Criss Crossing in Chilliwack

I picked up the three Junior Woodchuks early on Saturday so that they may embark on another Grand Adventure with Grampa. First up was a trip to the Chilliwack Fish Hatchery located on Chilliwack Lake Road. The hatchery is located in the Chilliwack River Valley, 20 kilometers from the intersection of Vedder Road and Chilliwack Lake Road.

As you drive further into the valley, you begin to gain elevation, and to match your elevation gain, the temperature drops a few degrees. Knowing this in advance, I had the kids prepped by packing their warmer coats for this early day excursion.

Arriving at the hatchery, the first sign we seen (after the Fish Hatchery sign, of course), was a warning sign that bears were seen in the area. This did not worry me as A) the chance of actually seeing a bear was low, and B) I have bears walking through my yard and on my front porch most nights.

So of course, 5 minutes later the kids say "Grampa, there's a bear" !
The bear looked to be a two year old, running along the inside of the hatchery property trying to figure how to get out to the creek. Eventually a work truck scared him off and that's the last we seen of the bear.

It is early in the season, so only Chum salmon were present in the fish ladders and the pens. They are also called Dog salmon as they do not taste as good as other salmon. That did not stop the hordes of fishermen lining the miles of river bank from trying to land a returning fish.

We walked around the hatchery property and checked out all the fish pens; some where empty, some had fry waiting to be released into the river once they reached the right age.

By now it was getting lunch time and the kids voted on a fast food joint to load up on chicken strips and fries.
This is also where we met up with Brother Ken and his wife Linda who would be joining us for the next stage of our adventure - Geocaching!

I had picked out three caches in our current Chilliwack area, all three were located in local parks.
The first cache took a bit to find as the co-ordinates were a ways off, but find it we did.

We signed the log book in the cache, then wandered across the street to the elementary school so the kids could burn off some energy on the playground.

After a sufficient amount of sliding and swinging, we headed a few blocks over to Sardis Park which has a small lake at its centre. The park held two caches around the lake, so we enjoyed a nice walk around the lake as we went from one cache to another.

Of course, once we found both caches the playground had to be tested to see if we up to "kid code". Apparently it was as the kids did not want to leave.

Ken and Linda headed off to do some shopping, while the kids and I headed in the general direction of home.
Of course, if the Clayton General Store happens to be down the block from another cache I had in mind, that's just a happy coincidence.

The Clayton General Store is inside an old company store built out of the same bricks which were made onsite. Old time buildings throughout much of southern BC were built using Clayton bricks.
The store is also renowned for its vast collection of old time candies, as well as candies from other parts of the world.
And what kind of a Grampa would I be if I didn't spoil the kiddies by buying them a food item containing fast acting sugar?

Lastly, we headed back into Mission and found a couple of more caches just to round out the day's findings.
By now it was almost dinner time: time to get the kids back home to their parents where they were finally allowed to open their nutritious candy collection.

Another fun day with Grampa while the kids experienced new locations and learned new things. Grampa had fun showing them around his extended "backyard" as well.


Click HERE to see the rest of the pictures from the day's Grand Adventure

 End Of Summer Visit to Kelowna

The Pedersen clan made a late summer visit to Kelowna BC, a destination we usually visit once or twice a year. Brother Alan and his wife Nancy make the trek to Kelowna twice yearly to visit their son Christopher who lives in Kelowna. For Annette and myself, and brother Ken and his wife Linda, it is a good reason to make it a family road trip where we all get to visit and play in another town, as well as enjoy a visit with Christopher.

YOU CAN RIGHT CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO ENLARGE ALL PICTURES ON THE PAGE.

Click here to see all the pictures from the weekend. There are many to see and they help to do justice to the Kelowna scenery; so much so you will add it to your next vacation ideas !  😀

Annette and I made the trip late on the Friday afternoon after visiting Samantha and the kids on the way out of town. By the time we made the four hour drive to Kelowna, we had just enough time to check into the hotel and then meet the group for dinner.

