The start of a (not really proper) Canadian winter

What Vancouverites call winter is definitely upon us (all other Canadians think Vancouver is where the wusses move to to escape months of minus temperatures and several feet of snow).  Here is some of what I've been up to as the thermometer starts to drop:

Skiing
Our first lesson was back to basics, I remembered a bit more than I thought I would do and Mark was obviously best in class.  His first foray onto the nursery slopes showed an admirable tolerance of high speed on skis, and less ability to turn.  Much hilarity ensured (for me anyways).  

Okay, not me yet, but watch this space...

We've now progressed to a full green run (they have a different grading system here so greens include European blues as they don't have reds) and a very nice lift attendant has helped me (mostly) conquer my fear of chair lifts.  Ridiculously we can be on the slopes for mid week night skiing by 7pm so hopefully will get in plenty of practice, especially on days with powder and once we get good, we'll hit Whistler... 

This is me..and v nice experienced snow shoer, Caitlin

Snow shoeing
Just discovered this today; basically huge plastic things attached to your feet with inbuilt crampons to help you walk on snow without slipping or sinking.  Super easy once you get used to the feeling and good way to keep training uphill through winter.  Sliding down on your bum is also very fun, although not sure my 'pants' enjoyed it as much...






Eagle watching
Turns out salmon don't just taste great smoked with lemon and black pepper but play v important role in the forest eco-system.  Eaten by bears, eagles and other animals after they've died post once-in-a-lifetime spawning lesson (some species have no luck) their decomposing bodies also provide nutrient to the trees. 

Seems all mums give in to whingeing teenagers

Bald eagles are particularly keen salmon eaters; we headed to Squamish last weekend to one of the best place to see them.  We watched around 15 eagles just across the river, a couple casually 'caught' a couple of they dying salmon for a lunch time snack.  Although we've been lucky enough to see lots of bald eagles now, they don't fail to disappoint with their incredibly 'eagley' faces and special pyjamed white legs, although their calls do sound like strangled sea gulls (and in films gets dubbed over with the much more 'eagley' sounding red-tailed hawk).  Sorry my camera isn't up to much, but next time Dan snaps one I will pop it up.  

Christmas preparation!

Despite living somewhere surrounded by fir trees, real trees are banned in our apartment, but got a great fake tree and spent last weekend making decorations and getting the rest from the dollar shop (nice ones only, obv).  Thanks to the folks already have a pile of pressies under it so feeling Christmassy.  Canadians seem to take it pretty seriously although interestingly no one EVER refers to it officially as Christmas, it is always the 'holiday season' and if you didn't know, you wouldn't guess it had an religious association at all.  Suits me fine although I will miss the Brownie nativity!  We leave on Boxing Day for our trip to wintry Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming so plan to spend Christmas Day skiing...


Will keep you posted on skiing and other antics and expect a major update post Yellowstone adventure, fingers and toes crossed including a very out of focus blurry shot of a real life wolf! 

Running and stuff

Those of you who have had to listen to me drone on about training plans, learning to swim, running injuries etc over the last couple of years might be slightly interested to find out what I'm doing exercise wise this side of the pond.  So just in case you are...


Running

November 13th

There are hundreds of kilometres of criss crossing trails in the mountains just behind our apartment.  We go trail running most weekends, normally separately but sometimes together (when Mark needs a nice slow run and I just about hang on...).  The trails are a mix of even gravelly dog walking friendly, to terrifying mountain bike route descents where I just try to stay on my feet.  I've got up to about 2hours of trail running now and hoping to increase this to be able to run a 20 mile ish trail race next year.  


Also joined a friendly downtown running club, run 11km every Thursday night with them, some of them are pretty quick ultra-runners so will hopefully speed me up!



Swimming
Just started back at this at my local pool.  Wasn't as terrible as thought might be and at least now, following my swim training last winter, I know what I'm doing wrong...

View from top of Cypress Mt, now open for skiing!

Cycling
My beloved racer bike has not seen as much of the area as she should have done.  Main obstacle being frequent heavy rain which makes for a) less enjoyable and b) less safe cycling.  Have had some great long outings, highlight was a couple of weeks ago, climbing the 1000m or so to the top of Cypress Mountain (where they hosted the least snowy bit of the Winter Olympics) in glorious sunshine.  And just about avoided hypothermia on the free ride down. 




Strength training

My city centre winter training hero

Mark is running a mini ski preparation strength training session every Wednesday.  Bit like BMF except I can take the piss out of the instructor more.  Three of us normally train on Wednesdays, but last week I did the session on my own with Mark's instructions.  Felt a bit Rocky-esque as my nearest park to work overlooks the harbour area with skyscrapers in the background.  Sadly not yet Rocky-esque in my abilities.


Skiing, snow shoeing, ski touring...
Have got ski passes to Seymour Mountain (any Vancouverite you mention that to says 'oh yeah, Seymour, I learnt to ski there at elementary school' so it's about our ability level) and it should open in about 10 days.  So watch this space!  (And the very beginner slope even has a magic walkway so don't have to get on a chairlift yet!)

