This one’s out of order because it was the day before the Caulfield loop I’ve already posted, but oh well. This ride was up the Seymour Valley once again, this time with a tape measure in hand and a plan to measure the big Sitka spruce trees I was familiar with in the valley. Most notably this includes the pair of ~500 year old examples along Rainbow Creek near Seymour Lake, but also a big fella I’d noticed just about 30m off Fisherman’s trail too.
Here is that latter Sitka; not bad right?
I measured that tree on the way out but continued on to Spur 4 towards Seymour Lake. The photo below I’d stopped to listen to and observe some birds, turned out to be a Hammond’s Flycatcher so I added a new bird to my personal list! Took a while to find them, but then got a good show.
Near the north end of Spur 4 there’s a tree called Bigfoot, and I know this because it has a placard saying as much. It’s an impressive red cedar; the one in the photo below left is a different, slightly smaller one about 50m before it. However I peered into the woods here because I figured if there’s two big trees, there’s reason to believe there will be more. And sure enough – there’s a lot of them in this spot!
I climbed up the slope and checked out a handful of them before returning down to my bike. It was a bit of a side quest that I hadn’t budgeted time for, so I figured I’ll come back for a more proper exploration. But for now, I looped around Bear Island and onto Hatchery Trail:
This gloriously picturesque trail leads to Rainbow Creek trail where my favourite pair of old Sitka Spruce reside. But before I got to them I had to take a moment to appreciate the rather substantial size of this creekside tree:
I did measure it, but it wasn’t as substantial as some others in the area. Onto Rainbow Creek trail, and shortly before reaching the old spruce trees there’s this immensely green section of trail that is probably the most beautiful bit of trail I’ve ever experienced. Every time I am in awe, even though I’ve ridden this dozens of times.
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First I measured the tree that sits across from the one with the viewing deck; it’s clearly the smaller of the two but I would say its presence is more dramatic with more substantial branching covered in hanging moss. It’s certainly no small tree as well, as you can see by my insignificance beside it:
Here’s as best as I could do at capturing its presence:
The Bombadil is barely noticeable among these giants.
On the way out along the parkway I stopped at this large tree I’ve noticed before – a hemlock, I believe – and gave it a measure as well. It actually measured up over 2m diameter which is quite significant for a hemlock around here! Thousands of people ride past this tree each week, so it’s by no means a secret, but still felt significant.
Onwards I went towards home. Below is near the mid-valley lookout. I didn’t take any more photos on my way out because I’ve pretty much photographed everything there is to photographic along Fishermans’ trail. But it was a beautiful ride, about 55km all told.
I have a bunch of routes set to public on RWGPS which can be readily found by searching by anyone. I tend to set my routes to private if they are WIP or not really something that I’d recommend someone try – ie, maybe they are just a means to get to somewhere that is only interesting to me. I’m not too careful about it, as the views on any given public route is typically very low – maybe 20 views.
So when we were at the lookout that this route is built around and a cyclist clamoured up the nearby steps carrying their bike, and quickly discovered they had looked up nearby routes and came across mine, I was gobsmacked. Turned out they had a plan for a Bowen Island ride that fell through and looked for alternatives nearby – and Caulfield Loop was there. Thankfully I had added a decently accurate description (hike-a-bike involved!) and some POI’s to the map because I intended for it to be ridden by others, but the area around the lookout is pretty brutal, and to be honest I’d never considered what it’s like to ride in reverse direction (spoiler: not good!).
I rode the Bombadil this time, having done this route on the Evasion previously. Here it is along the huge retaining wall next to the highway at one point:
The approach from the Lion’s Gate bridge traces up to near the highway and then follows along it, for the most part – taking quieter streets and a few nice little trail connections. There’s a long staircase on a creek crossing but the slope is gentle and there’s a parallel path to roll the bike along, so it’s not unpleasant at all. It passes through an elementary school ground with exposed rock that is fun to ride – and no doubt fun to play on for the kids.
I like to have a beer at a scenic lookout personally, and this route is well suited to such pursuits with a liquor store en route shortly before the lookout to ensure a cold beverage. From there it’s a couple blocks of pavement followed by some charming trails that are a bit awkward to carry a bike along before you’re at the viewpoint.
