The Kinsol Trestle has been on my radar for quite some time. It was built in 1920. Located near Shawnigan Lake, BC. And apparently the website says it’s the highest and largest surviving timber trestle in Canada and reportedly one of the four largest wooden structures in the world.
Not too long ago (maybe a few years?) the trestle got fixed up so it’s now 100% safe and people can walk over this incredible structure. Sooo Rhiannon and I decided to check out the place (we’ve both never been here before) and picked up a couple of geocaches on the way too. It was a great day!
The next picture is taken with a technique called HDR (High Dynamic Range)
In the next picture, you can see a gas pipeline going across the river. So crazy!
Wow it’s almost 2 months since my last post. I guess things got a bit hectic with work (finishing up my contract), looking for work, and dealing with other things in life. That’s just the way it is sometimes.
Well, the weather has been amazing this week, and I’m hoping it’ll stay like this forever! Matty and I took advantage of this by going out to East Sooke Park to do some geocaching. Recently there has been a geocaching event which resulted in A LOT of new caches at this park. Soooo we decided to tackle some. We found a total of 19 caches and we explored an area of the park which I’ve never been before so that’s always exciting!! Found some cool things along the way too!
Oh, and have I mentioned how beautiful the west coast is?
Matt’s friend, Shane is leaving Victoria soon, so Matt and I decided to take him places he’s never been to! It was a long day, but it was tons of fun. Here’s what happened:
We started off at Goldstream Park where we showed him the waterfall – Niagara Falls. This is a cool area because from the parking lot, you have to cross underneath the highway via a tunnel. You follow the riverbed for a little bit, and then you’re greeted by a waterfall.
The riverbed and waterfall looked lonely, so we built an Inukshuk friend. Hopefully there will be more next time we go there.
Next we hiked up to the trestle. There’s Mt Finalyson! We didn’t have time to show him the top of it, but oh well…
We kept following the tracks, and we came across a second trestle.
And a tunnel.
We walked back to the car and started driving towards our second destination – Coombs. The next two pics are from random lookout points along the highway.
Coombs!! A big tourist trap, but they also have a lot of cool stuff here! Shops, markets… And random stuff.
Coombs is known for the goats on the roof. Yup… They just hang out on the roof of a building. Sometimes there’s a lot of them, and sometimes they’re all hiding. Can you find the goat??
One of my favourite things about Coombs is the market. They sell a lot of cool things from smoked salmon, cheese, and other foods from all over the world. It is also pretty expensive, but there’s a lot of unique foods and stuff you can get here.
Last stop was in Parksville. We went mini golfing! … Do I need to say more?
On May 27, Nashira and I went for a quick climb at Mt MacDonald. It was my 2nd outdoor climb of the season, so it was great knowing that the weather is warming up. It was raining a little bit lately, but hopefully it will be a better summer than last year!
After the short trek up the mountain, Nashira realized she forgot her climbing shoes. So she had to do a few routes in her bare feet. She toughed it out!
The next two pictures are of Mt Wells. Can you spot the climbers??
Nashira had a day off last Saturday, so we decided to do an exploring trip. Throughout the week I kept checking the weather forecast because the weather has been pretty bad lately. It kept going from being sunny to raining less than a millimeter to showers. So we had to play it by ear.
Saturday arrives and it was sunny, so we decided to go for it. We decided to go hike Sugarloaf which is a rock climbing area that we’ve never been before. There has been talk about a large loose rock on the face, so we were going to investigate this. We got to the pullout where we’re supposed to park, and we started hiking. About 15 – 20 minutes into the hike we had to cross a creek. This was the bridge to cross it… Could you tell it was made by rock climbers?
Just over an hour later, we made it to the top! Loved the views!
It turned out to be such a beautiful day except it was windy once we got out of the protected areas. We had lunch up on the top, and then scoped out the rock climbing situation. It looked like there’s a lot of potential there. Throughout the hike, we kept going back and forth saying how we should’ve lugged all our climbing gear up the hill… But we didn’t… And besides, the rock was sort of wet anyways, so it wouldn’t have been fun. Sigh…. This trip was such a tease. Can we have summer now, please?
On Tuesday, John, Matt, and I decided to go snowshoeing just outside of Port Alberni. We decided to snowshoe the Saddle Trail which is a trail that leads to the saddle between Mt Cokely and Mt Arrowsmith. It’s about a 4km round trip, and this was going to be my first snowshoeing experience!! We weren’t sure if we were going to summit a mountain or not. Just had to play it by ear. So off we go! Here we are at the start of the trail. We were lucky there wasn’t that much snow on the roads so we were able to make it to the desired spot.
You can see in the next picture that is where we’re roughly going… Straight ahead into the mountains (and the trail starts on the right).
