Our Easy Campervan Bed Upgrade & Gear Fail at Garibaldi Lake!

Hey everyone so we are here at our van in the storage lot and we are just here just to bring Finch over just to get him used to us traveling again because we're going to be starting to travel and we do have a trip coming up so we are here in the van and while we're here we thought we would do a quick video and update you on what's been happening with us and also Gordon wants to share a hike that he did recently so we hope you enjoy this video so we haven't been traveling much we've kind of been a little bit nervous about bringing Finch out and also we've got a few things I have a foot injury right now so I've been hobbling about for a couple weeks yeah at least a couple of weeks and it's just starting to feel better and so we brought actually brought Finch down here to the van because we wanted to again get him used to getting in the car and driving and coming here he's very comfortable in the van he's sitting right here next to us and hopefully when we bring him out again he'll be a little bit more comfortable the other thing is that the weather's been unseasonably cold I mean until I think a week ago we were I mean even southern Vancouver island had a significant amount of snow so and the local hills are cutting lots of snow which is good in some ways but it's made it cool and even the weather's been close to freezing around where we live up until probably about a few days ago so looking forward to getting out now that the weather is starting to improve yeah and actually we had a booking for last week to a camp spot in the Okanagan near Kelowna Bear Creek and we actually pushed the reservation back even though we have a furnace and we've done some hacks we've added insulation and have some other things that we've done to keep the van warmer it still just gets cold and if it's not that pleasant to be outside then we really just aren't that keen to go yeah and when we try to get out of Metro Vancouver there's always some mountain passes that can be a little bit dicey when the weather is bad and especially with all the flooding that happened there's a lot of roads that are not in the best of shape right now over the mountain passes so we just wanted to be a little bit extra cautious yeah so we haven't gone but we hope to get out again soon literally in a few days possibly and the other thing that we wanted to share with you is the fact that we've finally added I guess sort of more of a permanent bed as you can see in our van so if you followed our videos before typically what we've done is we bring sleeping bags and that allows us a couple things it allows us to sleep as we say east west which is side to side or north south which is front to back and and that works out really well generally we've just been using I guess two singles because it's just more flexible but we always have the bed down I mean we've had the van now for four years and I think probably the first year we would use the bed we'd make up we'd make up the bed and fold it down and and after that we just started leaving it down at least in the sort of twin size all the time and that gave us a lot of flexibility except now that we have Finch again he sleeps over here and underneath the cupboard here so we have to actually sleep sideways yeah if we want to we could do the other way but then he's going to have to sleep between us what was interesting as well is that we actually had at home a a sofa bed that we no longer needed it was an Ikea bed I can't remember I think it's called Lixale or something I'll note it down here that knows what that translates yeah um anyway it actually was almost the perfect fit lengthwise or widthwise for the van it was perfect and we just had to slide the uh one of the wooden slats the wooden slats that you'd normally use if you made the bed into a king size and we slid that in just partially and it's it seems to be a good fit so yeah we haven't tried it yet but uh it it feels pretty good when you lie on it so it's a lot more comfortable than actually sleeping on the actual sofa cushions yeah we've added a duvet and some other blankets and actually even added a small electric blanket if we need that to provide any additional heat for us so we'll try actually not using sleeping bags for a while I think I suspect Finch will be the individual who actually gets to benefit from the electric blanket more often than we do yeah and we also bought a couple little storage hangers for the back there just it's nice to have something to put your cell phone or book in when you're sleeping we actually applied the adhesive that that they came with so we don't know how long they'll last um yeah if that doesn't work what we'll do is we'll just rig a little hook through the um slots that are there for the seat belt hookups I think Mickey's just happy because now the back of the van looks more like a nice little place to be as opposed to just some place to camp and sleep which is sort of more my style yeah and for longer trips it'll be a lot more comfortable I think it's interesting because I think about 60% of road trek Zion owners keep their bed down all the time and probably the first year we would bring the bed up and put it down and as we needed it but I think the last three years our bed is always down and we just use that to to sleep we rarely have ever eaten the van and so when we do eat in the van usually one of us is either sitting on the corner of the bed or sitting in the corner over here or we've turned around the front seat and you've heard this again on some of our videos if you're in a class B typically you want to be outside so when we do have to eat inside it's usually just basic we cook eat and then try and get out again so not everyone does that some people use their table all the time I get that but for us we generally are eating outside and so you know just being able to sit down and eat in the van we have to we do otherwise you've heard me say this on many other videos in a class B van you're supposed to be outside so yeah the living room is outside not inside especially if you have two people one maybe you could spend more time but two gets a little cluttered two and a cat and maybe in the winter time you might still use sleeping bags depends on how cold it is yeah we can turn the furnace on but as again as you know uh the furnace is relatively loud so I find for example I wake up just about every time it comes on yeah and even with some of the extra insulation that we've put in uh it's still a three season van so once it once the temperatures are around freezing the van cools down pretty quickly even with the hacks that we have to add some additional heat so so about a week ago I actually went up to Garibaldi Lake now that's an area you've seen uh