Camper Van Update & Hiking Across Garibaldi Lake

Hi everyone so it's Mickey and Gordon and Finch is on his shirt. Well he's actually at home but photos on my shirt. Yeah we're just at the storage lot at them at the moment and in this video we just wanted to talk about some of the stuff we did to get our van ready for summer camping and also Gordon did quite an adventurous trip across the frozen lake recently so we wanted to cover that as well so we hope you enjoy this video. As Mickey noted it's now it's actually about the middle of April so we've de-winterized. Our usual process no nothing surprising but it's it's kind of nice to go through the process because it's a signal that we're going to be getting out more. The other thing we did is we just put new tires on the van the previous ones were about five years old so it was just there was still a reasonable tread but wanted to make sure that they were still in good shape and that we could if we ever did hit snow which if you watched our last video I was in so we added some new tires and then the other thing that we've been working on is just trying to find some way to take our mosquito screen and make it sort of finch proof if you will. So if you remember on one of our previous videos last year we were in Jasper and one of the rustic parks in the mountains and Finch managed to make his way out. We had the screen closed and we had sort of a MacGyver gate in the way but he's a he's a big cat and he figured his way to get out of it so we're trying to find some way that we can make the screen or find some way that we can make the door less likely that he's going to get out. I mean we can keep it closed when the weather's cooler but when it's warm we like to have it open we also like it for him to be able to look out so if you have any ideas. Yeah just the bottom of the the screen is the issue because he can actually slip up out underneath it it's not secure against the floor. We did have a look at some of the RVs that have sliding doors at the RV show recently and it's the same thing it's not very secure on the bottom and so yeah we'd love to hear some ideas if you've had any issues with your bug screens in terms of keeping your pet in and if you've come up with any solutions we'd love to hear it. Yeah please let us know we'd appreciate the advice. Yeah yeah Finch is a runner so he's a big strong cat so he can push through a lot of things. So if you have any ideas that'd be great thank you. And then actually while we were here it was funny the people who store they have a RV stored across from us it's a 40 foot class a and they had just started up their their class a to run it for a little while when we started to film the first part of this video so we we actually had to close everything up or we're going to go somewhere else and anyway they stopped and so we just went out to chat to them for a few minutes and it's for sale so we couldn't resist taking a look and it's just beautiful I mean 40 feet it's a it's an older RV it's 2003 but it has about 53 000 miles on a diesel motor so it's barely broken in and they've done a really nice job it's uh in terms of keeping its maintenance up it's got brand new tires and they just did a lot of interior work to update it and it has two slides and even with the slides uh closed there's lots of room I mean it's like a small apartment yeah so if you're someone who's looking for a nice used class a yeah yeah 40 foot yeah 40 feet yeah just 53 000 miles email and uh and then we can connect you with them yeah we'd be happy to do so we don't get any commission yeah so the other thing we just wanted to share with you on this uh video was just a trip as mickey mentioned that i did a couple of days ago i think it was april 12th and although it's spring here cool at night still but it's spring here on the coast it's still winter in the mountains and so i scooted up to garibaldi lake and if you watched any of our videos before you know it's one of our favorite places to go uh but last year i was there about this time and i got just to the lake and then my snowshoe broke and i had to turn around and i just don't like that when it happens so i had to go back so i went back this year and went up across the lake which is you know the lake itself crossings about five kilometers uh visited a hut on the other side got some wonderful you know photos and video of that area and then came back long day about 28 kilometers and and i was tired it's a it's a decent a decent trip but it's a lot of fun and i hope you enjoy the video you don't want me to go no dogs on this trail i don't know maybe i could have brought finch though the barrier just so beautiful i was actually up that little rock up there a couple years ago on my birthday not a pleasant hike so beautiful here though with the snow okay i started down here as the sign says i'm here and i hope to get over here beautiful weather temperature last night was supposed to be about minus 10 up here or tonight but right now i think it's just slightly below freezing so i'm actually overheating a little because the the first 6k of the trail is where you gain most of the elevation you gain about roughly 3 000 feet so it's a moderate but relatively steep grade got about 3k to the campground but i'm okay if you've watched any of our videos when we've come up here before you know that where we're at right now or where i'm at right now is actually probably my favorite spot because when you come around that corner behind me this is the view that you get gorgeous temperatures maybe just slightly above freezing here right now i can see a little bit of water droplets on the trees the highest elevation i'll be i think it's about 1469 meters that's what my gps showed me or anyway all right i'm heading that way first touch just over there and then there's two or three and over here that's mount price that's the sphinx and i can't remember what the other mountain is we'll we'll put it in or there's castle towers it's quite windy actually a little cool because of the wind i'm heading straight over there so right now i'm roughly in the middle of the lake got all the ways to go there's panorama ridge and maybe we can find a picture from the trip i did up there in september looking back here so you can kind of see what the lake looked like when it wasn't frozen and that's where i've come from if you're really good you can see the hut with about several feet of snow on the roof if i get some time on the way back i'll take a quick picture