​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.

This was our first overnight winter camping with our 2 year old. It was not particularly successful. In our rush to pack and get everyone ready, we had forgotten to get sell the trip to the kids, or maybe be had made some poor attempt. Regardless, the kids did not buy-in, so the complaints about being too tired (or having sore legs or ...) started right off the bat. Next we made the mistake of letting the kids choose the route, which ended up putting us in some less than ideal terrain. There ended up being an endless amount of complaining and a fair amount of crying too. So as soon as we got to a flat spot, open enough for a tent, we set up camp. 

Christian escaped the misery to go skiing to Hollyburn, and slowly the mood improved in camp. Although we might have completely scared Noriko of family trips. 
It was a cold evening so we got in the tent as quickly as we could for lots of story time. In the morning the weather was gorgeous, so Noriko and I went for a ski before packing up. The kids played in the snow and had snow ball fights with dad, and actually had a good time. We skied out to the cross country area to avoid the difficult forest skiing with N, but even the traverse to the resort was challenging with three kids and all our stuff, so there was a couple more tears. Luckily after hitting the resort everything was smooth sailing.

"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. 

After a few days of recovery from our Nootka trail hike and some warm up to biking on Malcolm and Cormorant Island, we were ready for the next step of our trip: the Alice lake loop. We fuelled up with some amazing scones from Mugz 2.0 Coffee House before starting the uphill out of town that would last all afternoon. Luckily we could follow low traffic logging roads right out of town, so we did not have to deal with the stress of the highways. For our oldest daughter F, who is 7, this was the first bike trip where she could not just choose to go on dad's bike whenever she wanted; she was not particularly impressed with having to bike 23km of uphill on the first day. As the day went on though she seemed to grow with the task, and slowly realized that she would be able to do it. She was so proud of herself when we pulled into the Three Isle rec site. The site was not officially an overnight site, but it seemed like a perfect little campground to me. It had a small river to play in, a nice view of the lake with the three isles, and a couple of picnic tables. 

"Wrong ways, wrongs ways" W is constantly yelling in the backpack as we quickly hike towards the car, despite having just left it two hours earlier. She is painfully reminding me that we did not do our homework well enough and therefor hiked several kilometres down the wrong trail, not realizing our mistake until we were crossing a river that made us suspicious. We are on the clock as the sun will set in about three hours. Luckily the kids are cool and hike the trail back to car at record speed. We all get back in and drive the last half kilometer to the actual trailhead. It is past 6pm when we get started the second time around and we speed along the trail. W is still periodically yelling "Wrong ways!". I tell her no: this is the right way. Little did I know that she was just for-seeing tomorrow's navigational errors.
An hour or so after leaving the car for the second time, we arrive at the Chain Lakes site. It is surprisingly nice with a good view over the lake as the sun was setting behind the mountains. We somehow managed to cook dinner and eat dinner, make a bear hang, and set up the tent before it was completely dark. I think I was asleep before any of the kids.

I don't know exactly how I went down, but I knew right away that something was wrong with my arm. I screamed loudly until I saw Christian run towards me. I could move my fingers, but my shoulder really hurt, and I could feel the top of my upper arm bone outside its socket. My shoulder was dislocated. Luckily W was okay despite having gone down with me in the kid carrier backpack. She just quietly observed as we got the carrier off and wondered how to deal with the shoulder. It was only the second day of our trip, we had only hiked 3km of the beach and I was sure this was the end of our holiday. Miriam corralled the kids while I apologized to Christian for ruining our holiday. Christian consoled me and suggested we try and put the shoulder back in before worrying too much about the future. Usually we have this little wilderness first aid booklet in our first aid kit, yet somehow that didn't make it on this trip. But Christian said he remembered a method to gently pop in a dislocated shoulder from a wilderness first aid course he took more than a decade ago, and directed me towards a big rock. I lay chest down on the rock and dangled my arm freely downward - this already felt better and I started to relax. Christian started applying firm but gentle traction downwards to my arm, pulling it away from the socket; after a bit of gentle searching things must have lined up - it suddenly jumped in to place with a loud pop. Christian said my arm became a few centimetres shorter. I immediately felt better, but the arm still felt very sore. We found a comfy place to hang out a little further along the beach, got everyone settled down and I took some good painkillers. We sent a satellite text to our emergency contact in town while we contemplated our options. It quickly became apparent that we would not need immediate rescue so we decided to set up camp and see how things were the next morning.

It was a week and a bit before out 3 week summer vacation, which were to start out with a week of hiking, so we felt like we needed to get the kids out doing some training and also check all the gear, but we did not want to leave early or return late, so we opted for a return to Seymour. This time the snow was mostly gone, it was hot  and it was buggy... very buggy. We quickly made it to Brockton Point, hoping for a little breeze to blow away the mosquitoes, but there was none. 

We were not sure where we would be able to camp with the snow now gone, so Christian and I took turns scouting the area, while the kids relaxed with some reading and water play. We eventually decided that the best place was the exact same as on our last trip to Seymour, there was still a little bit of snow left there and the mosquitoes was in slightly smaller quantities. We still retired to the tent early for extra long bedtime stories. The next day the kids did some scrambling on the rocks before heading back home.

After having more than one kid my favourite time of year has become right after the ski resorts close. Usually we get a couple of weeks of good skiing at the resort after closing - the access is super easy and the skiing usually is too. This year the post-closure season was unusually long, so we spent many weekend days both at the Cypress cross country area and on Seymour. With the skiing still good on a beautiful weekend in late May we decided to bring the overnight gear. We had a rough start to the day, with F having all sorts of problems, but eventually realized the real problem - she hadn't really eaten anything. Once that was dealt with the rest of the short ski was straightforward. At Seymour you can camp after entering the backcountry shortly after Brockton Point, so we stopped to set up camp just on the other side of the boundary. There is a nice flat and out of the way area just west of the trail. The rest of the afternoon the kids and I just lazed around in the sun, while Christian went to summit all the nearby peaks.