Christopher is our resident tour guide in Kelowna and he picked a brewery with outside seating as our dinner spot. Beers and pizza were the main items on the menu and those went over well with the group.

With thirsts quenched and bellies full, and our catch up conversations done, we adjourned for the night making plans to meet at a local favourite breakfast location in the morning. 

We met in the morning, ate too much for breakfast, which seems to be the norm these days, then headed over to a local farmers market a few blocks away. As outdoor markets go, this was a fairly large one with a good mix of craft artisans and farmers themselves selling their harvest. Both Annette and I were wanting to buy some farm goods but we were still to be on the road for a couple of days, so the food would spoil before we returned home.

After the market, we headed to one of the weekend's highlights, that being walking part of the Kettle Valley Railway. Then railway itself is long defunct but dedicated and passionate local activists worked hard to save the rail right away for recreational use for hikers, bicyclists and horse riders. The gem of the trail is a 12 mile section which includes 18 trestles as the railway snakes through Myra Canyon. While we were not going to attempt all 12 miles, if you access the park from the Myra Canyon end point, you reach trestle #18 in a kilometer, and then within the next kilometer are another five trestles.

That we could accomplish as a nice walk for most of us, for a couple of us (including myself) that was a stretch but we did it anyways. The roundtrip amounts to 4 kilometers, for those considering the trip.

After the walk we rewarded ourselves with a visit to a local cidery. Annette had enjoyed a cider at a Fraser Valley brewery during the summer when we stopped for lunch. Annette discovered the cidery itself was in Kelowna, just 15 minutes away from Myra Canyon Park.

The Soma Craft Cidery is a small batch cidery, meaning they make small batches of cider throughout the year but the cider flavours change dependent on the season. Unfortunately they did not have any stock of Annette's chosen cider, but we did have a sampling of their current four batches of cider. After the tasting, Annette and Linda both opted to buy the blueberry cider; it was pricey but apparently yummy, so I'm told.

After the cidery, an early dinner was in order, so we voted to visit a local Chinese food restaurant which some of the gang had previously visited. This provided a chance for more catch up conversations and the expected retelling of old, embarrassing family stories involving those present and not present.

  

After dinner, Chris suggested going to a viewpoint at Dilworth Mountain Park, which offers a terrific view of Kelowna from the east, and just happens to be the perfect location to watch the sun set in the west. It was an excellent suggestion as it made for a memorable ending to the day. We had enjoyed sunny skies through the day, which kept the temperature relatively warm, but Fall was on it's way and we needed our warm clothes to keep us toasty as we enjoyed the red sky caused by the setting sun.

Next morning, another highlight fieldtrip was on the books - a ride aboard the Kettle Valley Steam Train which runs for 10 kilometers along a restored section of the Kettle Valley railway bed. The trip starts on the western outskirts of Summerland, in Prairie Valley. The trip takes you around the local mountains and ends south of Summerland at the Trout Creek Trestle, another spectacular hand built train trestle restored by the local volunteers.

It was such a wonderful trip, the train moved slowly allowing the tourists the full experience of the train ride itself, as well as being able to take in the grandeur of the scenery. The conductor had a running monologue about the local history and geography of the area, plus he also informed us that the engine which was pulling the train was the same engine which had been pulling the train when Billy Miner robbed the train near Mission, B.C. in 1904. That was Canada's first train robbery!

After the train ride we split up and went our own ways. Ken and Linda were headed to Penticton to hit a local outdoor flea market, while Alan and Nancy were returning Chris to Kelowna, and Annette and I were heading down to Penticton to visit Annette's mother.

We all arrived back in the Vancouver area late in the day, seemingly to all arrive home in the 7.30 - 8.00 PM time frame.

Annette and I were quite happy with our Kelowna visit; we got to visit with family, got to see Christopher which we only do so now once or twice a year, and we had several new tourist experiences which were quite enjoyable.

