50 Things to do in BC Before You Die: #15 - Gawk at Squamish Eagles

Trusty The Phamlee readers welcome to post two of three from our awesome trip to Squamish yesterday.

Our second stop of the day was to check out the eagles in Brackendale. This is number 15 on our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list and I was pretty stoked to knock another one off has part of my plan for 2012 was to knock 3 more things of this list.

We probably could not have picked a worse day to check out the eagles because it was snowing pretty hard at the time we arrived so the visibility was quite poor; while I will check it off our list it is in the back of my mind to go back. It is a pretty neat set-up as they have volunteers with telescopes lined up so you can really get a good look at the eagles. While we were able to see the eagles through the telescope the pictures did not turn out too well, see below for that. They even had step ladders setup so the kids could look through the telescope too which was pretty cool

I was speaking with one of the volunteers and she mentioned the number of eagles that returned this year was quite low and it is all due to the lack of salmon in the rivers. Obviously, if there is no food source the eagles will go elsewhere or die. Keep this is mind when you think of the Northern Gateway pipeline which is proposed to cross a number of salmon spawning streams and rivers in BC and it does not take much oil to kill off a stream. Anyways, not too much to right about this adventure so I will just show you the view pictures we took, but we will be back.

BC Parks: Shannon Falls Provincial Park

To all you trustworthy The Phamlee readers this is the first of three posts I will do today regarding our awesome trip to Squamish yesterday.

While the main purpose of the trip was to go to the BC Mine Museum at Brttannia Beach (more on  that in post 3 on the day) our first stop on the trip was at Shannon Falls Provincial Park. While I have been here number of times before I really wanted to go again to officially knock it of our BC Parks list as part of our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die challenge. The other reason I wanted to go today was I have never seen it in the winter when it was starting to freeze over so this gave us the chance.

The weather was gross yesterday as it switched between heavy snow and heavy rain with some brutal wind mixed in for fun. Even with all that the kids were troopers, most of the time, it was a quick walk in the snow up to Shannon Falls and they kids enjoyed it. I tried to find a few geocaches but gave up pretty quick when I realized it would be too hard in the snow.While the falls were not completely frozen over it still made for a nice view.  Below are a few pictures of this little stop...

Campbell River Trip December 2011

This past weekend we packed up Chelseys awesome mini van and set sail for Campbell River; I say Chelsey's awesome mini van because I always feel less of a man when I have to drive it! Anyways, we stopped at the mall in Nanaimo on the way up and as the kids and I were waiting for Chelsey to do her thing Santa came up and said hi to us; the kids were pretty happy about that then they said that was not the real Santa just one of his helpers. Sunday morning Nick and I spent some time trying to catch a Steelhead in the Quinsam River. It was a little early in the season but we thought we would try our luck anyways. We did not have much luck with the Steelhead but Nick did catch a nice little rainbow trout.

The Quinsam was a pretty nice river to fish and there were a butt load of eagles around and they were massive. It was pretty cool to see them everywhere but the bird crap was a little over whelming. The other bonus was that  the river flowed through Elk Falls Provincial Park so I can scratch another park off of our list for our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die Challenge. While I was fishing Chelsey and Kim took all the kids down to see the parade and hit up the park; Chelsey has some photo's of this on her phone so I will get her to send them to me so I can add them to the blog. Once we all got back together Chelsey, Steve (Chelseys Dad) the kids and I went down to the Campbell River Museum as Santa was there. Even when Santa is not there the Museum is still pretty cool as it has some good exhibits on the fishing industry and logging. Once finished there we went to the Maritime Museum as they had a craft sale going on there; once again I was more happy with the actual Museum and they had a boat there that we got to go on which made the kids happy.

All in all it was a great weekend with lots of great food and good company. Below are some of the pictures for your viewing pleasure.

Sunday Funday

My Mum has been in town for a few days and for the most part we have been pretty busy with the kids activities, soccer, skating, etc. With nothing going on today we decided to head out to Hope as my Mum has yet to see the Othello Tunnels and it also gave us a chance to do some more geocaching. On the drive out we were able to pick up two geocaches before reaching Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park which is home to the tunnels.

We walked through the tunnels and then on the way back Mum became a leaf monster and started scaring the twins. Personally I thought she look more like a moose, but what do I know; pictures are below so you can decide for yourself. After hitting up the tunnels we went and looked for a geocache at the Nicolum River Provincial Park which is now permanently closed. It is still on our list of provincial parks that we have to visit for #43 on our list of 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die so we made the trip even though it was closed.

