Mount Baker via Coleman Deming

During late June I went up Mount Baker with Michal, Harvey, and Graham. We went up the Coleman-Deming route. It's pretty standard so I'll keep this brief with just a couple of thoughts on the subject.

The hike up to the alpine is relatively short and enjoyable. Then we camped on the glacier.

Looking towards summit from camp spot.

We enjoyed a spectacular sunset at camp.

Then we woke at 12:30am, departing camp at 1:30am to catch sunrise from the summit. Heading up in the firm early-morning snow was more pleasant than afternoon slush would  have been.

Summit

Overall a very enjoyable trip. A few notes:

-This would definitely be doable as a day-trip. It was however very pleasant to enjoy both sunset and sunrise.

-We roped up for the glacier and that seems like the most prudent thing to do. I saw a couple of skiers unroped.

-There's some more photos on my Instagram @RaberPhoto

Bella Coola to Tallheo Hot Springs by Kayak

I bought myself a birthday present this year. A round-trip flight Vancouver to Bella Coola with 4 days in between.

About 3km each way,

I flew with Pacific Coastal to Bella Coola from YVR South terminal. I was lucky to buy a sale-price ticket. Views from the flight were phenomenal.

I met up with Matt Bruce, he's living in Nimpo Lake and drove over to meet me. For two days we waited out heavy wind. We did some hiking instead.

Great mountain views in all directions.

Finally on day 3 we had our weather window. We woke up at 3 am and headed onto the water right away.

Great views on the water once the sun came up.

Tallheo hot spring felt like paradise.

We woke again at 3am the next day to beat the wind on our paddle back. We got back early and did a small hike called "Medby Rock".

All together a great trip!

Sky Pilot Attempt

In early June, Michal, Ryan and I went to Sky Pilot Mountain.

We parked at Shannon Falls, hiked up, and took the gondola down in the evening.

We started at Shannon Falls parking lot around 7am. We hiked up the Sea to Summit Trail.

A view point on Seat to Summit Trail

Then we hiked a well marked trail towards Sky Pilot. Eventually we popped out of the trees and into snowy alpine.

We kick stepped our way up snow slopes.

Eventually we made our way up to rock near the summit.

Ryan scrambling the pink slab as Michal looks on.

We deviated from the normal Matt Gunn route by replacing the chimney with a sketchy traverse. I decided not to continue. Michal and Ryan headed up to the summit and quickly returned.

Sketchy traverse... more difficult than it looks.

We rappelled the pink slab and had a fun slip-and-slide on the way down snow slopes.

We were happy to arrive at the Gondola just before it closes at 7pm. We each paid $10 for a ride down then walked a few minutes to the car. All together about a 12 hour day. Very nice trip and highly recommend it. Next time I would stick to the Matt Gunn route.

Fort Langley to Vancouver via the Fraser River

Yesterday I finished the final leg of the Fraser River from Hope to home. Ivan came along for the ride.

We took out at River District Park in Vancouver

We skytrained out to Lougheed Station and transferred buses twice to get to Fort Langley.

We put in at Fort Langley boat launch around 2pm.

We stopped for lunch on an island along the way

Just after the Port Mann Bridge

Then we continued home

Heading towards the Pattullo Bridge

We passed lots of tugboats, barges, and various other signs of industry.

A load of demolished cars.

All together an mellow and very enjoyable day!

Mount Macfarlane

On Tuesday I hiked Mount Macfarlane with Michal and Ryan.

Apparently that's 22km roundtrip.

It was a little bit of a foggy day.

First bit's through the trees. It starts to open up near Pierce Lake.

We made our way up some snow slopes to the still-frozen Upper Pierce Lake.

We scrambled a bit to avoid some of the steeper snow slopes near the summit.

We enjoyed a quick snack at the summit cairn then made our way down. Overall a great day!

Mount Price via Garibaldi Lake

Monday night Michal and I headed to the Garibaldi Lake Trail. We parked around 9pm and hiked up to the lake by headlamp. We camped at the lake and woke at 5:30am to head up Mount Price.

The trail to Garibaldi Lake is in awesome condition. I still have only hiked up it at night.

The snow was a little soft so we got our snowshoes on and started heading up to Mount Price.

A little tricky route-finding through the trees.

We aimed to hit Mount Price from the West. That's where the topo map had the most gradual incline. We found a good snowslope and headed up.

Black Tusk in the background. A nice layer of fog on Garibaldi Lake.

We made our way up a short scree slope to the summit.

And finally we made it to the top where we enjoyed killer views of Mount Garibaldi, Black Tusk, the Table, the Tantalus Range, etc.

View from the top, fog has lifted off Garibaldi Lake. Looking towards Sphinx Bay.

Find Michal's website here
You can read about the time I paddled Garibaldi Lake here.

Flora Peak Snowshoe Attempt

On Friday Mark and I drove out to Chilliwack Lake Provincial Park to snowshoe up Flora Peak.

We also made a detour to Lindeman Lake

We parked along the side of Chilliwack Lake Road and made our way up the Flora Lake Trail. Around 1200m we hit the snowline. Mark was excited to put on his snowshoes.

This aussie's first time on snowshoes!

The main face looked super avalanch-y so we headed up the West ridge. It is a lower angle and has lots of trees. We stayed right to avoid cornices.

This is a sub-summit. True summit is hidden in background.

We decided that conditions looked sketchy near the top, so we did not continue to true summit. We enjoyed some soft-slushy snow and a great view on the way down.

That's Mount Webb on the right. I went up there in a 2015 post!

When we got back to the trailhead, we still had lots of daylight so we made the quick hike over to Lindeman Lake.

Shoes off, socks off, ahhhh life is good.

A few notes:

-We encountered two other people and they were really friendly! Follow them on Instagram @Sparkles2222 and @InTheRiverValley. They told us they had seen an avalanche in the area so be careful!

-Very nice area and great views for little effort!

-Flora Peak would make a great ski.

-I recently started an Instagram. You can find it here.