Geocaching at East Sooke Park

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?

Rock Climbing at Mt MacDonald

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??

Happy to be climbing!!!

The view from up top. Not bad at all.

Week 47 & 48 of HDR Project: Mt Doug & YYJ

First I would like to apologize for not posting a HDR picture last week. Work got really busy and have been working 60 hour weeks. So this week I decided to hit up two different places to make up for skipping a week.

Today I was driving back to the main office at work, and I saw some crazy cloud formations. I thought to myself that today’s sunset should be pretty amazing. After work, Rhiannon met up with me and we decided to catch the sunset up on Mt Doug. I wish we got there about 20 minutes earlier. It would’ve been even more epic… I’ve been saving this spot for a while, and I’m glad I was able to catch this. I was pretty happy about the outcome.

12mm, ISO 200, F5.6

We grabbed some take out sushi and drove to Mt Tolmie to hang out and eat. During that time, I was trying to figure out where my second spot should be. It seems like I was running out of places – how is that possible?? But luckily I was able to think of a place… The Victoria International Airport!

10mm, ISO 200, F8

10mm, ISO 200, F8

11mm, ISO 200, F8

Hard to believe that there’s 4 more weeks until the 52 week project is over!!

Week 46 of HDR Project: Snow Day on Mt Tolmie

Once snow hits Victoria, all hell breaks loose. I drove my car to work, and once I got there, I thought to myself, “I should have stayed home”… So after an hour or so into the work day, I decided that it’d be best to try and get my car back home and get my co-worker to drive around town because he has a truck. I got stuck on my hill, so it took two people to push it up (THANK YOU!). Afterwards, we went up to Mt Tolmie for lunch. It was a great view because the whole city was covered in snow, and there were barely anyone at the top of the mountain.

10mm, ISO 200, F10

10mm, ISO 100, F6.3

Hope you all drive safely out there! Don’t be a douche!

I Think We’re Off to a Good Start to the Year

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.

If you missed my previous post (HDR pictures of the Saddle Trail), check it out here – Week 44 of HDR Project: Saddle Trail

Victoria Rock Climbing In Late October

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.