Come October 1 you need to have your snow tires on in BC to travel the mountain passes; we headed back down to the Coast on September 29th. As we reached Pennask Summit on the Coquihalla Connector between Kelowna and Merritt, a rain shower had just passed through and the 3 degrees Celsius temperature at the summit turned the passing rain shower into snow as the clouds surmounted the mountains and reminded us that winter comes early in the BC mountains.      

        

 Suspended in Lynn Canyon

Recently we had Rowan for a sleepover and a day of adventure. We started the day in North Vancouver at Lynn Canyon where we surprised Rowan with the suspension bridge over the canyon.

The bridge is suspended 150' above the river canyon. Rowan was a bit apprehensive at first but went across with minimum fuss. While on the other side we took the trail a few hundred feet upstream so Rowan could play among the boulders on the edge of the river. The river is fairly small and quiet this time of year so there was a fair amount safe space to play in.

Once we went back across the bridge we headed into the Ecology Centre and learned about the flora and fauna in the area, as well as received information on how to help protect the environment through interactive displays.

It was Pirate Pack Day at White Spot, so what better way to reward Rowan for his bravery going over the suspension bridge. Even the adults were served Pirate Packs this day, every two dollars from the pirate packs sold went to charity, so we were happy to do our bit.

After lunch we treated Rowan to yet another new place, this time we took him to New Brighton Park in East Vancouver situated close the Second Narrows Bridge. The park gave Rowan a playground to explore, as well as a grass field to run around on and a new experience of seeing a freighter ship up close and personal.

We also watched the marine traffic go past us; various tugs, pleasure craft and commercial ships sailed past while we were there.

Once back at Grandma's house, Grandpa and Rowan took his bike to a local park and Rowan got some good practice at riding his bike on the children's bike oval. To be honest, I think Grandma had a nap while we were at the park - shhh.

Before long the day was drawing to a close and time to get Rowan back home so he could sleep in his own bed. An extended visit with the other members of his family were enjoyed while we were there before we said goodnight to all and headed back to Grandma's house.

ALL PICTURES CAN BE SEEN HERE AT MY FLICKR SITE.

** LOOK FOR THE PICTURE OF GRANDMA ON THE SWINGS **

 Cruising into the Columbia Valley

ALL PICTURES ON THE DAY CAN BE FOUND ON MY FLICKR WEB SITE HERE

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Recently Brother Ken, aka MrTJ in geocaching circles, and myself decided to make a foray into a forgotten corner of the Fraser Valley, someplace where neither of us have visited for 50+ years.

Cultis Lake, 60 miles east of Vancouver, B.C. is Vancouver's local favourite summer time destination. Cultis Lake is a fair size lake surrounded by long time summer cottages on the east, new lake front houses on the north, and densified during the summer by multiple campsites both in Cultis Lake Provincial Park and private campsites along the south shore. At the west end of the lake is the small village of Lindell Beach, an old clutch of summer cabins turned mixture of permanent residences and long time family cottages.

Beyond Lindell Beach, west along Columbia Valley Road, lays a large valley mostly forgotten about by the summer visitors. The craziness of the boaters, paddlers, swimmers, campers, and the occasional obligatory moron, is quickly left behind in just a few minutes as Columbia Valley Road ascends a small bluff and emerges into the Columbia Valley. Due to glacial action thousands of years ago, the Valley is officially classified as a "hanging valley."

The first impression you receive is that you could be in any rural green valley near Salmon Arm, or anywhere in the central part of Vancouver Island. The look of the valley belies its nearness to Canada's third largest city. 

Ken and I barely remember the valley from those many years ago, safe to say neither of us remembered it as we seen it this day. There were a few newer hobby farms with big new houses, but for the most part it seems like the farms and houses we seen years before are the same ones we seen today.

We had approx. 30 caches to find in the valley, with a bit of crossing our tracks back and forth due to the limited number of roads and the spread out nature of the cache placements.

Although I had made an adhoc route for the day, as usual that changed a bit once we got our feet on the ground. We came to realize there was a north side to the valley, a central part, a south side, and then two east sides divided by a ravine watershed. Once we understood the road layouts and the cache placements, the order to find the caches in changed and in turn, made our stops more orderly.

