Before I get into the meat of things, I’ll mention that after using numerous apps for navigation and tracking for years, I’ve shelled out for a couple of subscriptions. I’ve used Strava for not only tracking runs, rides, swims, etc. but looking at the maps to discover where people like to engage in these activities. Without a subscription, I’d have to rely on the heat map to figure out what was possible. For finding hiking/mountain bike trails, I tried Trailforks and Alltrails but I didn’t love the experience due to how much they’d push the subscription option when I was trying to find out where the heck the trail-heads were. I ended up with Strava and Trailforks subscriptions (the latter through an Outside Magazine digital subscription), and AllTrails didn’t make the cut. Anyway, I’ve had some misadventures with exporting from apps to Strava, and the data I would have liked to record and present has been compromised. I will shout out the website GOTOES.org which has a collection of tools that let you edit GPX files in ways that I need, like when my data doesn’t match the route closely, or when I forget to stop tracking until after I’m in the car.
Mount Cheam
My eldest has gotten pretty hard-core into high-level hiking with an eye toward full-on mountaineering. It’s been nerve-wracking when he’s gone out with friends on excursions we wouldn’t dare tackle as a family, so as a birthday present I asked him to come up with a hike the two of us could do together – something challenging for me, but not death-defying.
He picked Mount Cheam which is apparently very popular in spite of being inaccessible without high-clearance off-road vehicles. His research (an A.I. summary) suggested my car could handle the road to the trail-head, but I kept my eyes peeled as I drove because obviously that’s not exactly reliable. I was able to get a good way up, while exploring the ‘AWD’ and ‘Off-Road’ driving modes, but ultimately I decided to pull over and park about 4km down from the trail-head.
We started walking but I realized we would burn too much time getting there since it was all uphill. We waved to passing cars and asked a nice couple if we could ride in their truck. They graciously agreed, and we bounced around for another 10-15 minutes of steep climbs, dips, pot-holes etc till we were at the top. I felt guilty getting let out before they had even managed to find a parking spot – it was full of cars up there, popular indeed!
We were limited in terms of how much time we could spend since he had a test the next to study for, but I really enjoyed the approach. It was really beautiful up there, with many colours in the meadows and small lakes (I imagine they are glacier water). The trail was always obvious, and maybe a little muddy and slippery in parts. I wish we could have mad the summit, but I had to call it for time. We looked up and saw how crowded it was up there too, but we managed to find our own little clearing and enjoy a snack before we headed back. About a kilometer down from the trail-head we managed to hitch another ride back to my car, and we were home in time for some last minute chemistry cramming.
Lindeman Lake
We chose this as an entry point to family hiking in the Chilliwack Valley. It’s a bit of a tough climbing trail to get up there, but it’s a beautiful scene to take in. The boys ran ahead, but I’m proud to say we did finish this as a family. An improvement on our Stawamus Chief attempt, anyway. There was plenty of traffic on the trail, which gave us chances to catch our breath as we let people pass. There was an outhouse at the lake, which gave me a place to change into swimwear.
There were gray jays that seemed tame enough to feed by hand though we didn’t actually do that, and with the dare set, both boys and I took a dip in the frigid waters.
Descending is hard on the joints, but the trail is accessible and maintained enough that the descent was definitely the easier part of the day.
Lighthouse Park – Juniper Point and Shore Pine Point
Terrain-wise, this one was very much our speed. It felt like hiking in Ontario, as long as you didn’t notice how gigantic the leaves on the ground are, or how tall and wide the trees are, or the ocean, once you made it to one of the lookouts. My AllTrails tracking didn’t work as well as I’d like, but we got about 3 km done by hiking out to Juniper Point (where we saw some rock climbers at play) then carrying on to Shore Pine Point.
The sea air did us some real good, and I saw a seal at one point, but it was gone too fast to get a picture. This one ended up being our Thanksgiving Sunday hike, so let’s say I was extra grateful for the beautiful weather and scenery.