Arcly and Elo 2017

Better late than never! This year Elo and I (and Nana and Julie) hiked into (near?) Stein Valley in mid September. Stein Valley is about 150-200km north of Vancouver, British Columbia. Although the Heritage park is relatively close to Vancouver, don't expect to see humans while you are there. That is the beautiful thing about Canada. You do not have to travel very far from a city to get utterly helplessly lost.

Elo (left) and Arcly (right), Stein Valley

The entire travers takes 8 days. We opted for a three day dip in dip out.

Day 0
I fly from SFO to YVR. Much shorter than ON to BC!!

Above is some meal prep. I had to make one breakfast and one dinner. For my dinner I did a mac and cheese (pictured above) and for my breakfast I made strawberry pancakes. For the pasta I used cheese powder from my good friend Janet (she is a food scientist), dehydrated broccoli (Trader Joe's), Chorizo salami (Berkeley Bowl), sun dried tomatoes (Trader Joe's) and Italian seasoning. It was good. I would make it again. I would probably dehydrate my own broccoli in the future. Side Note: Elo and I are obsessed with making camping food.


Day 1
On the Friday we drove from Vancouver to the trail head (near Pemberton). From the trail head it took about 6 hours to hike to Lizzie Cabin. To be honest, the first 4 hours are a real snooze. Its an old logging road and not very scenic. But after Lizzie Lake the scenery really picks up its game. We camped near the cabin and enjoyed the liter of wine that Elo was nice enough (guilted, pressured..) to carry in for us.

Arcly and Nana, Somewhere past Lizzy Lake

Day 2
Hiked 1-2 hours to Long Lake (off the Traverse) and set up camp. I really liked this camp site, but finding a bear hang was a real challenge (notice the lack of trees with branches).

Long Lake

We dropped our packs and head up the Tynemouth mountain peak for lunch (2-3 hours to the top).

The view from Tynemouth. You can see long lake in the distance (our camp site)

Day 3

We knew the weather on Day 3 was going to be variable. So we packed up early and headed back to that sweet cozy rodent infested Lizzie Cabin.  Again we dropped our packs and went for a day hike. We aimed to get to the top of Tabletop mountain. 

On the way to Tabletop

Before we could get to the top the weather turned and we decided to head back. It was snowing and then raining as we made our way down the mountain. We were soaked by the time we got to the cabin, but we got a fire raging and dried right off.  This final night we were tasked with finishing off all our booze and food. Se we spent the next six hours eating, drinking and chopping wood in the rain. 

Crazed lunatics plotting death in Lizzie Cabin (left to right: Julie, Nana, Arcly and Elo)

Day 4

leaving the cabin. Time to walk out and back to the car

The next morning we woke to a beautiful scene. Big fluffy snowflakes floating down. We took our time eating strawberry pancakes and drinking coffee and milk tea.

Elo, Lizzie Cabin

The hike out took us about 4 hours. Much faster than the hike in, but the snow covered rocks proved difficult.