We started our route grabbing the caches along the north side as it was the more straight forward section. We then crossed the valley and started on the south side caches. I had looked at the maps and noticed that the south road ran close to the border. We were very surprised when we arrived on a straight section of road and noticed the forest cut line on the hills nearby. Knowing the cutline ran along the 49th Parallel delineating the International border, we eyeballed the path of the cutline running on the hills in front of us and behind us, and realized we must be very close to the border. We were even more surprised when we realized that the we conveniently stopped next to an obelisk used as the Canada-US border marker. This marker was two feet off the roadway, meaning we were _right on_ the US border. 

We took pictures of both sides of the obelisk; one side says Canada and the other side says United States. Technically I stepped into the US when I went to the other side of the obelisk but all worked out - no floodlights, barking dogs, or armed guards appeared out of the woods to challenge me, so I figured I was good! 

We soon made our way to the eastern side of the valley, and were slightly mystified as to how to get to caches on the other side of a ravine\creek, until we determined we had to go back to the main road, and then tackle the next set of caches from a more eastern access.

Ken and I were surprised by how many blueberry farms are now in Columbia Valley. The Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows areas with their wetter fields are well known for their vast blueberry fields. The ground here was harder and dryer, although we did notice their seemed to be a lot of sand in the soil. Perhaps the good drainage was an optimum growing environment for the bushes.

One of the caches to find was on a long a right of way road into the very ravine which caused our initial confusion. Ken recalled that he had a book on the old railways of the Columbia Valley and that this ravine access road was one of the main spurs for the railway back at the turn of the century when the valley was logged. Matter of fact, Ken mentioned that, due to the steep bluff from Cultis Lake up into Columbia Valley, the trains could not get down or up the bluff, so the main line went south into the US and the logs were distributed at Maple Falls in Washington state. 

Ken and I did our good deeds for the day for our fellow geocachers whom had hid the caches. As this group of caches were far off the beaten path, I came prepared with a trunkful of trinkets to refill the caches. I even had a dozen or so new cache containers of various sizes and I in turn replaced probably half a dozen missing caches. I also cleaned up, dried out, and replaced paper to use as cache logs for the benefit of cache finders to follow. Looking at past logs, many of these caches had not been found for 6 months. Safe to say these caches were the "way out there" finds to make and did not generate much geocaching traffic during their existence.

Ken and I thought our day might have ended early; you know, get out on the path by 10.00 AM, not find some missing caches, get frustrated and over heated due to the hot weather, quit, go for lunch and then go home! LOL

Instead, any cache we could not find we replaced, any cache found in bad shape was fixed up to be serviceable for months to come. Ken and I spent the entire day in this beautiful corner of the larger Fraser Valley area and thoroughly enjoyed our day. I was going to make a joke about the "company being dubious" 😀 but the fact is the siblings in the family get along great and we all appreciate the quality family time we spend together. But there is something special about hanging one on one for the day and remembering that the kindness and strength of your family is why your life is as good as it is !  

 Please leave a comment if you liked the trip report. I hope to create more in the next while. 

 

 Day Tripping to Hope BC

All of the fabulous pictures from the day can be found here on my Flickr web site. Go ahead and click on the link to see the full day's sights, you know you want to! 

Winter was almost over and Spring was just around the corner, a warm weekend was the perfect time to go out and explore some local history.

We picked the city of Hope, which is inland from Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean by 100 miles. Hope is a transportation hub, sitting at the crossroads of three routes. West takes you back to the city of Vancouver, north takes you along Hwy #5 to the Interior of BC via the infamous Coquihalla Canyon. The lakeside playgrounds of Kelowna and Penticton in the Southern Interior are favourite destinations for Vancouverites. Heading  east will take you to the Southern Interior towns of Osoyoos and Grand Forks on historic Hwy #3 also known as the Crows Nest Highway.