And here it is. There’s no bench, though I’ve thought about trying to construct one. Next time I’ll try to remember my camping chair.
We sat around and had snacks and our lagers for a while, then unexpectedly a rider climbed up the stairs we’d soon be going down. As noted at the beginning, they had found and decided to try my route, aware there was hike-a-bike but was not expecting THIS amount – fortunately, the uphill slog was just about over for them, and they were in surprisingly good spirits for what they’d just climbed up. Going down definitely has its challenges too, but at least sections are rideable that are too steep to pedal up. It’s steep enough I dropped my bike once (see below), but once this lookout trail wraps up, things get better. It’s still rocky and steep in spots and only a MTB with good rider should attempt to ride it all!
A friend Sam, whom I met a couple years ago when I bought a pair of tires from him, has an Instagram account Hotdogzonwheels which has gained a lot of momentum over the past couple years. We share a lot of friends in common, and the ‘Hotdogz’ crew is largely millennial skaters who have taken to the alt-cycling scene. This growing platform was put to use organizing a group ride on a Thursday evening with risk of thunderstorms, and yet well over 100 people showed up, because there are simply too few social opportunities for the non-competitive bike geeks around here.
We rode around Stanley Park, opting for gravel where possible.
The ride finished along the beach at a hotdog stand that Sam had coordinated with to accommodate the surge in customers. It was a massive success, at least from my perspective, and was great to see so many friends in a single evening.
My latest iteration of the Burnabop route series is a single ~57km loop that uses a couple sections of particularly low-traffic trail, and one short section has been quite brutal – its maybe 150m long but features several creek crossings, steep and muddy slopes, and can be so overgrown it virtually disappears. So I’d purchased some hedge trimmer shears for the purpose of adopting this section of trail.
But first, I needed to fuel up, so I stopped at Dageraad for a burger. I rarely eat beef; in fact, quite literally the only beef I eat is this smash burger when I visit Dageraad during a ride.
The trail was just a couple km away after this, and I arrived to find it even more overgrown than I’d feared:
I also underestimated how much work it is to shear! As I write this a couple days later, my forearms are still sore. I hadn’t sweat that much in a good while – including riding. Below are a couple spots before trimming; it didn’t look a whole lot different afterwards because I failed to bring a rake to clean up after myself – but at least stuff isn’t growing into the path for now, and I can go back for a second pass sometime.
Below are a couple sections of trail on the route that are past the rough section I’d been working on – these sections need nothing, they’re perfect as they are! And I was very pleased to see that someone had come through with a chainsaw and cleared the fallen trees since I’d been through last. The heroes of the forest!
I popped out of the woods to a pretty dramatic sky which I wasn’t expecting.
I was then on an old road that leads a short ways to Robert Burnaby park, where there are a couple huge black cottonwood trees I wanted to measure up now that I had the hardware to do it.
There are also some decent size hemlocks in here too (below left) that might be older than the town they’re within.
I measured two cottonwoods, with the one pictured below being the largest at 1.83m diameter. I submitted it to the BC big tree registry and it’s been verified for the list!
And headed home… treated to a dramatic sky as the light started to fade.
Today I had the whole afternoon and a focused goal to put my new-to-me 50′ tape measure to use by measuring as many of my favourite old growth Douglas Firs as I could manage with the time and energy I had available. The biggest of which would be the Temple Giant I had only recently been able to see with my own eyes, though I’d read about for a while. I really wanted to compare it to the nearby Douglas fir that Tay and I found in March while looking for the grove. And, while I’m at it, measure up some other favourite firs that weren’t too far away. I wasn’t able to get to all the ones that came to mind, such as the Picadilly pair at the bottom of this post, but will be bringing my tape measure to them in due time. There’s also the Hollyburn Fir, which is also in the largest size class at around 3m diameter, but it has its own sign so hardly a need to measure.
I should also note, it was a good cloud day:
I needed to get to the Hydraulic creek area so I took Fisherman’s trail up to mid valley. Warm and sunny, a perfect May day. I took the Evasion, as while it’s not light, it’s a little lighter than my Bombadil – and I planned to do some carrying today.
