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...

This trip was a bit of a last minute plan inspired by this 10 Lakes overnighter. However, with three young kids there is no way we can bike 120km with 2000m of elevation in a couple of days, so we planned to spend 6 days on the roads leaving time for playing and swimming.

We meant to leave Vancouver Wednesday early afternoon, but it quickly became clear that we would not be able to make the 2.25pm ferry, so we took our time and aimed for the 4.45pm, which of course turned out to be full, so we ended up waiting a long time for the 7pm that didn't leave until 7.45pm. We ended up chasing the last ferry to Saltery Bay and made it on with just a couple of minutes to spare. Due to the last minute planning we didn't really have a proper map of all the backroads, so we drove around the logging roads trying to locate Lois Lake Rec site until passed midnight. At this point the little kids were asleep, but our 8 year old, F, was not impressed and getting the tent setup was a stressful affaire. We were, however, all pleasantly surprised at how nice it was when we woke up next  to beautiful Lois Lake. The kids played by the lake while we packed up, and then we headed to our starting point by Duck Lake Rec site. 

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.

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.