August 28th, 2023: The annual week of daycare's summer closure flushed us out of Seattle and across the border into British Columbia. The plan was to spend a week along the Sea to Sky highway with Squamish and Whistler as base camps.
The first stop was a return to the Capilano River Salmon Hatchery. The coho were already returning and made it tricky to pull our crew onto the trails.
We wrapped up the day watching the wind surfers get pummeled by an impressive breeze, including one guy stuck in the weeds on the remains of the spit. At the time we just thought the tide was really high but in fact a large chunk of the spit was demolished this spring to reconnect the Squamish River with its estuary (even though google thinks you can still drive it). Hopefully that will soon translate into better salmon returns for all the anglers we saw parked along the stretch of spit not scheduled for demolition.
August 29th, 2023: Day 2 was dedicated to the Britannia Mine, a massive copper mine and concentrators that operated from 1904 to 1974. While only an hour away from Vancouver, in its initial years it was completely isolated with everything having to come in by sea. Only Mill 3 survives today but they have done an awesome job preserving many of the smaller buildings and equipment plus they fire up some of the old pneumatic equipment during the underground tour. Believe me, I am very tempted to dive into some more stats and history but I know you will all go to visit so I'll stick with pictures.
August 30th, 2023: For Day 3 we gave the kids a break from nerding out with a four lake loop in the Alice Lake Provincial Park. Its a park of only modest scenery but minimal elevation changes and a good selection of our first international mushrooms and albino banana slugs. The mushrooms included several edibles I didn't recognize at the time including some chanterelles and bear's tooth as well as one I had been looking for all summer without success - the lobster.
August 31st, 2023: Day 4 was a double header. For the morning we headed out to get a closer look at "The Chief" and then spent the afternoon marveling at an epic train museum that only manages to open a couple days a week (I suspect this is because the volunteers want the trains to themselves). The museum is a must see with maybe 50+ engines/cars to climb through and they are rehabilitating more every year.
September 1st, 2023: For Day 5 we shifted to Whistler which was a very different place. Instead of a quiet mountain town, we were in the middle of a giant shopping mall buzzed by packs of mountain bikers still amped with adrenaline from flying down from the peaks. On the plus side, as soon as you leave town you have great adventures in any direction. Our first hike was along the Cheakamus River to see the remnants of a 1950's train wreck. The box cars that were too damaged to salvage were dragged deeper into the woods and abandoned.
September 2nd, 2023: Day 6 we headed north for a hike to Nairn Falls and exploring around the town of Pemberton (a place we hope to stay someday).
For the afternoon, I chilled with a walk around town with the hound but the rest of the family took the gondolas up to the top of the world. Because the little guy hadn't had a haircut in a long time, everyone was tall enough to take a white knuckle chair lift to the tippy top of Whistler Mountain. That marked the end of our trip and we headed back to sit in the border crossing line...
