WHISTLER SPOC TO VANCOUVER

The final days of summer of 2008 would see the finest of trip under the finest of means go down in the personal chronicles of two Whistler spocers. S.P.O.C stands for self-propelled outdoor club. The group founded its self after being disenchanted with the incongruencies between the use of fossil fuel combusting transportation and the pristine wilderness they sought. To take action the group has made a web site as a forum to inspire others to demonstrate actually self-propelled trips.

On September 18 Marcus Waring and myself departed Creekside by bicycle bound for our respective homes of childhood thus forever linking our past with the present. Our means of travel would include a bike, hike and packraft. Along the way of our 4-day journey we would encounter wolves, bears, glaciers, eagles, osprey, seals, salmon, hot springs and hill billies. How does one encounter all of this along the sea to sky highway you may ask? Well one simply has to not take the sea to sky to see all of these wonders. Our route instead, took us through the bowels of Garibaldi Park traversing the McBride mountain range and exiting through the legendary Pitt River Drainage.

We dismounted our bicycles at Garibaldi Lake Trailhead and quickly ran up the trail to launch into our Packrafts bound for the Varsity Outdoor Club shelter at Sphinx Bay. Fires in the area provided a truly magical sunset and nearly full moon rise. Wake up call on Friday came early as we now had a mountain range to get across. Heading straight out of the hut and up the Sphinx glacier led us to a group Nunataks collectively known as the Bookworms. From here we got a good look at the crux of our mountainous route just below the mountain known as Luxor. By lunch time we found ourselves on top of this mountain for which it’s namesake holds great meaning for me on a personal level. We could now see clearly into our future and what lay ahead into the Pitt. Thanks in large part to Google Earth we found a ramp that would deliver us from the alpine to our river. Bypassing Hour peak we negotiated this ramp with little difficulty passing through the thickest stand of blueberries either of us had ever come across. A.Y.C.E stands for all you can eat, and so we did on the plumpness that surrounded us. We made our second camp at the confluence of the Pitt River and the drainage coming from Drop Pass. Upon waking up we noticed that we had slept out beside quite a large pile of scat. This was only a foreshadowing for what lay ahead for this is wolf country. Launching back into our Packrafts we descended the upper headwaters of the Pitt floating directly under and around the Mamquam massif. A few class 4 and 5 portages were in order, bypassing what is know as the 3rd canyon on the eastern side of the valley. By lunchtime we found ourselves floating through the 2nd canyon and directly into one of Southern B.C’s most seldom visited hot springs. Warming our bodies and rejuvenating our spirits we happened to meet some of the Pitt locals who also came by for a soak. After asking the usual questions they decided we were novel enough to invite over for Taco Night. We graciously accepted their kind offer. We departed the springs immediately in order to be in time for our dinner date. The once bussilying town of Alvin B.C lies roughly 10 km up from the head of Pitt Lake. Now the area is home to but 4 permanent couples and a smattering of transient loggers and fisherman. Great company was shared over many beers and an endless supply of Taco’s. A late night to early morning saw us off on our final day with several cups of coffee under our drysuits. Something we couldn’t have planned for was the fact that this was to be the hardest mental and physical day of the trip. We had around a dozen power boaters stop by us on the lake to ask if we needed a ride whilst we fought at times a moderate head wind. “No thank you was our response” with a “please don’t be offended by us turning down your act of generosity” at the end of the response. Fact is, I simply can’t bring myself to preach the reasons why I spoc even in this self derived writing. Explaining to people over the buzz of there engines was even more futile so we accepted our fate of being viewed as a couple of crazy’s in “Canadian tire rafts” and continued our voyage. The world’s largest tidal Lake Pitt, really did feel like it by the time we reached the end of it by dusk. The original plan of floating down the lower river to the confluence with the Fraser was scrapped for compounding factors so here is where the rafts were deflated and our final march overland was to commence. We arrived at my parents Port Coquitlam home on a light jog, riding high on the rush of seeing a dream woven into reality. Early the next morning on the first day of fall I saw Marcus off on my childhood bike as he had a short ride back to North Vancouver, and the site of his upbringing. Having just squeaked this last trip into a summer that will forever be remembered I have an overwhelming sense of elation as I tune into the news only to find out that there has been yet another rockslide on the 99 cutting off Whistler once again.

http://www.selfpropelledoutdoorclub.com/