Biking with Mike

I was down in Vancouver for Thanksgiving weekend with Pete's family. Yes, met the family and, of course, I seemed to charm them:). I hope so. We hooked up with my cousin, Mike, who just finished riding his bike across Canada with a few friends for charity for MD. Mike had never asked to go biking before so this was our first ride together ever. He's now got this ripped cycling bod - guess Jessica is sure happy:). We had a great ride out around UBC and to the airport area. He was sure kicking my butt, although I'm just getting over a cold. He did have thicker touring tires on also. It was a great morning!!

Clearwater Lake

The next adventure took us to Wells Gray Provincial Park. There are several lakes there, but Clearwater Lake had a rental place for canoes right on the lake so we chose that one. We had glorious weather on the Sat. The lake was very calm and hardly any other people. This was my first ever canoe camping trip. I've done boating and kayak trips, but never in a canoe, even though I had canoed a lot at our cottage. We had a campsite all to ourselves and they are very well kept. There are lots of different campsites that you can only access by canoe and for all different distances depending on how far you want to go. That night it rained hard, but was just cloudy the next day as we canoed out. We didn't have any bugs, but I have heard they can be quite back in the summer. Would love to go back.

Mt Frosty

Pete and I went to Manning Park to hike up Mt Frosty a couple of weeks after the last trip. Both him and I had a dream of one day hiking the Pacific Crest Trail(PCT) which goes from the California/Mexico border up to Manning Park. It can take 3-6 months to do the whole thing or you can break it up if you want. We thought we'd do our first backpacking trip together and go and check out the end of the PCT. I had seen it once before.



The weather was awesome for the hike. We chose not to summit up the loose scree to the top, plus it was getting later and we just got lazy. There was a great meadow just in the basin below the peak which we camped at and had to ourselves. Beautiful views there too.



The "official" campground was down in the woods with no view and not the privacy so we scored big time!!! Pete was trained in the army to have a big cup and a spoon attached with a string to it. I called it his "remedial" cup and spoon, but it works:). After the weekend, we weren't sure if we wanted to backpack for 3-6 months, but it's fun to dream.

Kooteneys

Labour Day weekend, Pete and I took a trip to the Kooteneys which is about 4-5 hours south east of here. I had never been or at least I didn't remember much of it when I was 12 years old passing through that area. The town of Nelson is known as the alternative, hippy crowd and a lot of US draft dodgers nestled there. It's a quiant town that is growing and bustling. Very outdoorsy and a great feel to it for my liking. We camped almost an hour north of Nelson near Kalso. Just a very smaller town like Nelson. Had a great day checking out both town and their markets.

The next day we drove north west to mountain bike to a ghost town. We made sure we had a whistle since it is grizzly bear country all around there. Part of the mountain bike ride was along the old mining rail bed up there. The town of Sandon was bustling about a century ago, but now there's not much there but a few old buildings.





We were going to go for a quick hike afterwards, but saw a guy in the parking lot who had talked with another fellow who had seen 2 grizzlies on the trail. That along with the fact that it was raining hard made us decide to keep driving. We drove up north of Kalso to Meadow Creek where we were told that the Kokanee salmon were spawning. Also there was a good chance of seeing a grizzly bear from the car and we were all over that. I've never seen such a sea of red in the water as that's the colour that these salmon turn while spawning. No grizzlies though and we were disappointed about that.



We went to check out Johnsons Landing Retreat Center along this dirt, narrow, twisty road, but didn't have the directions so missed it, but it's supposed to be a great center. We, then, drove back and went to Ainsworth Hot Springs which has part of it in a cave!! Very awesome at the end of the day.

The next day we drove to Rossland to meet up with a friend, Marcia where we went mountain biking in the hail. Not so fun, but it was a great tour of that area. Can't wait to go back.

Bear in the Yard

Yes, I had a bear in my yard about a month ago. Was looking out the window after meditating and writing in my journal and saw a bear in the yard. It looked like it was about 2 years old and I have since been told that that's when their mothers let them loose to fend for themselves. Apparantly, with the crazy summer weather, the crop of berries that they like weren't so good this year so they have to look for food elsewhere. I came downstairs to take the picture below. The house owner's daughter was here with her 2 dogs visiting then and they woke up so I yelled at her not to let the dogs out yet!!! Haven't seen one since, just lots of bear poop in the trails.