Written November 2019
Earlier in the year, Andy and I chatted about camping together sometime in the summer. We played around with some different places and dates..and finally found a good time that worked for all of us. We decided to head up to Vancouver on BC Day weekend up there, when they had a long weekend. Andy, Yeny and Meelo headed up earlier to start camping Thursday night. Norina and I decided to head up after a half-day on Friday to meet them for the rest of the weekend.
8/2 – Heading North!
So after a half day of work, Norina and I made our way up north to hopefully get to the campsite before dark. On the way, we stopped off for a quick spaghetti and chicken sandwich lunch at Jollibee – saving a bucket of fried chicken to have for dinner later that night. We eventually made it to the campground at around 7 or 8 – with plenty of light left so we were able to find our campsite with no issues.
Andy and Yeny had a nice setup going on with their tent, since apparently it poured the night before. After we got our kiddie-looking tent all set up and car emptied out, Andy and I went to drop off my car at an outside parking lot for the next couple days – while Norina and Yeny started to prep our dinner. Tonight, we had some soup that they had cooked up earlier, the Jollibee fried chicken, and some Trader Joe’s truffle chips that Yeny had requested – washing it down with some Indonesian beer that I brought down!
As the sun made it’s way down, we decided to start up the fire – enjoying the dancing flames, company, and the great outdoors!
8/3 – Beach Day
After a nice sleep in our cozy tent, Norina and I decided to start off the day with an easy run. We found our way down to the beach, and then ran around the campground area to get in an even 2 I think it was. When we got back, Andy and Yeny were just starting to prep breakfast, so we helped out a bit before we sat down to a hearty breakfast of eggs, seasoned potatoes, and sausage. It was a nice start to the day!
After cleaning up, we started to get all of the stuff ready to head down to the beach…and then Andy and Yeny’s friends and 2 kids pulled up pretty much as we were ready to go…so great timing! So we walked down to the beach with all of our blow up boats and floats…making sure the kiddos didn’t run off ahead of us. After getting everything all blown up, we spent an hour or so playing in the water…swimming a bit…floating around…paddling in the inflatable rafts… it was pretty fun! After we had enough play time in the water, we decided to having some lunch on the beach. Andy’s friend made some delicious Italian subs, which we ate alongside some other Trader Joes snacks. The kids ‘sneakily’ kept chomping on the chips happily.
With everybody in relax mode now, Norina and I decided to go for a walk around to explore some of the nearby trails. We wound up making our way to another campground…and then eventually over to a river feeding the Alouette Lake. There was a spot where people were jumping off a rock into the mouth of the river/lake…and a rope to swing into as well, so I decided I wanted to give it a shot! I was pretty nervous about it though, as I’d never jumped off a rope before. If I were just jumping in, I would’ve been fine, as it wasn’t too high…but I was worried about not timing the jump, rope swing, and letting go all correctly – and not going out far enough. After a lot of deliberation, I finally went…wound up not really swinging all that much…but I made it in safely!
From where, we continued to walk along a trail alongside the river for a bit, before we started to tire out a bit and decide to make our way back. We were kind of lost at this point though, and we couldn’t really figure out exactly the best way to get back. We walked around some various trails for awhile…and for some reason, I decided climbing up a steep hill off the trail would be a good idea. At least this got us to another campground…and we eventually found a sign that would take us to the beach. Maybe a half mile later and we were back! Andy and crew had already left by now, so then we just made our way back to the campsite where Andy and Yeny were just hanging out. Their friends had already made their way back home by now.
Once we all got showered and cleaned up, we started to cook up dinner. They had already prepped some seasoned chicken, beef, and shrimp back home…so all we had to do was get it all nice and grilled for a delicious taco dinner!
Nice and full – we relaxed the rest of the night around the fire…roasting some marshmellows and making some s’mores before turning in for the night.
8/4 – Gold Creek Falls
This morning, Norina and I started the day off by making our world famous campground pancakes! This time though…we added a new variety in…blueberry pancakes! Meelo loved these! So we had come plain, chocolate chip, s’more, blueberry, and mixed! This, along with some more breakfast sausages, and we were good and full!
Andy and Yeny were heading back home later today because Yeny had a school project to work on, so we helped them to get all packed up before heading out for a day hike. After we got all set, we drove out to the Lower Falls trailhead…and lucky us – we got the last parking spot close up, right next to the trailhead! But then…even luckier, a park ranger came along and started to ticket the cars on the road parked in front of us, so we proceeded to move our car. Andy and I drove back up the road…probably a half mile or so, then walked back to meet Norina, Yeny and Meelo at the trailhead.
Overall, it was a fairly easy hike…mostly flat and even grounds. It was pretty slow going though, because Meelo was not really enjoying herself…plopping on the ground for breaks here and there. She got a real nice one though, when we got to a nice section of the river that was pretty calm for her to drink some water.
After the break, it wasn’t too much longer, and we made it to Gold Creek Falls. We relaxed here for awhile…eating some snacks…taking in the views and laying out in the sun a bit…watched some youngn’s do some cliff jumping. Made me want to do it too eventually…so I went for it! Not the super high one…but just one that was a decently up there.
After some lunch and rest, Andy and I went to pick up my car to bring back to the campsite. We helped them pack up the rest of their stuff, and then said goodbye to them for the evening. Norina and I then went off to find some more trails to walk around on. We found a pretty cool area…where there were a bunch of nice ferns growing off of fallen trees. After this, we made our way out to a trail leading us to North Beach, where we laid down for awhile to rest, talk, and watching the calm Alouette Lake.
