Southern BC

We've been lucky to spend the last couple of weeks visiting with various friends. After leaving the Lillooet area we stopped in Whistler for a couple of hours to check out the Crankworx Festival (a freeride mountain bike festival) on our way to Vancouver to pick up our friend Holly.

Once we had Holly with us we drove back up to Pemberton for a couple of days. We biked and swam and had good fun. And as I was getting out of one of the lakes I saw a snake swimming away just a meter or so from where I had been swimming.  I'm glad I saw it after I was out rather than before!

After that we went to Whistler. Luke had heard of a stealth camping area so we stayed there for one night. Then, in the middle of the night, a van of drunken young dudes pulled up and stumbled into the woods to be drunk in nature--but not before one guy screeched on and on about needed a lighter for his 'cigga'. It was a bit hard to get back to sleep after that.
Crankworxs was still on in Whistler and it was Saturday so there was piles and piles of people there. Luke and Holly rode a famous trail called 'Comfortably Numb' while I booted about on the trails in town. I didn't have much fun (I don't like crowds) but I think I would have had less fun on their trail. They described it as climbing and more climbing without ever having much of a downhill payoff. They seemed confused that a trail could climb that much without really coming down at any point.

The next day was in Squamish. Luke and Holly coached me through some easier downhill trail, which was super helpful! We ended the day having great Thai food in Vancouver.
The last day of our Holly trip was spent in Vancouver. We rode up Grouse Mountain and had yummy pizza and coffee at the top as a treat for the climb. Luke and Holly continued to ride while I drove to Surrey to meet up with a friend from Mississauga who was working there for the week. I really dislike driving so it was a bit stressful driving in Vancouver...but I managed well enough.
Here's a photo of Luke and I on the climb up (curtesy of Holly--thanks Holly!!)

 Not-so-flattering photo of me...but Luke looks good!

Behind us they were blasting rock--they would sound off some horn blasts to warn people, then you'd hear an explosion. We also passed the tour helicopter pad at the top just as one was landing and ended up much closer to a helicopter than I ever wanted to be.

Next, we went back to Squamish to visit our friends Phil and Mary-Lin who recently moved there from Dundas ON. Luke and Phil rode some trails while ML and I went **paddle boarding**!!! It was so much fun! I learned that they make inflatable paddle boards and I came really close to getting one for myself (but then talked myself out of it by thinking about how, although we technically have room in the truck, it would be a pain to have to move it around all the time to get at stuff). Then they made us a fantastic dinner of made-from-scratch pizza. Happiness!

The following day we took the ferry from North Vancouver to Vancouver Island to visit our friends Nicole and Moises in Campbell River. We stayed for a week and did lots of swimming, some biking, and ate lots of fabulous homemade Mexican food.
On the Saturday there was another bike competition called The Bearclaw Invitational. I liked it better than Crankworx because you could get much closer to the action. Here's a couple of photos--the bikers were really impressive!

There's an annual chainsaw wood carving competition in Campbell River and Nicole took me to see this year's works. I didn't take any photos but the city buys some of them and places along the path that runs along the sea-side. This one was in front of a cafe:

 "So many cookies, So little time"

And it's not really a good blog post without a silly photo of Luke, who continues to insist on looking ridiculous when having his photo taken.

After leaving Campbell River yesterday we spent an afternoon in Victoria wandering around downtown and walking the Sea Wall. We took the ferry across to Port Angeles in the Olympic Peninsula, where we are right now. It's been a rainy morning, but hopefully it'll clear up for some fun this afternoon!

More BC

After we left Prince George we stopped in Wells and Barkerville BC for a couple of days. We just missed their arts festival, which was kind of sad because it looked like it would have been fun. Like so many of the areas we've been to in the North it was a gold rush area and Barkerville is an old-timey gold rush village (which you can visit for an entrance fee).
We did a bike ride on one of the old wagon trails in the area--it was nice to be in the forest but it wasn't very scenic beyond that. The highlight was seeing a ptarmigan and her three adorable babies on the trail. Unfortunately we came upon them right on the trail, so the mom was very stressed trying to figure out what to do to protect her babies. My instinct is to stop and stare adoringly at wildlife, so it's a good thing that Luke's around to remind me that it's stressful for wildlife to have us around and so we moved out as quickly as we could. Just a few minutes later on the trail a different ptarmigan flew out of the trees and dive bombed my head, a different kind of maneuver to protect her young. Can't they tell we're vegetarians? :P

Next we went to Quesnel. It's a nice enough town, but the most memorable part of our stay there was the water ban due to mining tailings being released into the river. The good news (as much as such things have good news) is that the town gets its drinking water from a different river so as long as you drank town water you were fine. However they were evacuating campers to be sure they weren't drinking or entering the polluted water.

