Trip Reports

Midway through August my friend Ian invited me along for a big day trip to Widgeon Peak to do some exploring and trail work.  The plan was to check out different routes up to Widgeon Peak, explore Widgeon Peaks's summit, and do trail maintenance work along the Burke Ridge trail and the Burke-Widgeon Connector trail.     The day before had nice weather, so I went for a 7 hour hike and bike trip to North Vancouver and climbed the 3 Needles peaks, where I enjoyed some fun scrambling and got some nice photos.  This probably wasn't the ideal decision for my body, but I figured a hiking double header would be a fun challenge.

A few days before the end of my summer classes, my friend Mark contacted me wondering if I'd be interested in joining him on a 3 day packrafting trip to Widgeon Lake over the first weekend of August.  Widgeon Lake is a large picturesque subalpine lake about 20km northeast of where I live in Coquitlam that is a popular hiking and camping destination.  It is typically accessed by paddling 5km up Widgeon Creek and hiking 10km up a steep trail to a campsite at the south end of the lake, but the lake itself is rarely explored due to the rugged terrain that makes it impossible to hike around the lake, and the issues with getting a boat up the steep trail to the lake to paddle the lake.  However, the recent innovation of ultralight packrafts that can be fit into hiking backpacks has made it more feasible to paddle in places like this.  Packrafts are still quite rare, and Mark is the only other person I know who has one. It was going to be difficult to say no to this offer....