Skirl | Dan Dickinson

Random catch-up from the last week, including some highlights of the thousands of feed items I just blazed through:

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George Carlin died last Sunday. I had no idea. That’s what happens when you’re out of tv/internet/newspaper range for 4 days. Carlin was an important entertainer, a rare animal indeed. Jessica Hagy from Indexed puts it nicely:

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I watched three movies on our trip, mainly on the flights from and to Toronto: Charlie Wilson’s War (which I never did finish…our descent began before I caught the end, but I don’t feel like I missed that much), Ocean’s 13 (yawn…the last two have just been issues of GQ magazine put to celluloid) and Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead (and you shall know it by its bleak, bleak trail of dead…yeesh). Philip Seymour Hoffman was the best thing about the last, and the only good thing about the first. If that guy had “leading man good looks” he’d be a superstar. I suspect in about ten years he’ll be regarded as one of the finest actors of our generation, if not the finest.

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Richard Florida pointed to the chart below, by Dave Lakeland, showing the cost of gas vs. the GDP per capita (all in the US) for the past twenty years. Very interesting.

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I actually quite look forward to this phase of a trip, where we can finally see how all the pictures look (Nellie’s 22″ iMac gives a much clearer idea than my tiny little sub-laptop) and I can write reviews of the hotels in TripAdvisor. Three of the hotels will be getting rave reviews; one will get faint praise and one mild scorn. Mmmmmm, feedback.

We got home about an hour ago. Lots of cat hair (et cetera) to clean up, but it’s kind of good to be home anyway. Even if there are no mountains here.

Or oceanfront promenades.

Or alpine lakes.

Or clean air.

…

Dammit.

Tonight was a nice wrap-up to our trip: I got to see Stanzi for the first time in ages, and I finally got to meet her fiance Trent. We all went to dinner at Chambar (yum…Belgian beer!) and caught up. They just finished a 200km canoe trip down some rivers up north, which made our little hikes seem pretty sad.

Most exciting of all for Nellie: seeing Alessandro Juliani (aka Lt. Gaeta of Battlestar Galactica) eating dinner at the restaurant.

Now we’ll just relax and get some rest before our flight back tomorrow. As much as I hate the idea of the trip being over, it’ll be nice to get home again.

Just got home from the Yaletown Brewing Co. where we watched Spain beat Germany 1-0 in the Euro final. Two things I love about the YBC, even more than their sister Brewhouse in Whistler:

1. The music. Last night, when the DJ started after 9:00, they played some really good songs, including “7/4 Shoreline” by Broken Social Scene, “First Day of Spring” by The Gandharvas, “Common People” by Pulp and “Connection” by Elastica. Surprising stuff for a pub that hosted by no less than 3 stagettes in the time it took us to eat dinner.

2. The men’s washrooms have Dyson Airblades. It seems funny to refer to a washroom hand dryer as cool…but it’s cool.

And now we wait to see what else our last full day in Vancouver — and on vacation — brings. Still waiting to see if we’ll meet up with Stanzi this afternoon, but other than that I think we may just rest, pack, do our web check-in and find a quiet place to eat dinner.

After a big breakfast downstairs at the hotel, Nellie and I went down to the marinaside and rented some bikes from Reckless. For $30 we got two bikes for 2 hours (though we only stayed out for about 75 minutes) and cruised around the waterfront. We went all the way down past English Bay (where I stayed during my first visit to the city) to the entrance of Stanley Park, all the way back around False Creek past BC Place and GM Place and Science World, then back to Yaletown to drop off the bikes.

There were tons of cyclists, roller bladers, walkers, strollers…everyone was out. It doesn’t hurt that it’s another beautiful day. David Miller should force every Toronto city councilor to come do this.

Just about to jump in the shower and head off to the pub to watch the Euro Cup final.

It really is amazing how you can change your scenery out here in just a few hours. This morning at 10:00 we took the gondola up Whistler Mountain for a look around. The best parts: seeing a bear (a small brown) below the gondola about halfway up; taking lots of pictures of a marmot as he sunned himself at the top of the mountain; the open-air chairlift up to the peak of the mountain and the views from up there. It didn’t take long, but the views were as good (if less intimate) as anything we saw around Yoho.

