Granite Falls
Welcome to my stag
The traditional stag event generally involved
bar
hopping and drinking. Lot of fun until stomach contents are
dropped off somewhere. I wasn't so into that scene so my best man
(and friends) generously organized a camping trip instead. That
said, it wasn't exactly booze free.
We rented from Deep Cove Kayak center. Deep cove is at the far
end of North Vancouver and sits at the bottom of Indian Arm - a large
body of ocean that heads roughly north towards the Indian river.
The kayak center rents kayaks for 24+ hours and after reviewing the
tides, we went with a noon until noon package. While I've been on
a number of kayaking trips, the rest of the group has less experience,
so we knew this trip would be a new experience.
We were a little worried about the time (the
kayaking
web site suggested the trip up would be between 3 hours and 6 hours)
and we wanted to get to the camp site to ensure we got a good
spot. We cruised by silver falls and had to turn around just to
take a rest for a few minutes. It's a nice little waterfall.
I bought a good chart before we went so we had
a
pretty good idea where we were at all times. By the time we came
up to Croker Island, we knew we good for time so we could hang out a
little on our approach.
Granite Falls (our destination) really stood
out on
the shoreline. So did all of the small boats moored close
by. At this point I got worried again about camp site space (I
know people with small boats often camp half their part on shore) but
at this point there was little we could do about the time. We
kayaked across the channel as a group (trying to be more visible) and
found the nice beach to land. The beach was crowded but the camp
site was only half occupied and we had no problem finding nice spots to
set up tents.
So we attended to our most urgent issue - how
do we
get our beer cold? Turns out there is a handy waterfall right
next door to the camp site and with all that snow fed water running by,
it cools down a keg pretty quick. Crisis of warm beer avoided -
thank you!
We setup tents and Jeremy was the maestro of
cooking. We realized
no one brought cards but we were all a little worn out from our day of
paddling. We tried to use the booze to warm our bodies but that
beer cooler next door turned out to also cool the air around us.
The camp site has a view south down Indian Arm
and
while you can see the glow of the city, because the arm is bent you
can't actually see any of the city lights directly (like SFU).
The next morning the sun rose to light the far side of the arm, but it
was a long time before the sun rose high enough to light the
bottom.
We had a long way to kayak back and the tide
and wind
weren't going to be in our favor for the entire time. Because our
reservation ended at Noon we had to get going fairly early, which was
especailly rough for Mark who was still feeling the night before.
I don't know who's idea it was exactly, but with our reduced beer
suply, it was decied that a morning "hair of the dog that bit you" was
needed before we started paddling. Nothing is better than a bit
of warm beer before you get into a damp kayak for a long paddle in the
sun. Good thinking!
The water was calm and the views beautiful. Being early on
a Sunday morning, the boat traffic was light as was the wind.
We kayaked on the eastern side of the channel to avoid the sun for as
long as we could (on the water, sun seems to count twice). As we
turned the corner in the arm we were exposed to the wind and our
progress slowed.
On the way up the arm we noticed the power generation
buildings. On the way back we paddled by closer to take a better
look. There was a big stone title "Vancouver Power Co LTD" on the
front of the building.
These two power houses we built in 1903 and 1914 and apparently one of
the buildings is still in use generating power. It's amazing to
me how beautiful these buildings are when compared to the utilitarian
(windowless boxes) they build now.
We got back on time, unpacked the kayaks and fell into the honey donut
place. Those were some of the best deserved donuts I've ever
eaten.
Thanks everyone for the trip - a great send off to married life!
Tags: Do Not Tag(11), kayaking(7), building(3), coast(3), waterfall(3), flare(2)
People: Eric(4), Mark(4), Sean(4), David(3), Jeremy(3), John(1)
From: John Harvey Photo > John Harvey Photo - Camping > Granite Falls
From: John Harvey Photo > Blogs for 2024 to 2005 > Granite Falls
From: John Harvey Photo > Photos of Vancouver > False Creek > Granite Falls
From: John Harvey Photo > Granite Falls
Last Modified Saturday, January 21st, 2023 at 23:46:33 Edit
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