Busy Weekends

When you live in Kits, you're almost obliged to adopt a more healthy lifestyle. I think its something in the water - Greenpeace was founded here in the 60s, back when this was an inexpensive, and therefore very counterculture friendly area. These days, it seems like you can't walk on the streets here unless you're super-fit, deeply tanned and/or sporting something from Lululemon or Mountain Equipment Co-op (both of which were founded in or very near to Kits!). Anyway, the need to feel athletic, combined with all the amazing weather we've been having has kept us out of the house as many weekends (and evenings) as possible.

Last weekend Mike and I went hiking up at Grouse Mountain, one of the local ski hills. You take the gondola to the top of the hill, and then walk up around the back of the very peak of the mountain - when you see the "Caution - Bear in Area, Do not Approach" signs, you're going the right way (We couldn't figure out if they meant don't approach the area, or the bear, so we just kept walking). ;) The weather was great, but of course that meant for lots of (fortunately non-biting) bugs, so I haven't any photos from the hike up...

but here are the views from the top!

(can you see the little arrow? that's roughly where I live)

Mid-week, we decided to take advantage of the warm evenings, and have a picnic on the beach. Ok, I say we, but it was really Rachel's idea...

Mmmm... yummy dinner!

And here's the sunset - our queue to pack up and head back home to the warmth!

Cake!

With all the fresh, locally produced fruit and veg that's available at this time of year, its hard not to go a little overboard at the produce markets. What's a girl to do with all the extra fruit and veg?

Bake, of course!

This yummy carrot cake was last night's successful attempt to use up some extra carrots. (Not so successful: using my too-small, not very sharp $15 food processor to grate the carrots and breaking part of it in the process!)

As I was taking the photos this morning, a cake monster snuck in and stole a piece and then escaped on his bicycle. I think I'll have to keep an ear out for the sound of bicycle cleats when photographing cakes in the future! ;)

PS: I am not the Little Red Hen. Who will help me eat the cake? :)

Augustus Fish

Do you remember my friend Stanley? Ever since he chose to leap to a carpety demise, we have been wanting to bring another watery friend into our home. But with our schedule of moving house every year or so, it wasn't very realistic. Until now, that is!

Meet Augustus Fish, our new pisciform friend! He moved in on Saturday, and will hopefully be with us for a good long while! :)

ETA: I just realised that Augustus has come to live with us in August... but Gus assures me that his name has nothing to do with that fact! :)

Mmmmmm!

I'm not usually one to feature recipes on the blog, but this one was so good that I decided I couldn't not share it! :)

We had picked up some fresh BC ling cod* at one of the local fish markets on the weekend (I so love living next to the ocean again!), and when it came time to cook it yesterday, I thought I'd attempt a version of the cod-based dish that we often get at our favourite Cantonese restaurant here in Vancouver. A little internet searching later (all done during the 40-minutes I had to spend on the phone in order to book flights with travel points!), and voila - Cod in Black Bean Sauce that actually tastes as good as it does in the restaurant!

(hmm, on second thought, this picture doesn't make it look nearly as appetizing as it really is!) :)

The recipe is from the UK's Good Food Channel. I won't re-type it here because I pretty much followed the directions as-written, aside from leaving out the bamboo shoots and celery, and replacing them with green pepper. Mike and I love black bean sauce, and I've tried various pre-mixed, or powder variations in the past - but none of them have been even half as good as this from-scratch version (which I suppose should be as expected, yet isn't always true with me and Asian food recipes). Look for the salted/fermented black beans at a Chinese grocery - they come in smallish bags and aren't very expensive - my 227g bag set me back a whopping $1.09, and given that you only need a few spoonfuls at a time, I figure it should last me a while... but then again, the fish store is just down the street, and I do have to make dinner again in a few hours.... ;)

Bon Appetit!

*Interesting fact I just found out... Ling Cod isn't actually a species of Cod Fish. No wonder I like it so much better than regular cod! :)

Escape to Whistler Mountain

On the weekend, Mike and I decided to escape the number tags and run off to Whistler for a few days. We've been wanting to get out and do a little hiking, and what better place to do that than on the top of a mountain! :)

The plan for Saturday was to head up Whistler, do some hiking, hop the Peak to Peak Gondola over to Blackcomb mountain, hike a little more, and then make our way to the bottom. Unfortunately, the mountains had other plans for us...

Rubber duckies at Whistler Peak

Last winter was particularly snowy on Whistler and Blackcomb. Combine that with a not very warm spring, and you're left with an unusually deep snowpack on the mountain tops. So much, in fact, that the trail we wanted to hike was closed... Well, technically, it was 'hike at your own risk/pay for your own rescue' open, and came complete with deep snow, and unmarked cliffs and crevasses. But that wasn't really the kind of hiking that we'd had in mind, so we gave it a miss.

One of the whistling alpine marmots, from which Whistler takes its name. They're supposed to be pretty elusive, but this guy wasn't much bothered by us.

Just to give you an idea of the amount of snow that's still up there, here's Mike next to one of the 'snowbanks' that line the road from the peak of Whistler Mountain down to the main lodge at the top of the lifts. Not exactly typical for this time of year, I don't think...

Since we couldn't hike (much) on the Whistler side, we decided to hop over to Blackcomb, by way of the Peak 2 Peak Gondola - a cable car that spans 4.4km/2.73 miles (3km/1.88 miles of which is stretched between only 2 towers!) and sits about 486m /1430 feet above the ground.

Here's a shot taken while in-transit - that straight cut through the trees is the path of the gondola...

On the Blackcomb side, the trail we wanted to take was also marked as 'closed', but no one seemed to be paying much attention to the signs (probably because it didn't have the 'you pay for your own rescue' note attached!). So we followed it along a bit, and had lunch in an alpine meadow.

Then we walked a little further, and found a little (slightly frozen-over) glacier lake

The benches were still buried by the snow... yet more evidence of the unusually deep snow pack!

After that hike, it was getting time to head back down the mountain. Earlier, we had wondered why all the designated hiking trails were at the top of the mountains... on the way down we saw some possible reasons for this restriction:

Can you see the bear in the middle of the run? Here's a close up, taken as we glided over top of him. I always think they look just like big hairy dogs...

He's just a little guy, probably about a year or so old. His buddy was down the hill a bit, in the next ski run over...

Later, we saw signs for guided 'bear watching' tours, featuring (most likely) these two bears. Guess that's why they don't encourage hikers to walk down the mountain on their own!

On Sunday, we decided to hire bikes and explore the valley a little. We didn't manage to take too many photos (too busy biking!) but here are a couple from Rainbow Park, where we took a little break to stick our feet in the lake.

We also saw a third bear as we were biking - just a cutie little cub this time - but he was too far into the woods to get a good photo. Let's hope he soon moves up the hill with the other guys, where he's out of reach of the tourists!