We came back down the chairlift & gondola and jumped in the car. In spite of all the construction on the highway down to Vancouver we made pretty good time, and after a bit of complication (stupid Olympics construction) we found the car rental drop-off and walked the bags down to the hotel. We’re staying at the Opus, which is undeniably pretentious and poncy, but it’s also very comfortable and in an awesome neighbourhood. I’ve never spent time in Yaletown before (in fact, I just realized today that I haven’t been to Vancouver since 2001!) but it’s a cool neighbourhood. We found another brew pub right around the corner…same place, basically, as the place we frequented in Whistler. It happens to be right next to the chocolate place that I wanted to check out. We did a little shopping, ate a little gelato, walked down by the marina, explored our surroundings, showered & lounged in our room a bit…sweet. Hard to believe that 6 hours ago we were at 7,000 feet taking pictures of giant rodents.

Opus actually charges $15/day for internet access (apparently they’re taking lessons from Rogers) so I won’t bother posting this until tomorrow. Let’s just assume that we had a great night at the afore-mentioned brew pub.

That picture has nothing to do with what we did today. That’s a picture of Takkakaw Falls, back in Yoho National Park. Today nothing we did was terribly picture-worthy; we just drank in the sun all day.

Well, okay, that’s not entirely true. We went for a quick nature walk this morning out to Lost Lake and back, and then we started drinking. Couple of beer here, then back to the room, then couple of beer there, then back to the room, then out for more beer. It was such a beautiful day…it made for a perfect vacation day.

‘Twas a long and winding road, my friends. We started out from Kamloops this morning after a superginormous breakfast, happily waving goodbye to our ugly Four Points hotel room. We drove west through the desert-like sage and scrub, through Cache Creek (dubbed “the armpit of the world” by a recent acquaintance) and southwest on highway 99. It was a long, boring drive along the Fraser river canyon; both of us felt nauseous by the time we reached Lillooet.

We switched drivers, and as it turned out, I had all the fun. Highway 99 from Lillooet to Pemberton (38 km from Whistler) is crazy…drive up a mountain, drive down a mountain, repeat. Lots of tight turns and short straightaways and 15% grades and runaway lanes. My friend M² was right…it was like a video game. Good times. Anyway, we arrived at Whistler early in the afternoon and checked in.

Our hotel is nice, and our room is niiiiiiiice. Lots of space, very new, very comfortable, and a pretty view over the village (see above). The village itself is, as our hike book says, “a wee bit homogeneous and precious” and overrun by skateboard-toting teenagers with Burton tattooed to their foreheads, but pleasant enough. We had a bit of a stroll around and stopped for a beer (or three) at the Brewhouse, also at the suggestion of M², before coming back to the room to veg and plan for tomorrow. Looks like hiking isn’t in the cards; maybe a little mountain biking. We shall see.

We just arrived at the Pan Pacific Whistler Village Centre. All we wanted after a long day of twisty, turn-y driving was a decent, functional room…but wow. This is a suite, and it is (sorry) sweet. Kitchen, two TVs, balcony overlooking the village, sofa, divan…I kind of didn’t expect this based on how little I paid. Hooray for off-season!

I’ll blog more about the drive later. Right now we’re gonna unpack, de-compress and maybe explore the village a little.

Hey kids. We’ve finally returned to the land of cell phone signals and internet connections.

O’Hara gave us a proper send-off; last night, after dinner, the sun finally broke through the clouds and painted the mountains for us one last time. We stayed out on the porch until nearly 10:00, just staring. It was hard to tear ourselves away.

This morning it was one last breakfast before taking the bus down the hill, and heading west into the BC interior. The drive was beautiful, but Yoho spoils a nature-lover, so we almost felt numb to the beauty we were driving through. We stopped to eat lunch — another delicious one prepared by the folks at the lodge before we left — at the rather disappointing Rogers Pass, then stopped again just outside of Revelstoke to drive up the mountain to a few lookouts, but then just booted it for Kamloops. The country changes a lot in those ~400 km…from mountains to hills to huge lakes to arid farmland just before Kamloops.

Our room…well, it’s a Four Points. Functional, but it’s not pretty or particularly scenic. Hard to adjust down after what we’ve enjoyed for the past four days. But it has a comfy bed and a big fridge and a decent restaurant downstairs and an internet connection, so it’ll do for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll drive to Whistler; how we’ll get there is still up in the air. Stay tuned.

I’ve published the blog posts that I wrote up in the past four days, so you can read all about the trip so far.

One thing I have learned about the Rockies: the weather will switch from sun to rain at a moment’s notice, and will often overlap. Take today: it rained on and off several times, but each time the beginning or the end of the rain would be accompanied by brought sunshine. In any case, we didn’t let it lull us into a false sense of security; we opted out of any hikes, just taking a couple of walks (where we saw a nice alpine meadow and some gophers…I think) and sticking close to the cabin. Anyway, Nellie’s knees wouldn’t have allowed for much activity even had it been sunny.

