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.

Alouette Lake Overnight

On Sunday Ivan, Michal and I rented a Modo car, drove to Golden Ears Provincial Park, and paddle Alouette Lake.

We parked at the boat launch. Ivan and Michal brought a canoe, I brought my Innova Safari.

Only a few Modo cars have roof racks

We made a short detour up Gold Creek.

We turned around where the creek becomes whitewater.

Some nice views as we passed through the narrows.

Is Ivan taking a nap here?

Someone had built a weird shelter out of tarps near the North East side of the lake. We camped next to it.

Weird tarp structure on the right, tarp covered bbq on the left. Good camping about 50 meters North.

In the morning the weather was sunny. We gather our gear and finished a circle around the lake and back to the car.

A few notes:

-Wind can be a big factor in this lake, especially in the afternoon.

-Nice views of Robie Reid and Golden Ears peaks.

-The camping on the east side of the lake was nice. There are other camping spots closer to boat launch near the narrows and also on the south side of the lake.

Hope to Fort Langly via the Fraser River

This week I kayaked a portion of the Fraser River. On Monday I left from Hope, on Wednesday I arrived at Fort Langley.

Matty Gray offered me a ride to hope! I used the boat launch off Wardle Street,

Thanks for the ride Matty!

I loaded up my Innova Safari and off I went!

Low river levels meant large gravel banks on each side of the river.

The first 10kms had fast flowing water with standing waves and whirlpools and lots of wind. After that the river widened out and calmed down.

I camped my first night on an island about 2kms downriver from the Rosedale Bridge.

Can you spot the photographer's shadow?

Next day was mellowing paddling on nice, wide river. I made sure to stay to the left where the Harrison River enters.

Around here is where the air started to get a "farm" smell.

I was near Mission as the sun set. A fisherman by the side of the river stopped me to ask about the kayak. He pointed out a nice place to camp.

At this point the lens of my waterproof camera had too much water on it... this photo was taken with my phone.

The sunset was AMAZING! I really wish I could have captured it better.

Pink sky by night, kayaker's delight? I don't think so.... rain forecast the next day.

On Wednesday I set out early for Fort Langley. This portion is tidal. A few curious seals came to say hi. I pulled out at the boat launch in Fort Langley, packed my gear and walked over to the bus stop.

Waiting for the bus to take me to the Skytrain so I can go home!

All together a nice three days. Here's a few notes:

-The water is cold, you may want a wetsuit or drysuit

-It's amazing how much industry is along the river banks. At times there is definite funky smells in the air. Many people and animals eat fish from this river, we should show more respect.

-Here's someone else's recent trip report from the Fraser http://damgoodtrips.com/fraserriver/
-And another trip report http://bcwetcoast.blogspot.ca/2014/09/hope-to-home-in-15-days-august-3031.html

-Here's a frundraiser trip that runs this same route! http://www.squeah.com/Paddle-A-Thon.html
-This group provides lots of info about Lower Mainland waterways and what you can do to take action http://www.fraserriverkeeper.ca/

Manning Park Ski

This week Dean and I went to Manning Park and spent two days backcountry skiing.

Day 1 Fat Dog Trail and Day 2 Windy Joe

On Tuesday we followed the Fat Dog Ski Trail up to the ridge between Big Buck Mountain and Three Brothers Mountain.

A rare photo of me courtesy of Dean

We made it to the ridge (where the Heather Trail is in the summer) right at our turn-around time of 3pm. We followed our tracks back and made it back to the car for dusk.

Day 2 we followed the Windy Joe Mountain trail up to the fire lookout cabin at the summit, There was lots of deadfall on the trail.

The route starts on a cross country trail

The hut had some nice views on the top!

The ski down through the trees was fun!

Dean was excited!

A few notes:

-Simple terrain means this is a great area to visit when avalanche risk is high.

-We stayed the night at the Manning Park Resort What a joy to be able to dry our clothes and have a burger for dinner!

Mt Sproatt Ski Attempt

Yesterday Brent and I attempted to ski Mount Sproatt. We started from the Rainbow Lake Trail which is located just West of Whistler.

The red lines are very approximate!

We started skinning up.

Narrow creek bridges were tricky!

Around the 3km mark we left the trail and started heading up into the trees and gaining elevation. This is the route described in John Baldwin's book. It was tough skinning up in the the super crunchy snow. It was slow moving and eventually we decided to turn around before we ran out of time!

Brent kept his split board as skis for the way down!

Once we hit the road we got to pick up a little speed.

Go Brent Go!!

One note:

-On snowshoes we probably would have made the summit. I still have a lot to learn about backcountry skiing and skinning up steep terrain.