park.  At 2,678 meters, Mount Garibaldi stands proudly overlooking the park below.  One of my favourite features, and an iconic symbol of the park is Black Tusk - a giant remnant of a volcanic cone.

Ridge at base of Black Tusk (2012)

Final ascent to base of Black Tusk - only experienced climbers should attempt final chimney section (2012)

Base of Black Tusk (2012)

In all honesty, the majority of the hike in, is pure grunt work as you hike 9 km and climb 850 metres to Garibaldi Lake.  The trail switches back numerous times as you climb up, up and up through the forest.  To keep us entertained and our minds off the trek, Emma entertained us by sharing her knowledge of the trees, shrubs and ferns we were passing.  What a treat to have a naturalist leading the charge!  The forest features giant Douglas fir, Western Red Cedar and Western Hemlock, so she had lots to talk about.

Emma our resident Naturalist enjoys the forest

As you finish the long stretch of switchbacks you are rewarded with a visit to a viewpoint overlooking a huge slide area.  It is hard to look at the slide and not be humbled by the power of Mother Nature.  You can see where literally half of the ridge fell away.

Viewpoint on trail to Garibaldi Lake

We stopped to take it all in and of course nibble on our trail mix.  We were soon joined by a couple of hikers who were on their way down the mountain.  They were from San Francisco, California.  We laughed as they politely inquired when our summer started.  They had spent a very cold night in the snow at Garibaldi Lake.

Snow capped glaciers reflected in Garibaldi Lake

We bid farewell to the Californians and set off for the Lake.  As we continued to gain elevation, we could feel the temperature dropping and soon found ourselves hiking through snow.  In true, family vacation fashion the rain began.  It just would not be one of our family outings without some sort of bad weather!  We arrived at the lake wet and cold and quickly found our way to the warming hut to shed our wet clothing and put on our warm fleecies.  As we were warming up a group of 3 hikers joined us.  One of their group had fallen through the snow and had quite a nasty cut on his leg.  They were short a few first aid supplies, so Adam naturally kicked into gear and was soon sharing our supplies and keeping an eye on the "treatment."

As we were preparing dinner in the warming hut, we looked out over the lake and were treated to a full rainbow.  We took it as a sign that tomorrow would be sunny and warm.  We were not disappointed as we woke up to brilliant sunshine.  The views of the lake and snow capped glaciers were breathtaking...a perfect birthday gift for our birthday girl.

Perfect birthday morning on Garibaldi Lake

Giggle of the day:

With our combined years of experience, we really should know better, but we found ourselves shocked to arrive at the lake and find we were up to our knees in snow.  We had planned for a birthday picnic beside the lake and were fully prepared with frisbees, swimsuits and sunglasses.  We were huddled up in the warming hut, laughing about the tricks Mother Nature can play when 2 climbers arrived equipped with ice axes and snowshoes.  They had been up trying to make their way to Black Tusk, but had turned back because of the weather. I wish I had taken a picture of the group....Emma in her sunglasses, Adam in his beach wear and the climbers in their snowshoes!

Where's the beach?

Maps and Route tips:

You are required to purchase a BC Discover Camping back country permit for all back-country wilderness camping.  These can be purchased online or at the trail head parking lot.

Access points to the Provincial Park are located along the Sea to Sky Highway (Highway 99) between Squamish and Pemberton.


#hike #discoveroutdoors #getoutsideandplay

Getting outdoors to support the BC Ride To Conquer Cancer #rtccva

Getting Outdoors to Support a Good Cause - 2014 BC Ride to Conquer Cancer

As the date for the 2014 BC Ride to Conquer Cancer approached we learned that the organizers and sponsors were still in need of crew volunteers.  The event is BC's largest cycling fundraiser.  Over 2 days, cyclists ride 200 km from Surrey to Seattle.

We decided it was time for us to get off our bikes and support other riders who had trained for long, hard hours and had contributed selflessly to raise money for such an important cause.  We registered as crew and were assigned to work Pit Stops throughout the weekend.

Sadly, many, if not most, of the teams and riders have been touched by cancer.  We were amazed, inspired and impressed that despite the emotional connection to this disease, the weekend had an incredible feel of hope, optimism and positivity.  There was a sense of team as so many people from so many walks of life united to ride for the cure.  This year saw 2,104 riders and over 500 volunteers come together to raise 9.1 million dollars.   Since 2009, the ride has raised over 59.1 million dollars for the BC Cancer Foundation.

Check in and breakfast on Day One in Cloverdale

Crew upload area on Day one....which bus are we on?

Day One Pit Stop is almost ready.

How much gatorade powder should we add?

More organized chaos as cyclists abandon their bikes in search of food.

Cyclists mix, mingle and munch - Day One - Pit Stop 3

Comor Techies are faced with a huge line up of cyclists needing help.  Rob pitches in and after 25 tire changes, is made honorary member of the Comor Mechanics team.