Soon we’ll eat dinner and pack and have a glass of wine on the front porch, and after that we’ll go. I’ll leave here disappointed that we didn’t do everything we wanted to do…trail conditions kept us from seeing Lake MacArthur or the Opabin Plateau, while weather and injuries kept us from plan B today. Coming up to Lake O’Hara wasn’t a bad experience; far from it. The cabin was nice, the view was spectacular, we got to re-do the hike to Oesa, we had good food and good wine, and most importantly, we got to spend two days together in what’s rightly called the jewel of the Rockies. Nothing about that is bad. It just could have been brilliant.

So: onward. By this time tomorrow we should be in Kamloops, the halfway point of our trip. I guess if you’re reading this, it’ll mean that we’ve already reached Kamloops and the bountiful internet connections therein.

21 months ago Nellie and I took a bus up to a spot in Yoho called Lake O’Hara, where we then hiked up to another lake called Oesa. It was one of the most incredible places we’d ever been to, almost like a natural cathedral. There was no one else around, the water was perfect…it was perfect. We took a few pictures, but decided to take a video to capture most of the cirque. We then hiked back down and took a bus back to the disappointing world before we realized that the video didn’t work. The camera was new, we were still figuring it out…we were not very pleased with ourselves. We resolved to go back and try again.

Way back in November we booked two nights at Lake O’Hara Lodge so that we wouldn’t have to worry about bus times when deciding which hikes to do. We also booked a lakeside cabin so we’d have a nice view…and man, do we ever. I think we actually got the best view of any lakeside cabin…no trees in front of our porch and we stare straight out at the lake and up at the Oesa cirque. Amazing.

I’m happy to say that today we made it back to Oesa, though it was quite a different experience. First, there were a LOT of people on the trail…not like last time when we only encountered a few other hikers, and none on our entire journey up. We were also much less lucky with the weather this time; our first time up we got sunny and +15 instead of the -1 and flurries that was forecast. Today the forecast was rain and rain it did. We were just coming back down when it started, and we got well and truly soaked. Luckily the sun came out immediately after (during, to be completely accurate) and we were dry by the time we got back down. We also saw more animals this time: a marmot to go along with the chipmunks, mice and pikas (which we saw last time). We had a better lunch this time (the lodge packs a trail lunch for you…some yummy wraps and veggies and an apple and nuts and a cookie!) which we sat and ate at Oesa. Finally, the biggest difference: we couldn’t see the beautiful blue water of the lake; it’s still frozen over. On the plus side, the snow cap was much bigger; we could see little snow slides happening way above us.

The hike itself was spectacular, just like last time. The view of Lake O’Hara and the lodge, the towering mountains all around, the glaciers hanging off ledges, the lakes and streams and waterfalls…it’s about as rewarding a 4-hour hike as I can imagine. Of course, it wouldn’t take that long normally, but Nellie’s knees were really bothering her by the time we turned for home so it was slow going. I also found, when we got back to the cabin after the traditional post-hike carrot cake, that my neck is massively sunburned. Take those two things, add in the weather forecast (more rain) and the fact that the next trail we really want to do – Lake MacArthur – is still too snowy in parts, and I think the plan for tomorrow has been altered to just be a simple hike around Lake O’Hara itself, maybe some canoing, and possibly some sitting on the porch and reading while we stare at one of the most spectacular views ever. I don’t think that would suck so bad.

We had dinner at the lodge tonight…pretty damn good. Tasty salad, parsnip soup, a vegetable & goat cheese brochette (?) and a rhubarb mousse for dessert, along with some very tasty microbrews and a nice bottle of BC Riesling. It occurred to us that we were WAY under the average age – most people at the lodge seem to be retirees – but the entire staff is very young, and our wine steward (who’s from New Glasgow and went to SMU!) liked us. After dinner we decided to take another walk around O’Hara and get some shots with the different light. We got some really nice ones, including one of an arctic hare near the cabins. We came back and relaxed on the front porch with a book and a sip of wine…it’s now 10:13 and we just retired from the porch…it’s still light outside!

It kills me that I can’t blog or upload pictures right now. Y’all would die of jealousy if you could see this view. Night!

It was sunny and 27 yesterday when we arrived, so I guess we couldn’t expect the great weather to hold up. Today we got our first taste of Rockies rain. It was raining when we woke up, in fact, and we thought we might be stuck indoors for the whole day, but we got up and prepared just in case. We waited it out while we re-packed for Lake O’Hara and by 9:30 the rain had stopped. We finished prepping and jumped in the car.

