Adventuring with Herbert Putkey

From Second Honeymoon

For our second honeymoon, Theresa and I went with the English to the Sunshine coast and Strathcona park. We had 3 nights in Lund (very small town north of Powell River) and 3 nights in the Strathcona Park Lodge, 45km from Campbell River. In Lund we took a boat cruise into the not so desolate Desolation Sound, and spent a great day exploring Savary Island. On Savary Island, the 10 of us split into three groups. Ollie, Cliff, Theresa and I walked around pretty much the entire island, and had a good swim at Sutherland beach. Steven, Sharon, mom and dad spent most of the day relaxing at a different beach. Robert and Catherine rented bikes and explored all of the island that way.

From Second Honeymoon

In Strathcona we had two good hikes, and managed to squeeze in some paddling and swimming in the Upper Campbell lake too. We stayed in the Strathcona Park Lodge, which worked out really well. We had a big cabin to ourselves with a view of the lake from the patio, and easy access to the water.

From Second Honeymoon

The pictures are up here.

For our honeymoon, Theresa and I decided to do a week of riding on the Kettle Valley Railway. The KVR was build between 1910 to 1915. It was an amazing piece of engineering, especially famous for it’s trestle bridges in the Myra canyon near Kelowna. The railway was overcome by the highway, and now the railbed is mostly a gravel path that is part of the Trans Canada Trail.

Since it was our honeymoon, we signed up with Great Explorations - they supported our ride by moving the gear between campsites and providing all of the meals and 2 guides, Wendy and Dave.

The planned ride was from Beaverdell to Coalmont.  Because the Beaverdell campsite wasn’t in great shape, we camped about 25km further up the trail. The first day half of us rode the extra km from the campsite, which was a pretty long day. We stayed at the hydraulic lake campsite, and bathed in the resevoir!

The second day of riding was through the Myra canyon. There were great views of and from the Trestles. This was definitely the busiest part of the trail - we hardly saw any other cyclists except for here. We stayed at Chute lake that night, with a bajillion mosquitoes, and had our first experience with Fire Pie.

The next day we rode to Summerland. This route was mostly downhill, which was good because it was pretty loose trail. We stopped at the Hillside Winery on the edge of Penticton for lunch and wine tasting. After that, Theresa and I stuck to the road to get to Summerland, while the rest of the group stayed on the railbed. At the Peach Orchard campsite that night we had a visit from The Kettle Valley Brakemen, who gave us a musical history lesson about the railway.

The fourth day of riding was from Summerland to Chain Lake. We (except for Rick) shuttled up to Faulder to skip about 12km of climbing. Perhaps we should have shuttled a bit further - the first 5km of trail was the toughest of the trip. The path was like riding uphill at the beach. Our planned meet point at Thirsk lake had unfortunately been closed due to a re-damming of the lake, so there was a lot of confusion. The group I was with were all out of water, but managed to meet up with Wendy at Greg’s cabin and bike rental place across from Osprey Lake. The Chain Lake campground was really nice, with the campsites right on the lake, and hardly any other campers. I was also able to demonstrate my skills with an axe.

The final day of riding took us through Princeton to historic Coalmont. The views were great throughout the day - a couple tunnels; rolling hills above Princeton, and riding through a canyon to Coalmont.

Theresa and I struggled a bit on our cyclocross bikes, and would use mountain bikes if we were to do it again. We still had a great time, though, largely thanks to the camaraderie of the group.

I’ve posted the pictures here.
 

From tofino

For Theresa’s birthday, I booked a room at the Clayoquot Field Station near Tofino. I had read about it in a magazine as a place where researchers stayed. It was in the Tofino Botanical gardens, but was essentially a hostel. We had the “Teacher’s Room”, which was quite nice, although the walls were quite thin. They had the shorebird festival, so we went birding at 7am, and again at 4pm. We also went to a slide show by an expert birder. It was cold and wet, but still interesting.

