Vancouver is blessed with tons of gorgeous trails a short drive from downtown. There are a lot of articles online claiming to list the best hikes in Vancouver or the top 10 hikes near Vancouver. I’ve looked at them all and realized that often… I just don’t agree with all of their picks. I’ve lived …
Day hiking
Living on Canada’s wet West Coast, I’m not very familiar with dry desert landscapes. I’ve done quick trips to Moab, Utah and California’s Joshua Tree National Park to go camping and hiking in the desert. But honestly, I feel a bit out of my element there (despite the beauty). Thankfully Andy Lowry of Thousand Mile …
For decades most hikers in the Vancouver area have used 103 Hikes in Southwestern British Columbia to plan their trips. Some have even made a sport out of trying to complete every single hike in a particular edition. It’s been BC’s hiking bible since the first edition was published in 1973. Since then, it’s been …
You don’t have to go far in BC to really get out into the wilds and off the grid. One of my favourites is a road trip on the Pacific Marine Circle Route on Southern Vancouver Island. This road trip starts and ends in Victoria, one of BC’s biggest cities, but most of the route …
At the end of September I went on an OMG-summer-is-ending-must-go-camping-before-it’s-too-late trip to Wells Gray Provincial Park near Kamloops, BC. Somehow, I had never been there before. It has a reputation as being a huuuuuge provincial park with tons of ginormous lakes for canoeing but I didn’t know much else about it. It’s not nearly as …
I do a LOT of hiking around Vancouver. I’ve hiked pretty much every trail that exists within an hour of the city. (And some that don’t exist… or used to exist… or I maybe was taking a short cut? But that’s a whole other story.) My readers often ask me to recommend a hike when …
There’s something special about hiking and camping on an isolated west coast with nothing between you and Japan but the wild Pacific Ocean. Shi Shi Beach in Washington’s Olympic National Park gives you that experience, and it’s a short and easy hike to get there. I’ve made several trips to Shi Shi Beach since the …
Recently I wrote a post called “You Killed A Bear” that ended up getting way more online attention than I had anticipated. My message in that post was that less experienced hikers should read up about bear safety before they head out for a hike or go backcountry camping. Lots of people asked questions about …
A Quick Note: This article was originally published in August 2016. The aim of this post was to shock people in order to raise awareness. I know it’s an uncomfortable post to read and that many hikers and campers might feel a bit confronted since they don’t engage in the kind of behaviour discussed here. …
When you think of waterfalls in Squamish, you think of Shannon Falls or maybe Brandywine Falls. Those are both amazingly tall waterfalls with easy tourist-in-flipflops-friendly walks to a viewing platform, overflowing parking lots and tons of people with selfie sticks.. But what if I told you there were other awesome waterfalls in Squamish that you …