We drove back up the same road as yesterday, to the Takkekaw Falls parking lot, which acts as the trailhead to the Iceline trail, which our hike books says is pretty awesome. It was also much longer and more difficult than any other hike we’ve done, so we were curious about how we’d handle it. We ended up doing A LOT of switchbacks up the side of the mountains along a narrow trail, which was quite often covered with snow or running water. We got above the tree line and scrambled along rocky slopes to get even higher. We were aiming for a highpoint about 6.4km up the trail (about 700 metres higher than the valley floor) and missed slightly, but actually got (we think) an even better vantage point just a little north.

It was well worth the trip up. Not just at the top, but the whole way…we were looking out at the Yoho valley, and could see the thunderous falls directly across from us. Actually, at the highpoint, we were higher than the falls’ “launch” so we had a great view of the whole thing. We jumped streams and looked down ravines. We were high enough that we could feel the cold air rolling off the Emerald glacier just above us. A chipmunk befriended us while we sat and ate our sandwiches, but I fear we soured the relationship when we wouldn’t give him food. It was a truly spectacular venue.

We turned to head back down. About fifteen minutes after we did, some drizzle started. Then a shower. Then heavier showers. Then hail. Then showers again, then hail again, then back to heavy showers. Around the time it turned to hail we’d made it back to the trees, but they didn’t help much…not much canopy up there. Despite the downhill switchbacks being the hardest sections on Nellie’s knees, she handled it like a trooper. It took us a while to descend those 700m, so by the time we got to the valley floor we were pretty wet…good thing we brought shells with us to keep off most of the rain. In the last few minutes of the walk, just as we passed the falls, the sun came out and welcomed us back to the car. We drove home, wiped.

Two hot baths and some chocolate & wine later, we drove over to the nearby town of Field for dinner at Truffle Pigs. We’d eaten there on our last visit, and it was fantastic. I wasn’t as blown away this time, though it was still VERY good, and not at all what you’d expect in a town as small as Field, which really just looks like a train depot that washed up on the banks of the river. Spicy spring rolls and pasta and salmon and apple pie with ice cream and beer (Propeller from Halifax!) hit the spot. We even stopped at Cherchez la Vache (across the street in Truffle Pigs’ former location) to buy some treats. It was they who put together the wonderful gift basket we found in our cabin yesterday.

And now we’re home again. I think we would both be happy to go to bed early, except it doesn’t get dark here until 10:30, so I shall finish packing and then read before passing out.

Next up: two days at Lake O’Hara! The bad news is we’re already tired; the good news is that today was a harder hike than the next two days of hiking combined. Here’s hoping the weather holds up!

Wow. What a first day. The combination of getting up early, being 2 hours behind our body clocks and the extra-long days up here is making it hard to stay awake, so I’ll have to be brief.

Our flight was really good, actually. The lady who checked our bags was great, our flight was smooth and on time, and two movies kept me entertained until suddenly we were on the ground. There was also a member of the flight crew who liked my music snob t-shirt, so I gave her the website address and chatted a bit. She went on tour with the Rolling Stones a while back, so she had some good stories.

The rental car pickup and drive out of Calgary wasn’t problematic, it was just…slow. Lineups, traffic, etc. so we hit Canmore later than expected. Some groceries later we tried to find Crazyweed for lunch, but they’d moved and we couldn’t be arsed, so we skipped lunch altogether. We drove through construction and slow traffic past Banff, past Lake Louise and into Yoho, where we pulled into our lodge…and it hit me. I was on vacation. I didn’t feel like I was on vacation until I pulled in there, put it in park and cut the engine. Now…now the fun could start.

Check-in was quick and friendly, and we checked out our cabin…zowie. Beautiful! Bigger than Moraine Lake Lodge, nice big porch/veranda, couch, table…very nice indeed. A great added touch was the gift basket in our room…we were amazed at how well they treated their guests! Then Nellie read the card…it wasn’t from the staff, it was a gift basket from my mom and dad! “Happy Hiking” was the message, and it included wine and chocolate and candles and an art puzzle and a huge platter of cheese & crackers (which we found much later) so were blown away! Thanks mom & dad!! What a fantastic way to start the adventure.

We didn’t linger long in the cabin, just changed and jumped back in the car. The lodge is on the same road as Takkekaw Falls, which we missed last time, so we were on a mission. A few minutes later we were walking right up to it…I mean right up to it. It’s a huge waterfall, but I could climb nearly up to the bottom of the cascade. Got a little wet mind you; Nellie stayed farther back and shot.