Since I now knew the route up to the Temple Giant, and it was a moderately easy 15 minute hike, I figured it would be worth the effort to carry my bike up there “for scale” and because I’ve made a bit of a habit of taking my bike to trees that require substantial hike-a-bike. The first portion of the approach is quite easy, not too steep:
But my memory of the second half of the approach was decidedly more tame than reality, which is in fact quite steep:
It was quite a sweaty slog for the last section, with me tripping over my bike or myself many times, but I made it and got the photo:
As mentioned, I bought a tape measure for the express purpose of measuring trees – my next phase of burgeoning naturalist, I guess. My measurement is approximate as I couldn’t get the tape to be very level around the tree, but I measured 9.19m circumference, which works out to 2.92m diameter for the Temple Giant.
I climbed back down with the bike, rode 200m down the Seymour parkway, then stashed it in the bushes to hike up to the south fir without a bike. This tree is at about the same elevation but without the luxury of a trail (however subtle). Lots of sinking into hollow ground, pushing through saplings, and climbing over fallen trees – though the terrain wasn’t too steep up to this tree.
It measured 7.42m circumference or 2.36m diameter, a bit smaller than the Temple giant, though certainly has a presence about it as well.
Here it is viewed from a little further away (with sunscreen filter effect on the lens…), and “the chair” which can be found along the way. While there’s no trail to this tree, I know it’s known to others to some extent, as there is flagging in the area which leads up to it.
And for size context I wanted to also measure this Doug Fir that’s right along the paved parkway. It’s the biggest tree along the path that I’ve noticed, at least. 6.4m circumference, or 2m diameter. Not too far off, considering the lack of hike effort required!
I had noticed this Doug fir was pretty big along a small trail that connects down from Lillooet Rd to Inter River park so gave it a measure as well. A paltry 5.36m circumference or 1.7m diameter. Still, not too bad.
That was it for today’s trees, but I will go measure those West Van examples this coming weekend hopefully.
Apparently Saturday, May 9th was branded global ‘big day’ by eBird, a day for birders to all try to record some birding activity. I decided to make that a theme of the ride, and link up a couple good spots for birds aboard the Bombadil. I’ve been riding almost exclusively the Bombadil lately as it’s set up both as my commuter and as the most versatile bike in my small collection.
First up was Queen Elizabeth Park, one of our largest and atop the hill dubbed Little Mountain (it’s only like 130m high).
It was busy and I didn’t put a lot of effort into birding here, but did see a bright yellow fella which I think was a northern yellow warbler? Barely got a photo, but you can see them here:
From there I headed down to Richmond, and out to Iona beach near the airport – a top spot for birds but also really interesting for the flora and view of the ocean.
Here I witnessed serious birders with serious gear, while I had my unserious lager and looked around with my little monocular and pointed my relatively tiny camera at stuff.
I didn’t get anything very interesting for bird photos, but I like this composition of my bike amongst the shrubs while I wandered off in search. And lastly, a coyote I spooked and then got photos of while I was riding out from the park. Here he was tracking a small critter, head turning side to side while listening carefully.
This post will be a longer one, because I just got back from two nights and three trail-filled days of riding to, on, and from Gabriola Island. Gabriola is a part of the southern gulf island range, but located at the north end of the range and just a short hop from Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. Coming from the mainland, it’s the only southern gulf island that is accessed via the Horseshoe Bay > Nanaimo ferry, which is about half the distance from my place as the Tsawassen ferry that accesses the rest.
I wasn’t trying to catch an especially early ferry, so I took some liberties to avoid the somewhat busy main road to explore adjacent streets and connections. Since West Vancouver is notoriously steep and rocky, this also means a fair bit of extra effort for the same mileage.
I arrived at Horseshoe Bay with plenty of time. I added a pack of beer to my pannier rack:
I didn’t take any photos on the big boat which took me from the mainland to Vancouver Island, but here’s my Bombadil on the small boat that goes from Nanaimo to Gabriola Island. I muuuch prefer these smaller boats.
The campsite is only about 1.5km from the ferry, so it wasn’t long before I was set up. I had booked this site specifically after eyeing it up last year – it has a great view of the inlet as you can see, and good separation from adjacent sites. This was my first time with the Durston tent, it’s an X-Dome 1+, and I was really happy with how easily it went up and how roomy it is. It’s about the same weight as my MEC Spark 1, but much roomier and better features.