Hope is also the location of Fort Hope, one of the original Hudson Bay Trading Company's trading post established in 1849. The Sto:lo First Nations people have been here for more than 8,000 years, far preceding European traders and settlers. The 1,375 km Fraser River was a natural route for First Nations and later for French voyagers and British trappers hunting furs for the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) to send back to England  

Today our crew consisted of myself, wife Annette, grand daughter Adalyn, brother Ken and his wife Linda. First order of the day - BRUNCH !

From home to Hope is a 1.5 hour drive, we agreed to rendezvous at a Hope restaurant and see where the day's plans took us. As it turns out, both parties were a bit early into town and we met up at a local bookstore where Adalyn picked out four books for herself and Grampa picked up three local interest books. Ken picked up a bunch of magazines which the owner had been holding for him as Ken is a semi-regular there.

Our first stop of interest was the Hope Slide, located 15 minutes east of Hope. The Hope Slide occurred in 1965 after an earthquake shook the area. Several people were killed when the slide occurred, and the original road is buried under more than 200 feet of rock.

It was a fair bit cooler at the slide area, as we had gained 2400 feet in elevation and snow was still on the sides of the road and parking area. We all got out to have a look at the slide area, which is marvel to look at as half the side of the mountain had come down and we were now standing on it.  

Adalyn had fun playing on the rocks while the adults conversed about adult stuff and grumbled about how cold we were. 😀

Back in the cars we headed for the main street of Hope to look at the chain saw carvings which make Hope the self proclaimed "Chainsaw Carving Capital of Canada." 

What started out as a way to save a beloved, dying city tree turned into a tourist attraction for the town and a new industry for the local people. More than 80 carvings can now be found around the town; Maps can be found at the local tourism bureau to use for your self guided walking tour.

After looking at some of the carvings and Adalyn playing on the playground, we headed a few blocks to the north side of town to look for a geocache on the banks of the Coquihalla River where it meets the Fraser River. We did not find the geocache, but the Fraser River is very wide here and the once flooded shoreline forests are a stark reminder of the furies of a river during the Spring freshet as well as when the winter storms come calling.   

After our playtime at the river and our disappointing defeat of failing to find the geocache, ice cream was in order ! The local Dairy Queen as just what a 10 year girl (and the adults) needed to recuperate and feel better about ourselves. And so it came to be, continuing the tradition of visiting the DQ in Hope BC, a tradition which has been carried on through four generations of family !

Ice cream in our tummies and our pride restored, we headed west along Hwy #7 for our next point of interest. We stopped a couple of times along the way to find geocaches as Adalyn loves "treasure hunting" and Ken and myself kinda like it too. No day's outing is complete if we don't look for a few geocaches.  :)

Saturday was the first day the Kilby Museum was open for the season, at least that is what their website said. Apparently things did not work out for them as the museum was still closed for the season when we arrived in the afternoon. (No pictures to tease you with, will save that visit for a future day)

With the museum closed, we visited nearby Kilby Park located on the Harrison River. The parking lot was full but we managed to stop and grab a cache in the bush near the parking lot. Adalyn had the sharp eyes here and found the cache for the team. Which made us feel good as Ken's ego (well, maybe mine as well) is easily shattered if we can't find an easy-to-find geocache right under our feet.

We headed west a bit further and stopped off at a local slough which is a haven for the endangered Western Painted Turtle and found two more caches in the area. Ken spotted the cache and Adalyn made the grab. The cache  was hidden on the back of a sign advising the area is a nature reserve for the turtles, and attached to the cache container was a plastic turtle - how fitting.

With the latest two caches found and the day winding down, we said our goodbyes to Ken and Linda, and headed west still on Hwy #7 which would bring us to Adalyn's house. We stopped in for a short visit with our daughter Samantha and the other grandkids Rowan and Camden before continuing on another 30 minutes to home. 

Once home Annette's first order of business was to entertain the cat, while I downloaded the pictures from the camera and logged the geocache finds for the day. Now, where can we go next week ?

Thanks for sharing the trip with us, please leave a comment down below if you enjoyed the story.