There was one other geocache I wanted to find before we went home and it was along a forest service road just across the street from the Nicolum River Provincial Park. The GPS said it was only 1KM away but I forgot that was as the crow flied. We made it to the geocache which was closer to 5km up the road which was a little dodgy at parts; then I thought that it is almost a tradition to take Mum up dodgy roads when she visits and that made me feel better.

Kyah fell asleep on the way back down so Mum and I had a good laugh at her head bouncing around as we made our way back to civilization. We started filming her to share it with you, which I do below, but then she smacked her head and cried so that made me feel bad. Mum being Mum just started laughing even harder, can you believe it?!? I need to start bringing her a pillow when we go on these drives.

Enjoy the pictures and short video clip...

Mountain Peaks Reached

This is just a maintenance post where I can keep track of all the posts regarding mountains that we have reached the summit on; all part of our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die challenge:

Elk Mountain July 3rd 2011
Mount Cheam August 7 2011

Mount Cheam Hike

Sorry for the lack of blog posts since the return from our Tuc-El-Nuit Lake trip but we have been busy and quite frankly I can only post so many videos of the kids playing on the slip n' slide!

But this post will wow you with some cool pictures. Since moving to Chilliwack I have always wanted to hike up Mount Cheam as I have seen pictures of the views. With the kids spending this week in Campbell River Chelsey and I took the opportunity yesterday to hit up Mount Cheam. I will let the pictures do most of the talking but two things suprised me about this hike: the assloads of snow that was still around and the length of the drive up the logging road to get to the trail head. We actually picked up a group of 3 hikers head up the fire road trying to make it to the trail head; they stopped 8km short as they did not think their Hyundai Tuscon would make it the whole way.

So while we have made it to the top of another mountain I still do not want to cross #20 off our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list. In the spirit of good competition, even though this is not a competition, I think that in order to scratch number 20 off our list it should include at least one night spent in the back country; Chelsey and I differ on that opinion. Anyways, here are the pictures and commentary; enjoy!

Tuk El Nuit Lake - Day Seven & The Drive Home

Yesterday was our last day camping at Lakeside Resort on Tuk El Nuit Lake so we thought it would be the most fun to spend the whole day at the lake. While it was cool in the morning the day turned out to be perfect with lots of sun and heat. The kids had an absolute blast playing in the sand and water all day. We made lots of castles and volcanoes and spent lots of time in the water. 

In the morning I went fishing again, without the camera, and caught my self a nice little trout. Although I did not get a picture there were enough people on the beach who heard my happy cheers to vouch for my success; Chelsey actually saw the fish when I held it up so you know this is not a fish story.

As a special treat for the kids, and me, we went to Tickleberries again for ice cream after dinner but this time we were smart enough to get the small sizes. The weirdest part about our trip was that I took four pairs of clean boxers, we were gone for 7 days, I did not do any laundry and I still came home with one pair of clean undies...Weird

Our drive home today was pretty uneventful other then the fact we scooped up some more geocaches and checked out the Hope Slide.We also picked up a cache at Bromley Rock Provincial Park so we can scratch another provincial park off our list. It was a pretty boring park unless you are into camping on the river shore; with the kids so small I think we will stick to the lakes. For lunch we stopped at the Manning Park resort area and the kids were stoked to see all the gophers running around taking nuts from people.

Enjoy the pictures and we are already looking forward to next year; who's coming with us?

50 Things to do in BC Before You Die: #14 - Go Tubing in the Okanagan

Great day today camping at Lakeside Resort on Tuk-El-Nuit Lake as we whipped up to Penticton and hammered #14 of our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list. I awoke at the crack of dons ass and tried my hand a fishing again; I had no luck but it was awesome being out there on the dingy first thing in the morning. After breakfast we went down to the beach for a quick swim and to play in the sand. The kids love it so much that it is hard to get them to eat their breakfast as all they want to do is go to the beach, nothing wrong with that though.

After playing at the beach we had a quick lunch and headed off for our tubing adventure down the channel in Penticton. The kids were scared at first but once we got going they loved it. Even Chelsey said she was a little hesitant as she was unsure how it would work out but once we got moving she had a blast too. Chelsey wanted to go again but I had to boycott it as I was worried about too much sun; yes I am a baby but it was in the low 30's today. On the ride back to get our car we saw a water park so obviously we had to hit that up before we left Penticton; as always the kids had a blast there.