Mickey and I hiked to we love it up there and I went up because I knew there'd be lots of snow and just really wanted to actually what I really wanted to do was cross the lake uh to where there's a hut on the other side and Mickey and I have done that in the past it's a long day but still I wanted to try that and and just get out and you know I'll give you a hint I wasn't successful um I got most of the way well where I wanted to go initially I got to the lake but unfortunately I had an equipment malfunction and that was enough for me to decide to turn around and come back down still it was a beautiful day and I hope you enjoy the hike along with me you can hear the birds you can hear the creek in the background it's about two kilometers in and it's uh so icy and snowy put on uh our micro or my micro spikes some of the best gear we've ever purchased actually and we've used them in the summertime and they'll fit nicely on trail runners if you're hiking in those it's just nice if you sort of late summer snow or ice they're great and they're not that expensive I doubt if I'm going to need snowshoes simply because it's so cold trails all hard packed ice I have my snowshoes with me but I think at the lake it's probably minus 10 or minus 11 and a lot of people go up this trail so it's probably just hard packed snow now we'll see this is a steep section it's really steep section on the on the trail pushes heart rate up but it's not too long there it looked beautiful on the way up I just managed to stop and take some photos great for those that watched one of our previous videos Lake Lucille's kind of over there you can't see it and that's the barrier that's what really holds Garibaldi Lake up there there's always a concern it'll during an earthquake it'll let loose and the lake will flood down the valley now I was up there I did a bushwhack trip at the end of September for my birthday I managed to get up on the two ridges ridge there it's over there and it was nice hard trip though wouldn't recommend it at all I need to go that way past the lesser Garibaldi Lakes and then to Garibaldi Lake just gorgeous day not too cold even just probably slightly above freezing right now this viewpoint is actually about the six kilometer mark and the first 6k I really regained the elevation on this trail again somewhere around 3,000 feet so just a little under I think a thousand meters lake actually Garibaldi Lake itself is something I think about 1,500 meters or about 5,000 feet roughly in terms of elevation it's been a nice trip there's been literally no one on the trail just as I hit the 5k mark I passed three young folks in there maybe their 20s or something and they're working their way up I'm actually coming up fairly slowly today because I haven't done a long hike in probably oh a month certainly Mickey and I try and keep fit with cardio but we don't we haven't been out in terms of long hikes at all so I will be sore tomorrow but what a beautiful day that's just my view from this point here I had to come down a little bit just to get out of the the wind snows quite hard even in shoes I'm not postholing and you can see some people have even skied down through that section there just gorgeous summer trail goes that way winter trail you can actually cross this uh frozen lake there's one lake here and then another like just around the corner there they're referred to as the other called I think the lesser Garibaldi Lakes that's the route I'm taking today up with this route the sun's starting to soften the snow so occasionally posthole so I could put on my snowshoes still we'll see how far I get without it's steep well well laid in trail not nearly as steep okay I'm getting close I wanted to get out probably to the middle of the lake so I went to put my snowshoes on and they broke now in fairness they're probably 20 years old so MSR I think you've lasted as long as one could expect but that means I'm not going to go any farther you just start postholing on the fresh snow it's not that deep maybe a foot or so but just too difficult to walk through on top of the frozen lake so Mickey and I have snowshoed right across the lake I've also of course paddled across this lake and there's a hut on the other side and I've stayed overnight there did it twice actually once in a kayak I brought up an inflatable kayak and the other time in my pack raft just beautiful here just gorgeous mountain there's sphinx mount price over there which is probably one of our favorite hikes pan around the ridges up back there all right this is as far as I'm going and have some lunch and head back where it snapped right here in the middle this is actually the second time I've replaced these so I think it's time it's the second time I fixed it I've actually replaced the whole crampon previously but this time I think I'm just going to buy a pair of snowshoes maybe they'll be on sale pita butter and jam sandwiches a little bit of fat a little bit of sugar quick boost of energy a little chilly here a bit of a wind all right let's just walk down I've been here many times when we've had to shovel our way in relatively dark in here because obviously the snow just above freezing in the sun everything's dripping just a little just gorgeous all right back that away taking the summer trail back just for something different different route out it's pretty that's where I came up down there and then across the water frozen water there nice you can just hear the creek done was a great day and the weather's starting to change getting cloudy it's actually supposed to snow here tonight so timing was wonderful wasn't as long as a trip as I expected because I thought I'd be going at least halfway across the lake or maybe all across all the way across the lake but without my snowshoes that wasn't going to be an option anyway I'm still sore all right time to head home one public safety announcement when you come up here and go to the back country my pace in the parking lot on the way out much slower than the way in so it turns out I actually had some parts already to fix the snowshoes which is great because they're almost impossible to find right now I guess what happened is a couple years ago I anticipated this could break so I picked up some spare parts and completely forgot about them and Mickey found them this morning so that's just great done almost like new bindings new straps no crampons perfect so we hope you enjoyed this video and please stay tuned because we're going to have a couple of trips coming up that you might enjoy we'll be traveling a little bit more again now that the weather's better so if you enjoyed this video please be sure to give us a thumbs up and subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already and we will see you next time see you next time