February 2021
And some clever quip...
Sunrise right now is roughly when we are getting the kids ready for
school so we can sometimes see the sunrise light fall on the city. I
decided to get up early and watch the sunrise from the bridge.
A bridge isn't always a perfect vantage point. When big buses
went over the strain release joints it would send a shock through
the bridge deck a small shake. While still dark, the car
lights tend to cause flair in the lens. I also made some
mistakes - I didn't adjust the shutter speed fast enough and wound
up over exposing some of the frames. Most of these issues can
be fixed in post.
The didn't
really want to go outside (it was raining a bit) but when a bakery
is on offer, their attitude warmed up. We got on our bikes
(first time since last summer) and biked over to the Olympic village
to get a few treats. The kids did really well and the rain let
off quickly.
The day turned out quite nice so we drove over Iona Beach for a
brief walk. It's still cold and windy, but you can see some
birds are starting to come back. In a few more months this
will be a busy place!
Whyte Island
Back in
December 2020, I took the
kids to Whyte Cliff Park. At the time we saw Whyte
Island with it's rocky land bridge but the tide was high and we
couldn't safely cross over. I've been watching the tide
tables and most low low tides in January were at night. It
just so happened that we got a low tide late on a Sunday afternoon
so we packed up and went for an afternoon hike.
The land bridge is high above the waterline and I checked to
ensure the tide was going to continue to recede even hours after
we left. The kids of course still needed to walk as high up
on the rocks as possible. Being covered by ocean much of the
day, the beach level route was slippery but safer than jumping
stone to stone.
Whyte Island is considerable larger than it appears when you look
at it end on. The Island is probably three times as long as
it is wide and where you start you can't see the Island's
length. We walked up the cliff face and found the top of the
island to get a view.
There were people walking around but it
didn't take long before the kids got to sit on the "peak".
From the top of the Island there is a nice view out into the
straight of Georgia. On the left is the UBC Endowment Lands,
the Island in the middle is Passage Island the nearest land on the
right is Bowen Island.
Of course the kids had to go the near the
end of the Island. There is a big shore pine tree out there
which owns the soil in small flat space.
The down side of late afternoon hiking is that sunset does put you
on a clock. As the sun set on the horizon the fancy homes in
West Vancouver started to glow as they reflected the setting sun.
The kids had a great time. I was a little anxious over all
of the opportunities to fall down. We did just fine.
Snowshoeing at Cypress Mountain
COVID problem 1 - stay away from other
people. You can go outside, but long line ups at ski hills
is not a good plan. COVID problem 2 - imports of a lot of
things like sports equipment has been hit hard. MEC (which
recently went from a co-op to American ownership) has very little
in stock. I figured snowshoeing would be fun, but I didn't
want a lineup for snowshoe rentals and I couldn't find them in
stock in any store. Solution - Craigslist! It took
about a week but I found used sets for everyone!
Helen and
I went snowshoeing in December 2005 at Cypress and my
snowshoes have been in storage tote ever since. The kids
have never been. We got up to Cypress at 10am and got
overflow parking on main road. We walked up, found a bench,
Helen turned the online purchased tickets into tags and we were
good to go. The kids learned very quickly and liked that you
could go up or down as you pleased.
We hiked about an hour to get to the
Hollyburn Lodge, but that was mostly because of some
complaining. We had our packed snacks and then started to
head back.
The hike back was more downhill and it went
fast - probably 30 minutes. Because it was downhill and
fast, the kids were in a better mood which made it faster still.
The kids seemed to enjoy themselves and we now own snowshoes so we
might try this again!
Tags: Cypress Mountain(7), snowshoeing(6), sign(3), Whytecliff Park(2), lone tree(1), tree(1)
People: Nara(14), Claira(14), Helen(8), John(1)
Last Modified Wednesday, March 3rd, 2021 at 22:17:34 Edit
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