Howe Sound Crest Trail Trip Report

Elevation Profile. It doesn't look so bad on paper..

When David and Tyler started talking to me about doing the Howe Sound Crest Trail, I got really excited. I have a list of North Shore Peaks that I have been wanting to summit for a while and this seemed like the perfect way to get a couple of them in one go. Many people choose to do this hike in 2 days and it is possible to finish in one day if you move quickly over the 28km. We opted to do it more leisurely, starting after work on Friday and finishing Sunday, spending 2 nights on the trail. We figured that this would allow us to do some detours, such as hiking up Brunswick Peak, the tallest North Shore Mountain (just under 1800m). In the end, we didn't hike Brunswick, since the travel between the Lions and Brunswick Lake ended up being slower than 1km per hour due to some navigational errors.

Juan de Fuca Trip Report

The Juan de Fuca trail is a 47km marine trail that spans from China Beach to Botanical Beach on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It is farther south than the more popular West Coast Trail and is much different, according to Kyle, who has done both. The Juan de Fuca trail was originally used as a telegraph line maintenance trail. This trip was my first ever experience with a backpacking trip. I was pretty nervous as I had never done any hiking that lasted longer than 8 hours before, and definitely not with an overnight bag. I wasn't able to find a good pack for the trip so I ended up with an old backpack from the closet, the same bag Angela had traveled around Europe with a month earlier. Although it wasn't ideal, it fit everything (barely) and it didn't break during the trip, which surprised me a little.

The trip was part of a string of trips spanning 2 weekends and a week that I had off. Our first stop was Bowen Island for the notorious dock dance. After some waterskiing, dock dancing, boat stealing and croquet, Kyle and I hopped on the Nanaimo ferry early Monday morning to begin the trip.

Some extreme croquet action

Summer Adventures

This has been a summer like no other. I have taken a break from trying to ride my bike everyday (although I did ride quite a bit) and spent time enjoying some of the other fantastic sports on the North Shore. The break from school started out as not much of a break at all. Hours after my last final, I was in Vancouver General Hospital with Kyle who had lacerated his kidney biking at the Woodlot. Shortly after, Kyle moved home and I spent 3 frantic weeks studying for my MCAT which I wrote a week before the end of May. Man, it felt good to get that out of the way!

Boredom at VGH