52 Best Day Trips Vancouver Sun Review
May 20, 2011
More local travel secrets in updated day-trip guide
Travel writer and broadcaster Jack Christie’s 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver is the type of travel book you keep handy and refer to often – and a good thing just got better with the new edition.
The first edition of 52 Best Day Trips arrived on the scene almost 20 years ago.
British Columbia’s parks, lakes, beaches and trails have changed since then and Christie has monitored these landscape shifts, providing updated maps and directions in his latest edition.
He lays out clearly for the reader the many natural adventures available for exploration in the region.
Birdwatching, fishing, kayaking, ice-skating, hiking, biking, swimming and simple trail walks are among the myriad ways to engage with and enjoy our pristine parks.
Christie’s words evoke tranquil escapes, and a solution to city life cabin fever during any season.
Christie’s 30 years of day tripping in the Lower Mainland have been well documented in his contributions as a columnist for the Georgia Straight and on Shaw TV’s The Rec Report.
Refreshingly, this 300-page resource does not read like a tourism brochure.
Christie delivers from his deep well of knowledge in a way that leaves you feeling like you’ve just conversed with a trusted travel guide about the secrets of each B.C. day trip destination.
Christie’s lush prose flows between useful facts and figures about local history, the wilderness, secret vistas and roadside picnic picks.
Reflecting on a visit to PoCo and Coquitlam Dike Trails, Christie writes, “So calm is the surface of the Pitt River that it exactly mirrors the surrounding mountains in all their glory. On a clear day, your vision, under a pale-blue sky, is of a world so impeccable that it will erase all of the smudges and fingerprints left on your mind by the cares and concerns of everyday life.”
And that’s just one trip to a PoCo park.
The veteran travel writer supplies detailed season-by-season info nuggets about each park and region.
Who knew, for instance, that the Freshwater Fisheries Society of B.C. restocks Deer Lake with rainbow trout each spring to encourage urbanites to “toss in a line?”
The revised edition highlights fast facts in the introduction to each area.
Before diving into pages of location details, the reader can learn at a glance the distance from Vancouver, detailed directions by car or transit and a quick hit of top activities.
Colony Farm Regional Park and the Sea to Sky Trail are new additions to Christie’s guide, as well as details about dog-friendly parks and wheelchair access.
52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver is a delightful, compact volume packed with Christie’s insights and knowledge.
Get your green on at a Golden Ears Provincial Park trail
May 20, 2011
Golden Ears Provincial Park in Maple Ridge was created with both day-trippers and campers in mind.
Here’s a spring day trip taken right out of the new edition of our 52 Best Day Trips from Vancouver
ACCESS: Golden Ears Park lies 11 kilometres north of Highway 7 in Maple Ridge, about 50 kilometres east of Vancouver.
Think you’ve seen every colour of green imaginable?
Think again.
The verdant hues on display in Golden Ears Provincial Park challenge the most panoptic palettes.
Hurry out to Maple Ridge while the spring spectacle lasts—specifically, along the twin trails that follow Gold Creek’s course.
Take your time.
Though still soggy in places, the hour-long stroll along Lower Falls Trail or its companion, East Canyon Trail, is a marvel and suited to all ability levels, ideal for celebrating B.C. Parks’ 100th anniversary.
That’s where the likes of Eiichiro and Katsuko Ochiai head.
Since returning to Vancouver after 25 years in Pennsylvania, the retired chemistry professor and his wife have journeyed to the park time and again.
“We had to come back to Vancouver, no question,” they said. “This is our fifth visit to Golden Ears and the first time we’ve been here in spring. The greens are really marvelous. We don’t travel as much as we once did, when we took our kids to Banff each year,” said the hot spring–loving duo. “Now we prefer to go on day trips.”
Golden Ears was created with both day-trippers and campers in mind.
Logged and flooded in the 1920s, devastated by a fire in the 1930s, levelled by a typhoon in the 1960s, and on life support since B.C. Parks’ budget was gutted in the 2000s, the park continues to put up a brave face, a tribute to its incomparable wilderness attributes.
Jade-hued liverworts and mosses cloak massive cedar stumps and carpet a forest floor jackstrawed with blowdowns. Grassy witch’s-hair lichens drape the boughs and trunks of evergreens like fishnets.
Most striking of all is the creek’s deep-emerald tint, a reminder of what makes both gems and wild spaces precious.
Locally, groups such as West Vancouver’s Friends of Cypress Provincial Park have attempted to counter the double whammy of increased public-land responsibilities—B.C. Parks currently has an inventory of almost 1,000 parks, protected areas, ecological reserves and conservancies, from one hectare to almost one million hectares in size—coupled with decreased government spending.
In its spring 2011 newsletter, the FCPP estimates the system is currently running on 25 percent less funding and 30 percent less staff with 35 percent more parks and protected areas to administer than a decade ago.
Insufficient funds to maintain trails in Golden Ears is a case in point.
A notice posted at B.C. Parks’ website states that there is currently no time frame to replace a bridge on the Golden Ears Trail and that hikers should be prepared to wade in order to reach the twin peaks.
Given the current depth of the alpine snow pack, that’s a chilling summer prospect, indeed.
Better to put such thoughts aside and visit the park’s Lower and Upper Falls while the spring freshet is in full force.
Pack some cake and come celebrate.
Text CR Jack Christie
Photo CR Louise Christie
Original Article
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