Training Log Archive: Funderstormin

I had an opportunity to come to Vancouver for some work on Monday, so leveraged it to spend the weekend with Greg beforehand. He's been living on a boat in Granville Island since June, and I was really keen to check it out! I arrived very late Friday evening, so we didn't have time to do much except enjoy a glass of wine from the top deck.

We eased into Saturday morning with a couple of coffees, and after weighing our adventure options, decided to go hiking just outside of Squamish. I'd heard so much about the place but never been! The trail we did was well off the beaten path, and as someone who hates doing touristy things on busy weekends, was a perfect choice!

Greg described the hike as "an easy one with a little bit of everything." Turns out, "a little bit of everything" included chains and ropes to help with ascents that involved lots of opportunities for four points of contact. I was pretty tired from the day before and wasn't mentally prepared for how hard this was going to be, so I struggled at time with the steep climbing for the first two hours. After LOTS of ascent, the trail flattened out in some beautiful rainforesty areas, and eventually met up with a forest service road that we took back. En route back I got to see tons of super cool free camping spots that I was jealous of.

The whole adventure took longer than planned, so by the time we got done, popped into Backcountry Brewing in Squamish, and headed back to Vancouver, we had missed our planned boat sunset. We cleaned up and had a late dinner at a wonderful seafood restaurant on the island. A pretty great adventure day, even if I cried a bit inside on the trail.

C • Fantastic! 3

Lunchtime ride out on the Grand River Trail and back on roads. A bit breezy but otherwise beautiful. This is exactly the type of ride that I want to one week before STT: the hills came (relatively) easy and everything felt good.

When looking at the forecast on Saturday night for Sunday, it was pretty grim, with rain starting in the evening, and then a high chance of thunderstorms all morning and afternoon. Fortunately, it changed overnight, and we had a few hours of rain during the night (just enough to make everything wet!) but a cloudy but rain-free morning. We enjoyed one last potato-based breakfast (Fin loves breakfast potatoes, a hereditary trait he comes by honestly) before packing up and heading out. We strategized about the portage to make sure we could do it two trips, as it was going to be net uphill.

We both took big first loads with the intention of me taking the boat, and Fin a barrel and two paddles on the second trip. There had been several other paddlers coming in at the same time as us, and when we got back to the starting point, the barrel (mine) was gone! One of the other paddlers had taken it on their previous trip, hopefully as a gesture of goodwill, but we were not certain. Fin helped me get the boat up and then trotted ahead to make sure the other group didn't accidentally paddle away with my barrel by mistake!

It turned out it had been an honest mistake by someone who thought it was theirs, but they had left it at the other end of the portage, and it all worked out as it meant Fin had an easy second trip. We were back at the car in no time, and although it was a hellish drive home (almost 5 hours for a 3 hour drive), it was a wonderful weekend and I'm so glad that he still wants to do this with me! He's not a big birthday person but texted me to say he consider this the only birthday party he wants to attend. :-D I told him two more years and then he gets to carry the boat!

C • That is so nice! 3