On our way back we made a stop at world famous Tickleberrys for some of their ice cream. Me being me I ordered the double scoop which actually turns out to be 4 or 5 scoops and the damn thing was bigger then my head. We got the kids child cones which were also massive so needless to say it was awesome. Since it was so hot outside it was a struggle for the kids to eat their ice cream before it melted and they sure did a good job. Enjoy the pictures...

5 Geocaches and a Mountain Top

Today Chelsey and I got a baby sitter for the twins so we could go for a hike up Elk Mountain. I have wanted to do more hiking and get into the back country more but have been too cheap to pay for a baby sitter. Realizing everything can not wait until the kids are old enough to do it with me I figured we should just suck it up and it was well worth it; a few more years and the kids will be able to do most things with me anyways. 

The hike was 8km return with an elevation gain of 674 meters and the peak was at 1304 meters. I took the GPS with me to track our trek but I still need to figure out how to upload it to Google Earth. Lucky for us there were Geocaches the whole way up and we were able to pick up 5 on the way, including one right by the summit - our total is now 45 found!

One of the things on our 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list is summit a mountain. While technically this hike would qualify I want to do something more challenging before I cross that one off our list. Chelsey on the other hand, would probably be happy to cross it off now. Lots of pictures below for you to all enjoy; they do not do the view justice...

BC Parks: Davis Lake Provincial Park - Geocaching

Wanting to knock another park of our list I decided we should go Geocaching today at Davis Lake Provincial Park which is just outside Mission. As has been the theme this spring the weather was horrible - cold and wet; are you supposed to see your breath a few days before summer? With the wet weather I knew it was going to be a challenge to keep everybody happy but for the most part things went well. Our first stop was by a creek, the name of which I forget, to find a cache, after looking around we realized we were on the wrong side of the creek and it was too big to cross; the plan was to try again on the way home. Before hitting the park we detoured to check out Cascade Falls, see pictures below, which was quite nice and a short hike up from the parking lot. There was a cache close to the falls we were hoping to find but did not have any luck, after some further research we found out the co-ordinates were off. Once back in the car, just a tad wet, we took off towards Davis Lake in hopes of finding some more caches.

After getting close to the lake we realized the road down was a 4x4 track. I put the ol' truck into 4x4 low and went on our way...Until Chelsey vetoed any further travel. After some discussion and me pulling the "Fathers Day" card we got out to walk down to the lake. Since we were already wet the walk did not last long as we started to get muddy; when it came voting time I lost 3-1. We decided to head back to the truck and hit up this lake on a not so muddy day. The bright side was we did find one cache on the way home so all was not lost! Enjoy the pictures...

BC Parks: Bridal Veil Falls

After visiting the Eagles and Dragons (see prior post) the kids and I trekked down the freeway a bit to Bridal Veil Falls . Even though we had been to Bridal Falls before we had to go again as I want to hit all the parks as part of our 50 Things Project. We could count Bridal Falls as number 48 on the list but that would be too easy so we are just using it to knock another park off the list for number 43. At the park we took in the sights and picked up another geocache. The video clip below is of both Bridal Falls and the Eagles and Dragons; I thought I had more footage but I seem to have "lost" it on the camcorder. Good thing I have pictures to make up for it.

BC Parks: Cypress Mountain Provincial Park

Chelsey had got me a gift certificate for two to go snowshoeing on Cypress. We finally cashed in last weekend and headed up for our guided tour. There were supposed to be other people in our group but no else showed up so Chelsey and I got a private tour. It is something we both had wanted to do for a while so we were stoked to go. The plan is to take the kids next time as I think they would enjoy it. We also scratched off another BC Park on our 50 Things to Do List. Enjoy the pictures...

Family Fun Day

Chelsey and I both had the day off today so we had a family fun day. I was allowed to pick the activity so it was decided we would go to Manning Park and find a Geocache. This served many purposes as we were also able to check another park of our list on our quest to do the 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die. I had taken the kids Geocaching this past weekend as there are a couple in our neighbourhood and they really liked it as we called it treasure hunting. Today we spent 3.5 hours and hiked just over 10km but did not find our treasure. I had veered us off course slightly and we had to double back which took up some time. We made it within 50 meters of our target but the kids were getting too tired that we were unable to bushwack a bit and find the treasure. We told the kids a Troll beat us to it and high tailed it back to the truck as it was starting to snow. Everybody, even Chelsey, had a good time in the outdoors and considering the distance travelled the kids did really well. Here are 30 pictures from our day and I hope you like them.