I can't help but think often about the environmental price we pay for the quality of life and society we live in, especially here in BC. We saw similar things in the Yukon and Alaska, but up north there is still large areas of untouched land (well...nothing is truly untouched any more). In BC, as soon as we hit the Stikine and Spatsizi parks there has been lots of evidence of resource extraction almost everywhere we've been. There's a whole lot of logging and mining in particular. I understand that people need jobs in our society and that I would be a hypocrite if I pretended like I wasn't part of the problem. Even though we own very little now we still use gas to drive around in our truck, we still buy our food from the grocery stores and I'm writing this using electricity for my laptop. I guess it just saddens me to see such beauty juxtaposed with such abuse of nature. And there are no easy answers.

Anyway, Williams Lake was our next stop. It was often recommended to us by a number of bikers and was even described as the best biking in BC by one fellow. The landscape of the city is pretty fantastic--there's a lake surrounded on every side by hills and mountains. Pretty ideal really.
We did a fun loop at the top of one of the trail areas. I'm finding BC riding pretty challenging for climbing and steeper descents, so I was grateful to find something I could handle.  Then Luke did some of the tougher trails while I did laundry and drank coffee :)
There was a little island that had some wildlife viewing areas, which is where I spotted these fellows:

 Muskrat emerging from the bushes just a couple metres away from where I stood

 Muskrat making waves

Pelicans

Lillooet was next on the list. There's a free BC hydro campsite there, which we very much appreciated (although you had to hear the buzzing of the electricity wires from the nearby dam). There was even a lovely BC hydro worker who came by and welcomed us to the campsite.

The other bonus was there was a beautiful lake across the street where we went swimming (should have taken a photo...) The lake is thin and long with mountains running along both sides as far as you could see.

I did take photos of the area we went to about 45 minutes out of town (on dirt roads that were scary for me at times because they were one lane wide and had a drop off on one side). This areas is in the rain shadow and is pretty much a desert.

Frasier River

There was a downhill trail that Luke wanted to ride, so he did the big long climb to the top of the trail while I walked down to a nearby stream. It was horribly hot--40+ degrees with very little shade. I don't know how Luke rode his bike in that.

I've already mentioned that I do not ride DH (steeper downhill trails) and I can not handle that kind of heat (I'm much better at -40 than +40), however I still hugely regret not going on this bike ride because Luke saw WILD HORSES on the ride up!! I spent pretty much all of Montana trying to see wild horses and it's a dream of mine to see them. There were 8 of them, all dark brown with black manes. And they wouldn't get off the trail for a while, so Luke got to hang out with them for a good long time. Sigh.

At least on the way out we saw three black bears running through a field, came across really good looking chickens wandering on the road and saw a number of ptarmigans.

It's a horribly hot day again today, so I don't think we'll be very ambitious. Stupid heat wave. At least it cools down in the evenings and you can get relief in the shade! 

Northern BC

I have a correction to make--Luke tried a soapberry on the trail, not mountain ash berry.

Also, here's a photo of the Anchorage moose we saw on the trail (courtesy of Luke):

We drove and drove and drove and eventually made it to Smithers BC. It's a pretty cute place--quite a lot of interesting shops and, of course, some mountain biking :) We did some of the cross country trails the first day and then I shuttled Luke on the downhill trails (since I don't ride downhill).  Here's Luke at the top of the trail, trying to look majestic:

 The standard frown as I try to document Luke's beard growth (he's talking about shaving it off now that it's gotten all hot again!)

 Majesty!!

We camped at a free site at Twin Falls in Smithers.  Here's one of the twins:

Luke took some photos of a jump on one of the downhill trails. You jump over a crashed plane!

We spent a couple of days in Burns Lake BC. They have a pretty great set-up. There's free camping and parking at the trail head with a lovely lake to swim in after getting all sweaty on the trails. (the lake has leaches though. They didn't seem to find anyone else but me though)
They have a bike park with cross country trails and then a downhill trail section. I tried part of one of the easier downhill trails--it was fun, but I'm pretty sure I won't ever seriously get into it)

We accidentally drained our truck battery (Luke had his tablet plugged in a bit too long it seems) so we couldn't get the truck started. We have bad luck with truck problems on long weekends. The good news is that, after a bit of pushing, we got the truck on a slope and started it with a push start. It was nerve wracking to see the truck and Luke going down the hill but at the very bottom it started and it's been fine since then. We had very nice camping neighbours who offered to help us out if we needed it too.

We're now in Prince George and Luke has been finding lots and lots and LOTS of mountain bike rides to do as we travel down the province. I'm wondering if we'll ever make it to Vancouver ;)