Getting ready...

Our canoe trip to Murtle Lake is coming up... and to say that we are excited would be an understatement!!

Besides just normal camping prep, we've had to dehydrate our food and make a canoe cart. There's a 2.5km portage to get from the parking lot to the lake, and a cart will definitely make that part of the trip easier considering the gear we'll be bringing in. We could have bought a cart, but Martin found a plan online to make one - and we thought it would be a fun project. I forgot to take pictures until it was almost done, but here are a few anyways. It's meant to be collapsable (is that a word?) so that we can fit it into the canoe when we're not using it... but not quite as much as one of the pictures shows! We thought we would try it out before glueing the pieces that need to stay together... and as soon as we started moving the canoe, it totally fell apart! Kinda funny if you ask me :). But it's fixed now, and all ready to go!

We underestimated...

...the length and grade of the logging road to the trail head for Mount McGuire! A little while ago, our friend Melanie asked if I wanted to go hiking with her some time. I thought it was a great idea... and when we decided that the holiday Monday worked best, that meant Martin got to come too! He thought it would be fun to try another new hike... the last one (Needle Peak) turned out good, so why not?

Weren't we in for a surprise! About one kilometer down the logging road, a bridge was washed out, so there was no way for a vehicle to cross. We debated going on a different hike, but figured we'd just stick to this one. We had our bikes with, so we thought we could just bike the logging road, and then start our hike. 4 1/2 hours later, we finally got to the trailhead. We did part of the hike, but we were so exhausted, and the trail was so steep, we decided to just turn around. Kind of disappointing, because the view from the top would have been amazing! We did still have some beautiful views of the mountains - and we definitely created a memory for us!! Martin wants to try it again sometime... but he'll have to find another hiking partner for that...it would take quite a bit of convincing to get me to hike that logging road again!

Walking the bikes...too steep to ride----we left the bikes here-------This is where we were headed!

Beautiful view of Mt. Baker! ------------Super steep hill!! ------------------------Reward for the work - quick ride down!