Once the tent was pitched, I wasted no time getting out for an evening trail loop. Anyone familiar with Gabriola probably knows how good the trails are here – there’s a seemingly endless network of relatively smooth, relatively flat single track that spiderwebs the island.
Plus, there’s goats! And, not pictured, plenty of turkeys roaming around.
Once back at camp I had a bit of food and headed for a walk along the opposite side of the cove before the sun set. I admired the tenacity of the trees growing along the cliffside:
At the end of the trail is a lovely grassy patch to sit and watch the water. A great blue heron was standing on the rock in the distance and barely moved during my tenure.
Once back to the campground, I was treated to a rather perfect sunset at high tide in the inlet, capping off a really nice first day at camp. At this point I was solo, and the campground was still pretty quiet as it was a Friday. But my friend Tay and her partner Gina were joining tomorrow for some social time as well.
A couple more photos from the evening walk: lilacs at dusk, my favourite rock in the bay, and a me-sized cavity in the sandstone.
I went to bed just after 9pm because it was dark and I had little else I wanted to accomplish. I slept quite well, waking up just a few times. I was also on a new pad, a super-thick Neoloft from Thermarest. It was pretty heavy compared to my normal pad, but in addition to comfort it was also much quieter with a fabric-like top and no crinkle!
I was out of the tent shortly after 7am, and tried to make coffee – only to find my trusty MSR Whisperlite had a clog somewhere that all my troubleshooting could not fix. It hissed air, but passed no liquid fuel. So I fashioned a cold-brew by passing the first runnings back through the beans again with my Aeropress, got sufficiently caffeinated, then headed out for a ride again at 9am.
Right across the street from the campground entrance is this trail, which works its way through a wooded area and drops you at the end of a gravel road.
From there I headed north to a section of the island I was unfamiliar with. I dropped down a steep winding road, knowing full well I’d pay for that later, and to the end of the coastal road where a trail began. A local walking their dog was in the middle of telling a road cyclist that they don’t recommend trying to get through on this trail as it can be muddy. I made some comment about having knobby tires and headed off anyway.
To my surprise, after a short distance along the coastal trail I found myself alongside a huge, beautiful, untracked beach at low tide. The sand was wet enough to ride along, and the beach stretched for about a kilometre, of which I rode end to end. At this point it was 10:15am, the sun was warm, and I had the beach entirely to myself.
I continued on to the rest of the trail, which was a bit rooty and technical but mostly rideable. I saw quite an old Douglas Fir, but not a single other person.
The trail plopped me out on the road towards the far end of the 14km long island from camp. I continued to loop around and see the remainder of the coastline, most of which I hadn’t been to before. Along the far side are a series of small islands just off the coast, a marina, and a motel. The traverse back along South Rd was a grind at times, due to a combination of surprisingly hot sun and unsurprisingly steep hills. I stopped along the coast to check out the views and was treated to a Kingfisher doing its thing – very loudly!
After a while on the road, I was back to the central island trail network and headed back in. Below are some of the many points where I had to take a moment to appreciate how beautiful these trails are!
Back at camp, the tide was all the way out of the bay – it’s amazing how far it travels. Where I stood to take this photo was under water just a few hours earlier!
Also, check out this tree that’s still hanging on, despite losing the earth below it quite some time ago:
Around this time is when Tay, Gina, and the elderly duck toller Denver showed up. After some time getting settled and set up, I took them for a loop that sampled some of the different terrain available on the island, hitting a few trails I’d done that morning.
Denver is going to be 15 this summer, and while clearly slowing down and feeling aches and pains, he was able to jog a stretch of trail and absolutely loved it – in his younger years he was quite the trail dog, so this must have felt like home to him.
We walked out to Malaspina Galleries, about 45 minutes each way, and arrived just in time for sunset at high tide. It was perfect!
The second night was a similar sleep pattern – we all climbed into our tents around 9:15pm, and I emerged in the morning just after 7. Waking up to a view of my bike was quite welcome, too:
I should have pointed my tent at the water though.
