Trip Reports

About a week after my first successful bikeraft trip, I was pretty excited about the potential of my new raft and was looking for a more ambitious route.  With the day off of work on Friday, May 31st and clear sunny weather on the menu, I was eager to do something big.  I thought it would be pretty cool to combine riding, hiking, and paddling in a circuit that would involve climbing to the top of Mt Seymour and paddling 5km up the Indian Arm.  I plotted it on the map and it seemed doable if I gave myself enough time.

One of my objectives of this summer was to get a packraft and become confident using it, and scrape the surface of what a packraft is capable of on the south coast of BC.  I have always been interested in multi-sport adventuring, and using a packraft is the perfect way to combine paddling with hiking or biking.  Most packrafts can be carried on bikes, and in backpacks, and are lightweight for what they are capable of.  There are several hiking and biking routes in BC that are either slower or not possible without getting across some body of water.  Being able to easily carry around a boat that is durable and can transport heavy loads opens a world of new possibilities.

Since riding the top of the snowpack on Burke Ridge in what was one of my favourite experiences on a bike, I have been looking for other places suitable for backcountry fatbike riding.  The key factors for backcountry riding are that the terrain is relatively mellow, and that there's snowmobile trails to pack down the riding surface and provide direction.  Burke Ridge is the only ridge in the lower mainland that meets this criteria.