Pumpkins, puppets and prints

Lesser snow geese

A month of weekends at home since my last blog hasn't yielded tales of grizzlies and mountain adventure, but thought I'd update you on life in Vancouver in 'fall'. 

Birding and Beetlegeuse

North Americans take Halloween pretty seriously: some houses have full miniature graveyards set up on their front lawns, together with life size zombies and witches on the porch; at least three types of Halloween snack in my office; and (slightly weirdly) lots of men dressed as women for the night itself.  

Our contribution was Mark carving some awesome pumpkins and our first ever drive-in movie in a empty parking lot in downtown to watch Beetlegeuse; skyscrapers were the backdrop and the sounds comes through your car radio which was awesome.  

Red winged blackbird

We'd spent the day at Reifel Bird Sanctuary, home to 30,000+ overwintering snow geese and tons of other birds (in fact the noise of the geese flying and honking overhead was a bit spooky after a couple of hours).  We spotted 50 (yes, 5 0) different species of bird including bald eagles, peregrine falcons, hawks and sandhill cranes.  Proper treat seeing an otter resting on a stone in the middle of a small lake and finally finding where all those geese were flying to; thousands feeding on fields on the way home. 

More naturey stuff 

Not yet seen, when I do, I'll probably phone everyone I know

Last weekend was spent at various Vancouver Parks activities:
- Learning that some plants get their nutrients not from the sun, through chlorophyll, but from funghi who, in turn, get in from the huge trees in the Pacific rainforest.  They're called 'mycorrhiza'.  
- Practised puppeteering as a way to engage kids in nature; my Albert the snail was a clear favourite.
- Hearing tales of how close the cougars and bears come into town; a cougar was found in a tree about 5 minutes' walk away from our front door last year; and wolves roam the mountains just north of Vancouver.  Obviously now aim to see both animals ASAP.


And piece de resistance:
- Meeting the staff at Lynn Valley Ecology Centre http://www.dnv.org/ecology/ where next weekend I start helping out at nature themed birthday parties!  I'm hoping it will be as fun as the end of term Brownies party, plus the chance to see a bear, and minus any organisation!


p.s. If you've noticed a sudden upscale in my photo ability, afraid to say it's not due to new talent or camera, but a new friend, Dan Grima, who is now official team photographer: http://dangrima.photoshelter.com/index 

A weekend at home

In case you haven't seen 'The Chief'

Some of our weekends at home in Vancouver consist of shopping and cleaning and tending to our ancient Jeep (a full time job in itself); I have no plans to bore with you such activities.  But those 'at home' weekends that take us to new bits of our local area I might do a quick blog on, mainly for my mum. So...


Saturday:  It turns out that Vancouver is situated in a rainforest, stretching from Alaska to northern California.  Which does mean that it gets quite a lot of rain.  Coming from London, we thought this would be water off a duck's back (tee hee) but it turns out London gets 29 inches of rain a year, and Vancouver 43.6 (still less than NYC at 47.2). And when it rains here, it really rains, not that that should put you off visiting, that rain turns to snow on the mountains and the summers are great...

Not our piccie, but check out the gruesome face!

It rained on Saturday but no fear, my book of BC walks has a whole section devoted to such days, so we hiked up alongside the Capilano river to the salmon hatchery and Cleveland Dam.  The hatchery showcases the 'salmonid programme' which rears and releases hundresds of thousands of salmon into the ecosystem every year.  After 1 to 7 years at sea (depending on the species) they fight their way back from the Pacific, up the river then up the very stream in which they were born. The hatchery had glass pannelled one of these streams and we saw the very ugly salmon (they change body shape and colour the closer to home they get) leaping over each obstacle in a bid to mate.  Awesome. 

Sunday was very very sunny, although quite cold.  My bike has been neglected in the rain so I took her out for a big mountain day.  From Marine Drive we headed up Cypress Bowl road to the ski resort which hosted part of the Vancouver Olympics (yes, it was the one without any snow; last month we visited where they trucked it in from).  A solid 15km up hill, climbing 910m.  The uphill was hard.  The downhill was TERRIFYING with my hands aching from the brakes.  I wouldn't say I got hypothermic (now I've experienced that in a Scottish sea loch I can compare) but extremely cold.  But stunning views of Vancouver (mauled by my camera phone) and a 1200 year old tree.  

First trip south of the Border

We live about 30 miles from the US border; it dawned us on recently that if we don't explore Washington State whilst we're here it would be like living in England and never going north of the Watford Gap and, speaking as someone who didn't do that for the first 18 or so years of her life, that would be a real shame.  


So with our new found friends, Dan (outdoor guide and photographer extraordinaire - his pics in today's blog) and Cazz (ecologicial consultant and bird watcher supremo), we road tripped to the Olympic Park in Washington state (the big green patch on the sticky out bit on the left).