It was getting chilly now as the sun had come down, so we made our way back to our campsite to start up our last fire for the weekend. We started to get hungry, so decided to heat up the last of our fried chicken over our campfire. Topped it off with some jolli-gravy…and it was delicious! We stayed up pretty late…killing all of the wood that we had left…until we started to get really creeped out by seeing a bunch of raccoons start going down the trees in front of us. So we hurriedly cleaned everything up and hopped into our tent to call it a night!
8/5 – Evans Peak
This morning, we finished off the rest of the food we had left to fill us up before our day hike. Some potatoes, chicken, sausage and gravy…and avocado. Interesting mix…but it worked! What also worked was our Yeti! Will got this for us as an engagement gift, and it kept all of our stuff super cold for the whole weekend…it was great!
So after breakfast, we cleaned and packed everything up and then walked down to the beach for one last look at the lake. It was a lot better today, since it was Monday and most people had already left for the weekend – so it wasn’t super packed. We were able to get some nice shots of ourselves out in the water.
After we were done at the beach, we made our way back to our campsite…said goodbye to it, and drove off to the West Canyon Trailhead to start off our hike. We started off by hiking up to a “viewpoint”, about a mile and a quarter up. It was a descent ascent, but nothing too bad. The viewpoint…was pretty disappointing. There was a little glimpse of the lake…but it was mostly just trees.
So as we made our way back down, there was a turnoff to Evan’s Peak trail. I remembered reading something that it was a 5 mile trail, so I figured it was only a little over a mile to go up it. I don’t know how much it wound up being…but it sure as heck felt like a lot longer than just 1 mile up! I would say it was at least 2-2.5…so maybe it was 5 miles out and back from that point. Normally, this distance wouldn’t mean much for us…but the terrain was crazy. The first section was pretty steep…and there was no trail! There were just ribbons on trees every now and then, and we just had to climb up the mountain..going from ribbon to ribbon.
It really felt like we were going nowhere… especially since we hadn’t seen anyone for awhile. Thankfully…we started to see people every now and then, and they just said keep going…so we kept going! To make matters worse, we didn’t have much food or drink, as we weren’t expecting to do anything like this. Not sure how much farther we had, we decided to eat our only bar as we were pretty tired and needed some energy to go continue up. Finally, we found a tree with a real sign…so that was a relief…but only a short one. Not long after that, we had to go up a couple sections where we had to use tree vines and ropes to go up. They were pretty challenging…especially for Norina, but she made it! I was super proud of her!
It was probably around here…maybe a little before, that my watch unfortunately died. And Norina’s phone has already died earlier. And my phone didn’t have too much juice left either… but at least it seemed like we were getting close to the peak. Thankfully… about 10 minutes later we were there!! We were soooo relieved, and happy with what we saw. It was a really nice view from here…worth what was probably the hardest hike we’ve done before! We could see the lake, river, a couple mountain tops and ranges…it was fantastic! So we rested here for awhile to take it all in…and then it was my phone’s turn to die. But at least we already got all of the pictures we wanted…so it was time to go back down!
The way back down went much quicker than going up….but there were still some tricky parts. We missed a couple turns here and there…but thankfully, didn’t go too far off course before realizing we weren’t going the right way. Coming down the rope section was also pretty tough because of our shorter legs…and because of all of the flies swarming the area right there… but we made it! We knew it was getting pretty late in the afternoon, so we tried to walk quickly, as we didn’t want to get to Andy and Yeny’s too late. And since we had charge on our phones, we wanted to make sure not to get stuck too late up there, as it seemed like we were probably the last ones that had gone up there. We also had run out of water….so really needed to get down for some..and finally…we were back!! We found a faucet, and the water felt sooo good…both to drink and wash our faces…wow!
After freshening up and eating some snacks in the car, we made our way back into the city and about an hour later, made it to Andy and Yeny’s place. We took some much needed hot showers, then ordered some take out dinner. It was a delicious Asian feast, which we happily ate all up! Bellies full now, Norina and I decided to go for a little walk to a nearby park. It just opened this past weekend, as was really nice! It even had a miny zipline of sorts! By then time we got back, it was fairly late…and we were pretty exhausted from the day. We stayed up for a bit…but then had to turn in early and pass out for the night.
8/6 – More Asian Food
After a good night’s sleep, we got up early to say goodbye to Yeny as she went to work and played with Meelo a bit. Andy, Norina, and I then made our way to get some dim-sum before we made our way back home. It was a pretty fancy place…that even had some gold on some of the pieces…but taste wise, there really wasn’t anything special about any of our orders – with the exception of the shumai dumplings with truffle. Those were different and good! After lunch, we stopped by an Indonesian mart (located in some warehouse) to pick up some Indo treats for home…then dropped Andy off at Yeny’s workplace – saying goodbye to the 2 of them until next time!
On the way back home, we decided to stop back off at Seafood City. We picked up some more Filipino chicken and beer for Norina’s siblings back home…as well as a broom for ourselves 🙂 We decided to try something different to eat this time around though – going to grill city to get some bbq sticks. They were really quite tasty…and kept us satisfied for the long ride back home. Overall…a fun trip in Canada with good food, family, and fun!
The Dating Life of Norina and Jonathan 