It was nice to have hot coffee and oatmeal this time, thanks to Gina’s stove. I unhurriedly packed up my tent and kit, and checked the ferry schedule. The next boat left at 9:20am, and it was currently 9:07. Given the proximity, this was doable – so I said my goodbyes and took off, arriving at the dock at 9:14. Tay and Gina took their time and caught the next boat, though we ended up on the same big boat back to the mainland.
I decided to ride around Nanaimo for a couple hours since I was here anyway, but it was a pretty un-noteworthy 22km loop. I did take this photo of my rig though:
Once back on the mainland, I wanted to try a new variation on my route home. The simplest and lowest elevation option is to ride Marine Drive, which is what almost all cyclists opt for. It’s lumpy but not too bad, the downside though is that it is mostly without shoulder and relatively popular to drive as well.
Another option is to push up a steep connector trail to the Whyte Lake parking lot along Westport Rd, and then ride the ‘high route’ from there. Once at the top of the connector, this is a quiet and lovely route with mostly rolling hills, save one arduous climb – but the connector is no joke with a loaded bike.
So what I tried was something between these: sections of Marine, but then climbing up to adjacent roads that are connected by short stretches of trail – the latter which few know about other than the nearby residents. This ended up being quite a bit more effort than just riding Marine despite still spending a fair bit of time on the sections of Marine I prefer to avoid – so in that respect, it wasn’t very successful.
HOWEVER! On one of the streets I noticed a particularly large cedar in a front yard, pictured below right. I stopped to get a photo of it, and looking around realized there were other big trees nearby too. Bigger than I’d seen in a residential area around here – generally, the trees are never older than the homes, but these looked to be older than the neighbourhood they were in.
That’s when I noticed a massive Douglas Fir just about 30 feet off the road in a small wooded area. And then another one along the road. There were also a half-dozen cedars of similar size, too. These were about 7 ft diameter, perhaps a smidge larger, and by far the biggest I’ve seen in a residential area. Stanley Park has some huge cedars but I don’t know of a Douglas Fir this big in the park – the only firs larger I know of around here are up in the mountains, and even then, quite rare.
What a joy it was to come across that surprise, and make my otherwise questionable route worthwhile. I got home around 6pm and had a much-needed shower. A perfect get-away and lovely start to the 2026 camping season.
I didn’t take a lot of photos this past week, but I rode every day and the weather’s been bright and sunny without being too warm. I’m trying to soak up every moment of this before the heat, draught, and wildfires become the reality.
Just about all my riding was on the Bombadil, except a 50km day on the Evasion and a couple short rides on the Twenty. That’s consistent with my year so far, too – the stats for year-to-date mileage are:
Bombadil: 982 km Evasion: 463 km Hillborne: 240 km Twenty: 216 km Scrambler: 0 … haven’t ridden it since Nov 30!
It’s a bit ironic that with my two new bikes coming this year, the Bombadil and Evasion are the two bikes going offline, given that I’ve been riding them the most. The Evasion frame set will be sold, but the Bombadil i’ll hang onto – just going into temporary storage due to space constraints.
The new bikes are a Stooge Rambler, which will be set up as a drop bar, all-surface adventure bike, and a Stridsland Beachcomber, which will be set up as a playful ATB. There’ll be a lot of overlap in terms of what terrain they’re suited for but their builds will be plenty distinct – the Rambler will be the go-to for camping trips and long rides, while the Beachcomber will be kept more minimal and light (by the way, it’ll be titanium!) so I can treat it like a big BMX bike as well.
There is the question in my mind all the time, if I only ride the Stooge Scrambler a handful of times per year, why not sell it and keep the Bombadil intact? While that seems most logical from a usage standpoint, I do cherish those few rides on the Scrambler – and the Beachcomber won’t be up to par for riding the steep and slippery north shore trails like the Scrambler is.
It’s Wednesday, and I took the rest of the week off work. I wasn’t planning to ride today, but while I had my coffee this morning, I started to think about going out into the woods. Specifically, I started thinking about the ‘Temple of Time’ grove mid-way up the Seymour valley that Tay and I failed to find a few weeks ago despite considerable effort.
The terrain we had experienced was steep and unforgiving, and being off-trail in a relatively remote area, not somewhere I felt comfortable being solo – but between my familiarity from last time and the research I’d done, I figured I’d poke my head into the woods and go from there.
