By Christian

It's been a long time since we brought our family up to Tenquille Lake. At that time, there was just 1 kid, and she rode in the backpack. Despite being one of the easiest alpine cabins to get to on the coast we had trouble - there was enough snow to hide the trail, but not enough to cover the bush such that we could ski properly, along with a solid slush-rain. Between that trip and doing the Owl-Tenquille traverse twice (once solo as a ski trip, once as a Veenstra Traverse) I've still never successfully taken the East access trail to the Birkenhead FSR. This time we succeeded... but it was still a bit closer than we'd thought it would be.

By Christian

The "River of Golden Dreams" is a cute little paddle down the river between Alta Lake and Green Lake, entirely within the resort community of Whistler. We paddled it once before, in a rented canoe, which was a nice paddle but a quasi-fiasco of logistics and an attempt to avoid tourist pricing. We now own a beast of a canoe, but also (more recently) two SUPs. Line really wanted to try it again on the paddleboards.

This summer we had two weeklong trips back-to-back, and it certainly seems we got the weather right. After a week of biking in cool, occasionally drizzly, weather it was time for a heat wave with basically no wind - what a great time to be on the ocean! We debated before the trip whether we should take the canoe or a pair of ocean kayaks (a tandem and a single) with kids in the hatches. The advantage of the canoe being easier packing and having the entire family in the same boat, allowing better "in-flight service" for the kids... but the kayaks are more seaworthy. With the heat and general lack of wind I think we made the right choice with the canoe. I've actually never been on the ocean with such weather before...

Dates: June 22nd - 27th
by Christian Veenstra

Ok, ok, enough posts about the same trip. This is the last one, though. For some people, and probably me for planning other trips in the future, this will be the most important page. A map and split times for the trip. The longwinded trip report is split into three other posts.

This is part three of my solo ski trip around Garibaldi Park, accessed self-propelled from my doorstep via Pitt Lake. Read about the approach here, or the alpine portion here. This section describes what happened after I finish the alpine portion and discover that the Bucklin Creek FSR isn't anywhere close to what I'd hoped for...

This is part two of my solo ski trip around Garibaldi Park, accessed self-propelled from my doorstep via Pitt Lake. Read all about getting there here, getting back home here, or continue to read about the skiing portion.

​by Christian Veenstra

Also bushwhacking, plenty of bushwhacking, in addition to the biking, canoeing, and skiing. But I didn't really fully appreciate that at the outset, so I sold it to myself as a triathlon. Anyway, this is the story of a solo, self-propelled, and self-supported ~320 km, ~10,000 m, ~4.5-day trip I did this "spring" where I linked together chunks of 3 classic ski traverses - the Misty Icefield, McBride Range, and Garibaldi Neve, followed by skiing over the Mamquam Icefield, in order to drop back to my starting point near the Pitt River Hotsprings. In order to make things more interesting I would get to/from the hotsprings by bike and canoe right from my doorstep. First I'd tow the canoe through Metro Vancouver to the South end of Pitt Lake, then toss the bike into the canoe and row up the lake, before biking up the Pitt River FSR where I'd leave the bike near the hotsprings, hike/bushwhack into the alpine, and do my ski traverses. I'll split the TR into a couple sections to break things up a bit. This first section describes getting to the hotsprings. The alpine section is described here, and getting back home here.

Ok, it's getting a little late in the bike-to-ski season, but a recent promotional email that graced my inbox contained a link to yet another blog post demonstrating the along-the-tope-tube style method of strapping skis to your bike. I was going to post in the comments that vertical is the way to go, with a link to some better instructions... but couldn't find a good example. So I took some pictures after getting back from a few laps on the local hill, and here is my example. Unlike many methods of attaching skis to a bike the instructions are pretty short, because it's pretty easy.

"Why does it always rain on this trip?" F asks as we pulled into the alley after returning home from another successful trip to Saysutsun (Indian Arm) with our bike canoe setup. It is really rainy, and I guess it did rain last time we did this trip, but we had hoped that we would make it home before the downpour started this time. Maybe next time we will manage to miss the rain...

The trip was a little cool down from our weeklong stay on Nootka Island and a warm up to our Port Alice loop bike trip. Sure we also did some biking on this trip, but it was generally pretty chill. The trip started out with a ferry from Port McNeill to Sointula on Malcolm Island and a short 7 km bike trip across the island to Bere Point Campsite. It was just a week since I fell and dislocated my shoulder on the Nootka trail, so I wasn't sure how bike touring was going to go. We made sure that my bike was lighter than normal, so I didn't have to handle a heavy bike particularly when walking, but it was still a little nerve racking on the first day, especially once we got to the bumpy gravel roads. It seemed totally fine, though, and I enjoyed the ride across Malcolm. F on the other hand was not too stoaked due to the pretty good downpour, but N happily biked the first couple of kilometers through the little town of Sointula. She has been learning on her pedal bike the last 6 month, but only recently learned to start and stop independently. She was very proudly showing me how fast she could go. Luckily the road was not busy, because she had definitely not mastered the skill of riding in a straight line yet.