From tofino

Well now I’ve done it. Just signed up today to raise $2500 and ride from Vancouver to Seattle (over 200km). So, that’s about $2400 more than I’ve ever raised before, and about 150km further than I’ve ever ridden in a weekend. Shouldn’t be a problem!

So far I’ve created my personal web page on their site - I think the rest should take care of itself.

Theresa is doing the ride as well, and a couple of friends from Ultimate (Brad and Kalan). We’re trying to get organized to raise our money and do a bit of training together, so hopefully we can all come up with our minimum donation by June.

We went to visit our friends Brian and Marie in Sechelt for some good times. They met us at the ferry on Friday night at Gibson’s, and took us for a good dinner…except Theresa had already gone for dinner.

Saturday started with what will forever be known as the epic pancake duel of 2009 between Brian and Marie - i think we all know who won. (One batch was thrown away, another one should have been). With fuel in our bellies we set out to see the Skookumchuck rapids caused by the tide. We drove up to Egmont and hiked in the 4km. Unfortunately it was only a medium tide, which wasn’t much to see. The hike was still good, though. At night Brian and I started a fire using tried and true boy scout methods.

On Sunday Brian gave Theresa and I a tour of the area in the boat, before our ferry ride home. We’re looking forward to going back in the summer, and maybe doing some kayaking and camping in the inlets.

See the pictures here.

We returned to the Buntzen Lake area for another hike. We did the Diez Vistas in July, which went along the west side of the lake with views into Indian Arm. This time we did the Lindsay Lake loop, which went along the east side of the lake. It had viewpoints looking South and West, as well as going around quite a few mountain lakes. It was a great day for a hike - sunny and warm, and we had a perfect lunch spot (Barton Park). All the standing water led to a lot of bugs at times, though.

There are a few pictures up here.

We went back to the lightning lakes campground at Manning Park, this time with our friends and neighbours Pam and Steve. We went up on Friday and got there about 9:30 - just in time to get one of the last spots. On Saturday we hiked the 3 Brothers. The trail head is actually quite high up, so there is little overall elevation gain, but you do have to go down a valley first. There were great views throughout the hike, but just as we were going up the ridge to the peak the clouds rolled in and it was a white out.

Click here to see the album.

We decided to make the labour day weekend extra long, and went to Saltspring Island for 5 days with Chris and Monique. We parked our cars at Carolyn and Patrick’s in Tsawwassen, and then rode to the ferry - just barely making it. We biked around the many hills on the island, and also spent an afternoon kayaking around Wallace Island. We left our bikes on the beach (a long way from the water at the time), but when we came back the tide had come in, and we couldn’t see the beach at all! Fortunately our bikes were about a foot from the water, so everything ended up okay, but we all had visions of having to dive into the ocean to get our bikes up.

We stayed at Maple Ridge Cottages on St. Mary’s lake, on the north end of the island. It was a bit rustic, but a pretty good spot for Mexican Train Dominoes…which I dominated. Anyway, the weather held (despite a downpour in Vancouver as we were getting ready), and we had a good time with 8 tired legs.

Here are all the pictures.

Little Brian is all grown up.
He had a party for his 30th, and for St. Patrick’s day, so a few extra drinks had to be downed. Marie invited Shawn and I as a surprise - we hadn’t seen them for a few years. It’s too bad I don’t have a picture of his face when he saw us. Anyway, we had a really good time, and didn’t lose any teeth.

T and I went to Carolyn and Patrick’s place in Tsawwassen with Bobbi-jo to celebrate New Year’s. We capped another night of gluttony off with watching Dick Clark countdown the year in the big apple. On New Year’s day Theresa and I biked around Boundary Bay from their place. We saw plenty of birds and doggies, and managed to get to the polar bear swim in time to see the crazies go into the water. I was really cold on my bike, so going into the water wasn’t the first thing on my mind!

See the pictures here.