The Peak of Summer, Canada 2020

It is the middle of August and the peak of the Canadian summer, unfortunately Ellen has been sent up to Watson Lake, Yukon, for work for three whole weeks! Our housemates are also away on holiday so I am living the bachelor lifestyle for the next while. I have been given clear instructions on how to water the plants, and not to over water some, but some need more water than others, and some need to be watered every 2nd day, and others every 3rd, and some once a week… I should also “consider” moving some to the sun at different times of the day, but not too much sun, and only if the weather is right. It seems very complex, they are only plants after all!

I spent the first week trying to keep myself as busy as possible, I even finally bought myself a new camera, so that kept me entertained learning to use it for a few nights. The Vancouver Canucks (Ice Hockey) are also in the playoffs and are dominating against last years champions, if they beat them Vancouver will go crazy! I have naturally jumped on the bandwagon.

I also saw this lady downtown – apparently she is famous! She walks around town and gets around on public transit with her duck. Google the Vancouver Duck lady.

Weekend 15-16th August – Brandywine Meadows & Mountain

The weekend was forecast to be sunny and hot, 27 degrees. I decided to organise a little weekend getaway to Brandywine Meadows with a few friends. Another Oaklands local, Tyral, also came along. Who would have thought, two guys from Oaklands ended up in the same place on two completely different journeys! A lot of weird things have happened recently, some I have listed below. Imagine if someone came to you in 2010 and told you by 2020 the following things would happen:

• Donald Trump, the star of The Apprentice is now the president of the United States
• The same president got into a twitter fight with Iran and almost started World War 3
• Australia caught on fire, and some Instagram woman raises $700,000 in charity by selling pictures of her boobs
• Someone in China ate a raw bat and starts a global pandemic. Whilst 40% of the population think its real and the end of the world, 40% think its fake news, and the other 20% blames it on the 5g cell towers and starts burning them down
• Everyone agrees the only way to get through the above point is by hoarding toilet paper
• Governments are forced to shut down the world and keep people in their homes. In an attempt to keep everyone sane, Netflix released a tv series about an Oklahoma homosexual man, who loves guns, mullets & meth, and has a zoo with 100 pet tigers. This somehow kept everyone sane for a few weeks

I tell you what, in 2010 if someone tried to tell me that all those things would happen I would recommend they go get checked out at the doctors.

Anyhoo – back to the present! We headed off around 10am Saturday to Brandywine Meadows, which is around 30 minutes north of Squamish. Due to the little echo not having enough firepower, we had to park at the lower parking lot and hike a lot further up to the meadows. Now I understand why everyone here has huge Utes (trucks) – they aren’t just for showing off!

We hiked in, 600m vertical gain over 7km. It was pretty tough with our big backpacks and all our camping gear – and oh man… the flies! So many flies, it was like being back in Australia.

We finally hit the meadows at around 3pm – it is such a beautiful place. Lots of wild flowers, around a small stream which runs through the valley. At either end of the valley there is huge mountain peaks – one is Brandywine Mountain, and the other is Garibaldi & Black Tusk in the distance.

I also got a new hat! My Canadian skin can’t handle the direct sunlight anymore – some say I look like Russell Coight.

We set up camp and hung out laying in the sun for the afternoon. The flies slowly disappeared and were replaced by mozzies! Gosh darn it. We got a fire started and settled in for the night. The sunset lit up Black Tusk at the other end of the valley, pinks and reds and oranges lit up the sky.

Then the stars came out, such a clear night and there was also a meteor shower happening all week. Every few minutes there was a shooting star. Pretty cool just laying there watching them all night.

The next day we woke up, took a few snaps of the sunrise and tried to get away early to summit Brandywine mountain before the day got to its hottest.

We left and hiked with a few other friends that arrived late Saturday night. It was around a 7km, 900m vert gain hike up. At least we didn’t have our packs on this time! Such a good view at the top.

Stoked with the view we flew back down the mountain and packed up camp quick smart. The others friends we hiked with today had a big truck that made it all the way to the upper parking lot. So they offered for us to jump in the tray and get a lift back down the bottom. So stoked! We were not missing that lift! It ended up saving us over 2 hours of hiking.

Happy to be back in the car, we were all absolutely pooped, but stoked on the weekend we just had. I arrived back home in Vancouver at around 8pm, and was reminded that I am all alone at home for another week! 😦     but I Facetime’d Ellen 🙂

 

Weekend 22nd-23rd August – Black Tusk, Garibaldi Provincial Park

Another week down at work, and another week by myself! I got through it ok – I played a lot of golf in the evenings and watched lots of Basketball and Ice Hockey. The Canucks won the series against last years champions and the Toronto Raptors are killing it! One night I also went for a quick night hike to Eagle Bluffs at Cypress Mountain. It was a bit scary walking back in the dark – watching out for bears!

Still home alone this weekend I didn’t really have much of a plan, I woke on Saturday at 5:30am a little lost and was clicking around on the BC Parks website. I was lucky enough to score myself a day pass to hike Black Tusk & Panorama Ridge. These peaks are the Crown Jewel of the area and very, very popular, hence day pass system to limit the amount of hikers on it every day. Ellen & I will be camping up here in two weeks time when she gets back – we had been planning that for a while.

I decided I wouldn’t hike right to the top, as Ellen would get jealous and we are doing this soon. So I just hiked up to the meadows, which was long enough – around 11km one way and 1000m of vert. It was so nice cruising around the meadows looking at the big Black Tusk watching down on me.

I found out I was only 3km away from Panorama Ridge, which is supposed to have views of the amazing blue Garibaldi Lake, but I resisted the temptation! After an hour or so just sitting in the meadows listening to a podcast I ran all the way back down and to the car. Running is so much faster, and easy going down hill!

Aaron and Kellie arrived back home on Saturday night, yay! No more being home alone. The place is alive again – fun fact about Kellie, her Dad has given her the nickname “Foghorn” because she is so loud. It suits her – the decibel level in our apartment has tripled.

More photos are here.