BC Parks: Cultus Lake Provincial Park

Last week the kids and I decided to go hike up Tea Pot Hill in Cultus Provincial Park. All in the kids made it going up for 45 minutes and then we had to head home; I found out the next day we were two minutes from the top.
I took a couple of shots as seen below:

BC Parks: Yard Creek Provincial Park

A few weeks back we all went up to Salmon Arm to see Kim and Nick and their new baby Easton. While we were there we thought the kids would like to see the salmon spawning so we took them to Yard Creek Provincial park. Pictures after jump.

Whistler Trip 2010: Zip Trekking

As someone who is afraid of heights I was not super stoked on scratching Zip Trekking off the 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list. We asked at the activity centre which of the two zip trekking tours were better and we were directed to the Wildplay Elements Park on Cougar Mountain; after seeing video footage of the other tour I think we made the right choice. The zip lines take you through the forest from one side of the canyon to the other and you reach speeds of up to 60mph 400 feet in the air. They warm you up with an easy one 10 feet above the fire road and then throw you in the deep end! Once you get going it is easy to enjoy the view and have fun. Stopping at the end is a bit violent, especially on the last line, but that is part of the fun; if you want a softer landing check out Zip Trek Eco Tours in the village. All in we had a blast; pictures and video after the jump...

Whistler Trip 2010: The Chief

On the drive up to Whistler we decided to knock another thing off the 50 Things to do in BC Before You Die list and make our up the Stawamus Chief in Squamish. The return hike took us 2.5- 3 hours to complete and we were lucky as the clouds cleared enough when we got to the top that we were able to get in a decent view of Squamish and Howe Sound. The hike to the top wasn't too bad but I sure am one sweaty bugger! Pictures and video of the view and the friendly chipmunks after the jump.

BC Parks and I Always Forget the Camera

In the past two weeks I was able to hammer off another two parks from The List but we forgot the camera both times. Since I am forgetful I have stolen other people's pictures from the net.

Last week we drove out to Silver Lake Provincial Park. It was a very cold lake but had a decent camp ground. We just drove out there for the day to check things out; I think it would be too cold for the kids to swim so I am not sure how much fun it would be to camp there.

Yesterday I spent the day fly fishing the Skagit River, within the Skagit Valley Provincial Park, with a couple of dudes from work and I must say it was awesome. There is something about standing in a river in the middle of nowhere fishing that is very relaxing. It was hot enough that we didn't need hip waiters and were able to stand in the river in our shorts and flip flops - the river was a bit cold at first but got nice after a few minutes. The drive out to the fishing holes is about 45 minutes to an hour on a dirt road so make sure you don't mind a few chips on the paint. The area is very scenic and well worth the drive. We drove the extra 2km to Ross Lake which has a wicked camp ground; there is also a park for the kids and a large grassy area. The weird thing about Ross Lake is that it is part of the hydro system in Washington so it only has water in it a few months of the year; the border, which has a US Park Ranger Station, is only a hop skip and a jump from the lake. I am not sure of the full history but apparently we almost lost this lake/park due to the dam. We didnt catch any fish but the scenery and the relaxing fishing were well worth the drive. Pictures after the jump.

BC Parks

Those of you who have been following this blog since its inception will recall one of the original posts regarding the 50 Things to do in BC Before you die; those who missed that post can find it here. My goal was to start from the beginning as of mid-last summer and scratch them off as we go. One of the things to do was to visit all of BC Provincial Parks. This post contains a list of all of the BC Provincial Parks. I will cross them off as we visit them and link to the post with the pictures from the visit. So far this year we have only been to Sasquatch Provincial Park. I am sure we have passed through others but have no pictures to prove it. I was mountain biking on Silver Star two weeks ago but don't have any pictures. I will say Silver Star is by far my favourite bike park - the trails are comparable in quality to Whistler but at a 20% less cost and NO LIFT LINES!!! Enjoy the journey, I am sure we will!

Fishin' at Hicks!

I have been lucky enough to discover Hicks Lake which is located within Sasquatch Provincial Park. I have taken the kids fishing their a couple of times now and this past weekend Chelsey, Colleen and Darcy came along too. If it wasnt for the fact that one of the reels went flying and I had to strip down to my boxers and go for a swim to fetch it the day would have been perfect. We hope to take the kids camping here within the next couple of weeks! Yes we are wearing sweaters on July 4th, summer didnt start until today this year. It is supposed to be in the mid 30's for the rest of the week. Pictures after the jump...