Back to the cabin to get changed and have a glass of wine (and chocolate!) before dinner at the lodge. Dinner was amazing! Caramelized scallops and orange pickerel for Nellie; a ridiculously good goat cheese dish and peppery barley risotto for me. No dessert necessary; we had a ton of cheese at home. We did finish off our bottle of wine on the patio though, staring out at the the river and mountains, before retiring to our cabin for more wine and staring at nature.

A pretty amazing first day, all in all. We both feel like we’re in mountainous heaven, and can’t wait for tomorrow. Now…for sleep!!

Hello children. By the time this post is published, Nellie and I will be on our way to the airport, all sleepy-eyed and rumble-tummied. Barring anything interesting happening while waiting for our flight to take off, this will likely be the last substantial blog post for a while. The first four days of our trip will be spent just out of range of Bell’s wireless coverage, judging by their map. [pdf]

Hopefully when we reach Kamloops (on the 25th) we’ll have an internet connection and some time to sort through the hundreds of pics we’re sure to take around Field. Keep an eye on my Flickr photostream (or the RSS feed, if you have a reader) for the first few; when we get back to Toronto I’ll create a proper summary set like the one from the last trip.

Until then, stay tight, tigers. We’ll see you on the other side of the continental divide.

Christopher Hume has an excellent column in today’s Toronto Star. Ostensibly about the fate of the Gardiner Expressway, which runs scar-like across the city’s waterfront, it’s really about politics and “civic cowardice,” as Hume calls it.

Last week, the board of Waterfront Toronto voted to launch an environmental assessment to study dismantling the east end of the Gardiner. Mayor David Miller, a board member, declared that this was the first proposal he’d seen that was doable. He was talking about the politics of demolition, not the reality.

It seems that Miller, not known for vision or boldness, won’t be the mayor who leads Toronto into the 21st century. With leaders such as Prime Minister Stephen Harper and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, he will be remembered as one who tried to prolong a period of history fast winding down. It will turn out to have been a blip, a mere two generations whose lives were based on utterly implausible assumptions about endless cheap energy and land.

It really is sad, what’s become of David Miller. There was such optimism when he took the mayor’s office, and it’s been slowly beaten down by the bureaucracy of city hall, despite the hopes that he might climb out of the quagmire.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him… The unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself… All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” -George Bernard Shaw

Time for David Miller to get unreasonable.

My free DVDs from the special Blu-Ray savings offer (free DVDs when you bought a Blu-Ray player back around Christmas) finally arrived…and they got one wrong. I know, I know, they’re free, but…six months later and they don’t even deliver the one I really wanted? Not great.

It was the kind of offer where you had to pick one film from each of five groupings, and some of those groupings contained naught but rubbish. Here’s what arrived, in order of me giving a shit:

• Full Metal Jacket
• American Psycho
• S.W.A.T.
• Pirates Of The Caribbean
• Hart’s War

Full Metal Jacket: yay. No question, I wanted that one. American Psycho…sure. Whatever. S.W.A.T. I’m only keeping because Nellie wanted the eye candy. Pirates of the Caribbean…bleh. Hart’s War? Hell no. I ordered The Prestige, but I guess they ran out. I’ll probably sell or trade those last two. Anybody want?

As it happened, these arrived on the same day as my most recent order from Indigo: No Country For Old Men and Juno (both on Blu-Ray), and Once (which, unfortunately, is only in lo-fi). Even if I don’t keep Pirates and Hart, my Blu-Ray stock just went up by more than half.

From the BBC: 50 office-speak phrases you love to hate

“My favourite which I hear from the managers at the bank I work for is let’s touch base about that offline. I think it means have a private chat but I am still not sure.”

I can’t believe they missed “Open the Kimono.”

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Speaking of opening the kimono*: from MSNBC: Japan makes robot girlfriend for lonely men

She is big-busted, petite, very friendly, and she runs on batteries. A Japanese firm has produced a 15-inch tall robotic girlfriend that kisses on command, to go on sale in September for around $175, with a target market of lonely adult men.

Clearly, this is going to end in electrocution.

* I did not plan that segue, I swear to you.

Today is one of my niece’s fifth birthday. My brother sent over some pictures of her party, including one where she’s holding a spoon like a lightsaber. He also included a video of her, in the back of their minivan, clutching a stuffed sheep (I think?), singing along with the Foo Fighters. Not well, mind you, but she’s givin’ er.

This gives me faint hope for the musical taste of the next generation of Dickinsons, which I had all but written off when he sent me video of my nephew dancing along to “Bootylicious.” The time before that it was Great Big Sea.

I guess all my prayers for their souls are finally starting to pay off. Hear me now, kids: “Dylan…Dylan…Dylan…”