Mount Lincoln and Spirit caves

                                               Mount Lincoln and Spirit caves- June 19,2011

It was a pretty cloudy day and Adrien suggested to go up to Mount Lincoln and 4 of us, Me,Adrien,Dean and Bonn-Tien left Vancouver towards Yale where the trail starts.

We parked next to the rail crossing where there is a small area for parking from where we walked on the side of the highway for 2-3 minutes and go to the sign for Mount Lincoln trail.



The trail was in really good shape and the colours where amazing.
















The hike to Mount Lincoln isn't that long so we decided to connect it with going to Spirit Caves after we got on the summit of Mount Lincoln.








We didn't had any great views and were in clouds for almost the entire day but it was still great to get out and explore a new area.

Widgeon Creek

                                                           Widgeon Creek- June 12,2011


After I went in this area a while ago on a canoe too I decided to take some friends that are not into hiking too much.

This time the place was a bit busier compared to last time I was there and we pretty much took the last canoe that was left there.



Once we got to the spot where you start hiking to the waterfalls I was shocked to see that many canoes over there and the trail was pretty busy all day.



Great time in a really beautiful area.

West Nai Spire

                                        West Nai Spire-June 11,2011



I joined Dean for another great trip together,this time we went up to Sky Pilot group area.



The road was in pretty rough shape but Dean's car was doing pretty good.



Once we got into Sky Pilot area we made a decision to wait a bit since it was all pretty cloudy and we couldn't see anything.



After a while the clouds finally lifted up and we had some views and we had to decide where are we going, and we decided to go for Nai Peak.







Didn't took us too long to get to the base of the gully from where we had to cross a small bergshrund and we started our climb up towards the col.

Once we got at the col we started our way towards Nai peak,a bit exposed in few spots and the snow didn't made our ascent easier but after few tricky moves we both made it to the summit of Nai Peak

We didn't spent too much time on the summit since we spent our extra time waiting for the weather to improve and started our way down.



On our way down we finally got the perfect view of the SkyPilot group.









Great day in a new area with Dean.

James and David Peaks

                                                 James and David Peaks- May 29,2011


I had a day off so decided to do something local and chose James and David Peaks in Lions Bay area.

And again I wasn't too excited about the long and boring walk on the logging road.

I followed the trail to Lions for quite a while and then at the another junction I kept going on the logging road from where you could clearly see the peak.






The ridge to the summit was pretty easy and had only few steep spots.









Didn't took me too much time to get on the summit where I had beautiful views but I didn't spend too much time and continued my way to the second summit of the day.











After lots of photos and some snacks I started my way back down to the parking lot.

Mount Callaghan

                                                    Mount Callaghan- May 21,2011

Me and Dean decided to go for Mount Callaghan as a day trip.

The weather wasn't so great, we got some rain during the day and for the most of the way we were in whiteout conditions.







Dean had to lots of navigation using his GPS and even when we got to the summit we couldn't tell if we are on the summit or not but according to his GPS we were standing on the summit.



Despite the bad weather and no views for the entire day it was still great to get out.



We were hoping to do another hike on Sunday and car camped but once we woke up was raining even more than the previous day so we decided to just go home.

Joffre and Spetch

                                Joffre and Spetch Peaks-April 23-24,2011

I was talking for a while with a person on facebook, Dean Perez, and looking at his photos I always wanted to go on a trip with him and see how it will go, and luckily he invited me on his trip that he was planning to do with his friends, Adrien and Matthew.

I didn't asked too many questions about which peaks we are going to do, all I knew we will be going up Spetch Peak on the first day and decide what we will do on the second day.

All of us met in North Vancouver pretty early and I wasn't too excited since just just a day ago I was on Vantage Peak and had to do the same trail pretty much,.

We had to make few stops which made us to get pretty late at the parking lot of Cerise Creek where we got at about 12.30.



We were making a pretty good time and made it to Keith's Hut pretty fast where we had our lunch and soon we got our backpacks on and started our way towards Joffre-Mattier col.



We tired to move faster while crossing under Joffre Peak since it was getting warm at that time of the day.







Once we got at the col we decided to make a cave and put our gear in there and go for Spetch.



After some digging we finally got the cave done,which was more like a open hole, but later we had a tarp on top of it.

Soon me,Adrien and Dean left our campsite and started our way towards Spetch Peak which looked pretty small from our campsite.

once we got at the base of Spetch we got all our gear on and started our ascent up the steep slopes of Specth peak.



it was pretty steep going up but the snow was pretty good, not too soft so didn't took us too much to get up.



Once we were done with the steep climb we finally reached the mellow ridge to the summit but we stopped just before the summit to enjoy and take some photos of the beautiful sunset after what we continued our way to the summit of Spetch Peak.



We didn't spent too much time on the summit and soon started to go back down and tried to get down the steep climb before dark.

Soon we made it back to the campsite where Matthew was waiting for us in his warm sleeping bag.

I didn't had much experience with camping, especially winter camping so I got 2 cans of food that everybody got a bit shocked that I carried them all the way up there and I had a pretty cheap -20C sleeping bag which was more than half of my 42L backpack, it was huge, heavy but kept me warm.

The next morning we woke up and after some breakfast we started our way down towards Aussie Couloir.
Matthew wasn't feeling too good so he decided to stay at the camp.



I was pretty excited about going up towards Joffre by Aussie Couloir since just yesterday we  could see that mighty looking couloir from Spetch Peak.

Dean and Adrien were leading most of the way while I was in the middle of the rope.



After a while we finally reached the top of the couloir from where we had to do a small exposed traverse to get to the summit plateau of Joffre Peak.

I was pretty happy standing on top of Joffre Peak with my new friends and looking at those incredible summit views.

Soon we started our way down and after a while we made it back down safe.

At the campsite Matthew was waiting for us in his sleeping bag outside his bivy.

Once we got all the gear packed we started our way down to the parking lot.

It was an amazing trip with new friends in a very special place.