This was about halfway (or just over halfway). No one around. Beautiful views. It was perfect besides the fact that I’m totally out of shape, so I was really tired at this point, and it was also raining/snowing so I was pretty wet by then. This was also the spot where the snow was deep enough for us to actually start snowshoeing! Yay!
We’re almost at the top of the saddle! It was beautiful! This part got really windy I guess because we were out of the trees. But at least my feet were still dry!
We made it to the top of the saddle! The wind got a bit crazy here, and it hurt when ice hits you in the face… So we had to wait it out until we were able to get a group shot. We’re soaked, but we’re still smiling. Time to run down the hill on the nice soft snow! What a great trip. Hopefully there will be more to come! … Must… Snowshoe… More! … And maybe get a Gortex jacket.
First post of the New Year! Awesome. So here’s the scoop… Right down to business. John, Matt, and I decided to do some snowshoeing, so John and I drove up to Port Alberni to Matt’s place to spend the night and plan the trip and all that. We decided to see how far up the Saddle Trail we could get to because we weren’t sure about the weather and all that up on the mountain. I didn’t take very many pictures because it was pretty wet out there and there were parts where it was REALLY windy! But I was able to snap a few shots for my HDR project. So here they are!
This was about halfway up the trail. Man was it beautiful up there!
10mm, ISO 400, F5
And this next one I had to Photoshop A LOT of rain drops out. It got really windy and the ice hurt when it hit your face. So I tried cleaning up this picture a bit…
11mm, ISO 400, F7.1
I’ll be posting a couple more pictures and a more detailed blog entry in the next couple of days, so keep an eye out for it!
Wow, I just realize I forgot to blog about the Rock Reel Film Tour. So that means I’m a couple of weeks late, BUT the tour is still going, so if you get a chance to catch it, go watch it because this is a great film! This all went down at the Vic Theatre. There were a lot of times where I would be sitting on the edge of my seat trying to sit still with my sweating hands, because some of these films were intense!
Big UP Productions, Sender Films, and others team up to showcase six different main films and a bunch of little short films.
Cold: A group of alpinists, Simone Moro, Denis Urubko, and Corey Richards decide to summit an 8,000 meter mountain in Pakistan, Gasherbrum II. -50 degree temperature, avalanches, etc etc.
Project Dawn Wall: Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson goes to Yosemite to attempt to free a route on the Dawn Wall. Check it out as they talk about their adventure of pitch after pitch of 5.14′s.
Ice Revolution: Will Gadd dreamed of ice climbing a place that’s overhang filled with icicles and a lot of difficult ice. After 30+ years of ice climbing, he finally gets to visit such a place that he thought only existed in his mind. So he teams up with Tim Emmett on a crazy adventure to Helmcken Falls.
Sketchy Andy: Andy Lewis got into slacklining, then as he got more into it, he went to the next level and start doing really long high-lines and masters aerial tricks. He’s constantly pushing his confidence to the next level. Some might say he’s crazy…
Race For The Nose: What else is there to say about this? One of the most craziest competitions ever – speed climbing the Nose route of El Capitan in Yosemite. This is where anything goes…. Racing up the 3,000 feet rock face in under three hours.
Origins: Obe And Ashima: Nine year old girl, Ashima Shiraishi from New York City finds her passion in rock climbing. Her coach, Obe Carrion coaches this rock climbing prodigy and takes her to competitions, sending V10′s (if not harder), etc.
Overall, it’s an awesome film. I enjoyed every second of it, and after watching it, I wanted to climb even more. Such inspiration! So check it out if they’re playing near you, or the DVD is coming out soon, I believe… But here’s the trailer if any of you are interested.. Climb on!
This summer was definitely a weird and short one. It rained quite a bit, and we only had about a month of real summer weather. So as you know, you need good weather to go outdoor rock climbing… August was amazing. September it started to rain a little bit. October wasn’t any better, but then I saw a window of opportunity last week. Two days of sun! One day to dry the rock, the other to climb. I NEEDED to squeeze in one more day of climbing before putting my gear into storage. So Nashira and I decided to go for it! I must say… It was such an awesome day of climbing, AND it was a place I’ve never been to! The whole day I had a big smile on my face. Didn’t take many pictures, but at least here’s a few!
A pretty sweet view from the top of the climb!
This next picture is composed of 9 pictures. I wanted to do a panoramic shot but instead of taking the pictures horizontally, I chose to try it vertically. Across from us is Mt Wells where I do a lot of climbing…. Such a beautiful day! And it was warm which is really odd for island weather. Click on the pictures for a higher resolution.
So I’m hoping I’ll be able to squeeze in one or two more climbing days… Crossing my fingers.
Nashira and I went to Mt MacDonald on Monday to do some outdoor rock climbing. So I thought this would be a rad place to take a HDR pic. So this is the view from the top of the climb! Not too bad. A nice view of Mt Wells. I’ll be posting a few more pictures soon!