I rolled up the Seymour parkway, past the spot where Tay and I went in last time, and kept my eyes peeled for a good spot to climb in that corresponded with where I’d earmarked on the map. To my delight, I noticed a subtle trail in just the right spot. As I climbed into the forest canopy, it continued, and was supported by occasional flagging.
I do have to emphasize that the trail was subtle, and probably only gets a handful of footsteps a month. I ended up losing track of it on the way up, putting me about 100ft further south – but I knew the elevation I needed to be at and I studied the backdrop of the tree, so I was able to see a clearing in the distance that I was confident the tree would be in.
Being by myself this whole time, it had been a pretty silent hike, but as soon as I got a good view of the Temple Giant I was effusively complimenting it out loud. BC Tree Hunter has ranked it fifth in BC for Douglas Firs, with a diameter of about 10 ft, which is about 12-18″ larger diameter than the impressive Doug Fir we’d found a few weeks prior just to the south. Here are four photos of it from different angles, and myself for scale (taken with a 10s timer and a quick scramble from my perched phone):
There are several other notable trees nearby, but I am saving those for the next visit with Tay and perhaps others. The Temple Giant was remarkably easy to get to compared to our previous attempt; a moderately steep 15 minute climb where I only had to use my hands a few times. Compared to the maze of cliffs we contended with just to the south, this was a breeze, but it’s still proper hiking.
This little detour off the parkway is just a skip south of the Hydraulic Creek connector down to the mid-valley lookout, so a return via Fishermans this way made good sense. Here is the Bombadil on the connector trail, as well as at the lookout:
The day had gone from cloudy to sunny as well, even up the valley here which is notoriously worse weather than the city. I opted to take the nearby loop around the marsh as well:
Continuing down Fisherman’s Trail, I let my curiosity get the best of me on a few occasions. One was a small path down to the river, where I found this massive hollow stump:
And the next was to bushwhack the 100 ft or so to this massive Sitka spruce I’d noticed off the trail before. It isn’t quite as big as the 500 year old examples on Rainbow Creek trail, but it’s pretty old! There is something extra special about old Sitkas to me with their mossy limbs and trunk.
No good pictures to support, but the end of Fisherman’s trail was blocked for construction so I had to make a large detour up the Baden Powell trail to the nearby plateau, which added to my already strong appetite – so when I rode past this patio, I couldn’t help but stop and get some happy hour food and beer. I loved that I could park my bike right beside my spot, and enter from the patio, never stepping foot indoors!
Another week flown by, a few good rides and lots of time outside with the dogs as the weather’s been quite nice. Well, Tuesday was pretty wet, but by the early evening it had stopped and I got out for a little outing with Sunny while running a car errand:
That was a new spot for me, in Renfrew Ravine. If I lived adjacent to this, I’d be down here with my morning coffee every day I think!
Wednesday I got out for a nice Deer Lake loop, what has become an established route for me, taking MUPs and small trails to connect up a largely car-free 25km figure-8 shaped loop. I wanted to go to Deer Lake in part because their rhodo-heavy garden should be coming into bloom now, and indeed it was looking pretty good:
Years ago I found a tree that is actually remarkably comfortable to sit in, overlooking the lake. It’s become a spot for me to have a beverage on many occasions since.
The following day I went back out on the Bombadil after work, this time for a two-bridge loop of North Van and up to the pond at Murdo Frazer Park for one of my favourite benches:
Sadly did not see any turtles today, and I even had my monocular with me. I took a series of trails that largely parallel the highway to get back east, a route that has become a favourite of mine – certainly more effort than required to get where I was going, but really enriches the ride.
By the time I was most of the way home, the light was starting to fail, and the sky was looking really good:
I took Friday off riding except for two short trips for a lunch meet and to pick up sushi, then Saturday was the Crescent 200 at Shaughnessy Park. It’s our version of LADDS500, essentially – riding around in a 0.6km loop for as many times as we wish, 200 being the “official” goal. I rode my Raleigh Twenty, in the spirit of bringing something less practical, and ended up doing somewhere around 70 laps? In the end it was 53km door to door, my second longest ride on the Twenty. I met some new people and saw lots of friends – a really great day.