First obstacle was the US border guards, we'd been treated like long lost friends when we arrived in Canada with our 1 year visas, the US were not quite so welcoming, in fact really pretty rude, but at least we weren't being interrogated on illegal cross border working like the lady to our right.   We then steamed through the night to the sol duc campground and Mark and I spent our first night sleeping in the Jeep; surprisingly comfortable although not much privacy once it gets light...  

Fingers crossed for lots more of this!

A day of hot spring visitation (very relaxing), hiking along 'Hurricane Ridge' (no wind, lots of sun and the first new snow of the year), attempting to bird watch (they 'closed' the sand spit at 5pm) preceded a very weird night stay at the youth hostel in the 'historic' Port Townsend.  Although we were initially sceptical (anything over 80 years is historic in Canada and the States) it was actually very pretty, and as EVERY store had a Halloween display (several with life size 'guys' outside) it did demonstrate how seriously the North Americans take that particular pagan festival.

Yay, back in Canada!

And it allowed us to reflect on the cultural differences between the States and Canada; most people were friendly, but in a much busier, brasher way; you could buy ammunition at every corner; and although the cheese was cheaper, it was even worse than in Canada ('old cheddar' does not count as a food stuff).  


Our next trip to the US will be through the frozen Cascade mountains, Idaho and Montana to Yellowstone National Park over Christmas; hoping that not too many nights are spent in the frozen Jeep.   

Rain does not stop play

A weekend of two brilliant halves:


Part I:  Meeting the family


It took a scanned family tree sent from my mum to explain exactly how I was related to the Pielou branch of the Hancock family, our rugged Canadian island living relatives.  A late Friday night arrival due to the inability to distinguish between the 19 and 19A highways on Vancouver Island did not phase my first cousin twice removed, Chris Pielou, in her eighties.  A pioneering ecologist in the midst of writing her latest book, she took up sea kayaking at 75 with an easy trip to Patagonia and her most recent trip was to the Artic where a wolf eyeballed her through the flap of her tent.  Awesome. 


We then headed up the Island to catch a tiny ferry to Quadra Island; inhabited by 3,000 fishermen, loggers and artisan craftsmen, the latter including a host of second cousins, once, twice and thrice removed with such varied jobs and activities as guitar maker, social worker, museum curator, microbiologist, mountain bike trail maker, snow camper, yacht sailor and 7th grader.  All totally fabulous and very very welcoming considering we invited ourselves for thanksgiving dinner (you get to have Christmas twice a year in Canadia!).  


Then onto Part 2:  Meeting the Grizzlies


Fairly torrential rain did not dampen my spirits on the 90km small boat ride up the BC coastline to Bute Inlet to meet our native guide to hunt for grizzly bears.  A mini bus took the four of us (two guides, me and a crazy Belgian) to various viewing platforms along the river, watching for bears busy fattening up on post-spawning dying salmon.  

I hoped to catch a glimpse of one, and was incredibly luck to see four:  the first sauntering along the river; then a mother and cub devouring decaying salmon (yum) about 15 metres away from me; and finally a female digging intently for salmon eggs under the gravel.  Bear number 1 made a reappearance near the egg-digger but as the was the smaller less dominant female, kept her distance till the coast was clear, although not quite far enough to prevent a standpoint in the river... 

I've been lucky enough to see some great wildlife spectacles, but this was a pretty incredible one.  If you ever need a grizzly bear watching recommendation; try Aboriginal Journeys: http://www.aboriginaljourneys.com/ 
And here are some extra piccies:  https://picasaweb.google.com/103002243824878276777/GrizzliesOctober2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCISS7YKCwqq1rwE&feat=directlink 

One more bear, a slight head wound and a general bruising...

We were greeted on our late night arrival at Lightning Lake campground (about 3 hours from home) by an amazingly clear starry night and the standard warnings about bears and cougars... but this time we heard an actual cougar yowling the night away. There were no middle of the night loo trips.


A suprisingly cold morning (the park gets so much snow in winter they trucked it from the car park to Vancouver for the Olympics) didn't deter us from gearing up for what turned out to be an eventful day of trail running.  Let's just say that from now on, I will give a VERY CLEAR warning to Mark if a branch is across the path.  Being, as you know, rather smaller, I ducked neatly out of the way, only for it to hit Mark full in the face, causing a long gash on his forehead.  Despite my first aid training, it was hard not to look a bit shocked.  After brief discussion, we decided stitches weren't needed, patched it with steri-strips and continued. 

Imagine a Harry Potter-esque forehead gash

Usual beautiful mountain views, lots of grouse, and regular shouting of 'hey bear' until about 2 minutes from the turnaround point, there was a very real black bear, munching on wildflowers in an alpine meadow about 200m ahead of us.  Awesome to see one in the true wilderness with no warning (and a good safe distance away).  We took a different route to get to the turnaround, but after 5 minutes of running in bear prints and seeing bear scat, decided to turn around... (No piccies I'm afraid in the name of safety!)

Unconcerned grouse

Great run down, until I took a bit of a tumble on a cunningly concealed rock.  Just some bruising to my right side, but necessitated walking the last 3km. Our first campfire (fairly successful without too much bickering) ended the day.