Riders arrive at Mt. Vernon Camp....cold, wet , tired and JUBILANT!

The sheep barn becomes the centre for World Cup soccer as cyclists gather to watch Italy vs. England

The sun peaks out and everyone takes the opportunity to try and dry out gear in Tent city.

We were assigned a blue tent!  :)

Pit team gets creative!  After a 3 hour wait for the gear truck which was missing in action, the team decides to take matters into their own hands and loads everything on the bus!

Family and friends celebrate with riders at the turn around route finish line in Cloverdale

Next year, the ride will move to an August date and we are confident that success will follow until one day in the very near future we will not need to ride for a cure, as we will have found it.


Giggle of the weekend:

I think it would be impossible to create a tent city, add 2000 riders and countless volunteers and NOT find something to giggle about!  We must mention our amazing Pit Stop 2 crew on Day 2.  We were working with several nursing students from Langara College.  What a great group!  Once again, the day began with "organized chaos."  We were up bright and early and on our bus by 6 a.m.  We arrived at our designated pit stop early and eagerly awaited the arrival of the gear truck.  Unfortunately, our driver had slept in and then added to his faux pas by driving to the wrong pit stop.  We were beginning to feel anxious that the riders would be at the pit stop before the food and water arrived....and then our worst fears were realized.  We were flooded by riders, just as the gear truck pulled in.

Day 2 - Pit Stop 2 - Gear truck and cyclists arrive at the same time.

Rob was on Gatorade mixing duty and quickly adapted to the situation.  He popped off the lid on the 5 gallon water jug, poured in the gatorade powdered, put the lid back on and yelled to the thirsty cyclists, "watch this boys."  He then pushed the water jug down the hill.  It was a steep hill, so the water jug picked up speed quickly.  One of our Langara nurses began to sprint after it.  She managed to corral the water jug, and carried it back up to the water table.  As she arrived, the cyclists burst into applause, she took a deep bow, and Rob declared...."and that's how you mix gatorade the old school way!"

Pit Stop "Ninjas" celebrate the end of an amazing weekend.

Routes:

This year the ride featured four route options - great variety for cyclists - great logistical challenge for crew!


#rtccva #cycle #discoveroutdoors #volunteer

Greendrop Lake - no longer a secret!

As we advocate and encourage folk to get outdoors and explore nature, we often find ourselves feeling conflicted.  Today was such a day!  We arrived at the trail head, that was once quite difficult to find, to discover an expanded parking area - actually a fully developed parking lot and it was full.  We knew we should have been excited that so many people were out hiking and enjoying the great outdoors, but I must confess that deep down we were a little upset that "others" would be on the trail.  These feelings make no sense, yet every once and a while they rear their ugly head.  We forced ourselves to make a conscious decision to celebrate the fact that so many people were outside!  Unfortunately, we also found ourselves packing out a LOT of garbage....clearly much work needs to be done to spread the "leave no trace" message.  We will leave that for another blog post!  :)

It was a beautiful spring day and we were thrilled to be visiting Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park, a 9258 hectare park just 150km east of Vancouver.  We planned to hike the trail past Lindeman Lake to Greendrop Lake.  Both lakes feature back country camping - complete with pit toilets and tent pads.

Back Country tent pads - at Lindeman Lake

This hike is a both a great weekend getaway and a fantastic day trip....lots to keep you interested:

• Bridges

• Views of snow capped mountains

• Fascinating ridge lines

• Lakes

• Streams

• Rock gardens

Navigating across a slide area

• Wild flowers

Trillium in bloom

The trail is really well marked, but today we were forced to be a little creative as sections of the trail had been washed out by recent spring run off.  We managed to keep our feet relatively dry as we scampered and jumped from rocks to logs!

Trail marker on rock

Flagging tape marks stream crossing

Section of bridge washed out

As we were crossing one of the slide areas a young couple caught up to us.  We heard a deep voice shout out, "Mr. and Mrs. Weiss!"  This hulking, young backpacker quickly approached and gave me a huge hug.  Turns out he was a baseball player from a team Rob had coached years ago.  Of course, he was all "grown up" and had changed considerably.  On the other hand,  we have hardly aged a day!  What a great meeting - we were so excited to catch up with him and of course thrilled to meet him on the trail.  You just never know what might happen or who you might meet when you get outside!  :)

Giggle of the day:

It has been many years since we last hiked to Greendrop Lake.  In fact, the previous time we visited the area, we took our three children, who at the time were all under the age of 10.  It was a wonderful day trip to the lake, as the kids enthusiastically climbed, explored and got their feet wet and muddy!  You can imagine our laughter today, as we arrived at the first lake in 30 minutes.....an outing that years ago had taken an entire day and countless SNACK breaks.

Trail leading past Lindeman Lake to Greendrop Lake