of it have a little bit of lunch break here i'm going to try and get to the end of the lake and turn around and yes peanut butter sandwiches and some coconut sugar chocolate for that big boost of energy to get me to the end of the lake and hopefully back getting close just ahead of me is actually a creek wow that's a creek when it's not frozen and covered several feet of snow beautiful very warm too winds died down at least for now hut's just up over there and if i'm lucky the starbucks is still open i'm slipping my snow shoes are filling with snow they're balling up because the snow is getting so wet if you get water from there i'm probably just over here there's the water source you can see the creek is open and just running goes all the way back there there's a couple little lakes back there which i paddled lots of skiers have been we are the burton hut also called at times the sphinx hut someone has been kind enough to shovel the entrance open and that's sphinx glacier over that way and over that way follow that trail you'd see an outhouse with probably six or seven feet of snow on it maybe not that much some of it will come off just like here all right i'm going to stop and rest in here for a few minutes ubc varsity outdoor club if you intend to use it you should register online at their website and i believe there's a small fee like five dollars or something but you also actually have to pay a backcountry fee to bc parks to be back here so just be aware yeah five dollars per person per night and it doesn't exempt you from being the bc park overnight fee so you have to go online and get a bc parks wilderness pass for this area and and then gbc varsity outdoor club and and given the five bucks is it's certainly worth it to have this hut here for many people a stove which usually doesn't work and you can see some sleeping bags there's some people staying here i think it's supposed to hold 10 there's the first lower layer and then there's a second layer up top over there all right i'm just gonna stay for a few minutes so i hope this uh this park comes out i'm just filming it on my phone i'm in the hut it's probably a little echoey uh just taking a break it's about one third of the afternoon and uh i'm tired it was it was uh you know tough enough just coming up the trail let's make maybe 9k to the lake but then just the slog across the lake it's uh it's probably about five kilometers i'm guessing so that would make this trip return around 28k with roughly 3 000 feet of elevation gain or a thousand meters so it's a you know a moderately hard day if you haven't been doing a lot of hikes lately which we haven't we've been doing like fitness hikes so an hour or two hours but it's so pleasant mentally i found it really challenging though crossing the lake like it's just um it's just this endless straight line and it seems to take forever to you're like in the middle and even then like once you've crossed the middle and you're coming this way it's not so bad but it's just mentally tiring i've been here twice to the hut stayed once i've paddled here twice and this is the second time i've snowshoed here and mickey's been here once we haven't stayed but we snowshoed one time oh probably 20 years ago one of my favorite trips anyway i'm gonna stay here for a few minutes recover probably sit outside because it's nice and warm and drink some fluids have a little bit more to eat and then start my journey back and i forgot to mention i actually thought i might stay here i debated on two things one coming up and tenting but it's minus 10 or so tonight that's just a it's a borderline too cold for me to want to be on the 10 minus 8 i don't mind minus 5 and then i thought of the hut but i thought the hut might be busy and you can see there's one two three four sleeping bags here right now so there's lots of room i think it holds 10 and you could probably put a few on the floor if you had to but i wasn't sure now of course in the hut it wouldn't get quite so cold because you know two-thirds of the hut's covered in snow so the temperature in here is probably not going to be too much below freezing uh this evening so wouldn't have been a bad idea i i would have probably enjoyed just playing around in the snow for the afternoon but i'm gonna head back clouds starting to form kind of to the i guess that's to the west south's over there it's nice there's no wind but i might lose the sun shortly i'll see if i can get a picture of the don't know if you'll be able to see but right over there there's someone tenting not too far from where the snowfall is off the side of the mountain well worth the effort to get here look at the view it's going back over to table and then back up to a sphinx glacier all right it's 20 after two in time myself see how long it takes me to get across this lake however long it takes it's going to feel twice as long just long and straight and takes forever just hard to go in such a straight line in such a big open space but at least it's flat halfway i think warming the sun i don't know if this camera will pick it up but it's starting to snow and you can see the weather's changing look over there you can see how some of snow has come down that chute a little avalanche chute actually just what every one of these areas has that it's been a bad year for avalanches unfortunately this trail is very straightforward not a lot of dangerous areas unless of course you go up some of the slopes all right there's the hut i'll zoom in on it you can see the snow if you're interested in getting a better idea what that hut looks like in the winter time we'll put a link to our video when i was here previously i spent a bit of time there a few people over there i guess they're the hardy ones camping i'm kind of wishing i was now it's 3 40 right now so it's probably normally somewhere between two and two and a half hours to get down longer with snow so maybe three we'll see all right i'm back to my view spot temperature's dropped there's a tiny little bit of snow falling you can see where the snow is melted on the trees it's not now frozen so it's but pretty good day i'm uh i'm pretty happy i've still got about 8.5k to go and 6k of that is downhill so should be fine just beautiful up here love it so much so we hope you enjoyed this video we will be traveling in our van don't worry um we've got yeah we've got a trip planned very soon at the beginning of may 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'll see you next time we'll see you next time