Hey everyone! Writing this today from Santa Fe, New Mexico but will be dialing it back to Week 14 of the trip where I’m still on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, exploring places like Gabriola Island and Strathcona Park! If you missed last week’s adventure on Triple Peak, I think it’s well worth a read and can be found here: Insanity on Triple Peak – End of Week 13.

Leading off Week 14 is the day of Sunday, August 7th, 2022. Becca was still in Vancouver, and I wasn’t prepared to waste the day waiting around for her return! So with sore legs from Triple Peak, I set out to Gabriola Island.

Beautiful Gabriola Island

Gabriola is one of the most popular Gulf Islands in the Strait of Georgia. Ferries to the island originate in the Nanaimo Harbour and it’s a quick 20 minute boat ride to the beautiful island. With it being more popular, it’s not nearly as secluded as Texada Island from my previous travels. But it had been recommended to us multiple times as a great biking and vacationing destination for those willing to make the trip!

And I was in ‘Exploring Mode’ this weekend, so I set out to the harbour by bike the morning of the 7th. For walk-ons (and bike-ons like me), the ferry is an affordable way to explore the Gulf Islands. It ended up costing about $10 for the entire round trip – I have taken busses that cost more than that!

Gabriola Hidden Gems

I cruised around the entire perimeter of the island with the idea to check out all 3 provincial parks that call Gabriola home. I also found a Sunday market ongoing towards the East side of the island and grabbed a nice lunch on the water. Shoutout Fire Truck Grill for fueling me up with the delicious burger and “Fire Fries”.

The provincial parks were also outstanding, with clean ocean water, sandy beaches and nice rock formations all hidden away on the coast of this beautiful island.

Overall, I completed about 75km of biking with around 1,200m of elevation gain. Just goes to show that even when you stick around ‘sea level,’ you can still find a bunch of elevation to climb if you look for it! Which, I wasn’t looking for it, but I found it!

This also concluded 3 days of heavy climbing in a row. Between the bike adventures of Looping Benson and Gabriola Island, along with hiking Triple Peak, I had completed about 4,200m of climbing in the last 3 days. And that called for a rest day.

Brunch with Old Friends

On August 8th, I was able to get together with Yannick and Justine, two friends and classmates from Carleton University. If you recall from an earlier blog, I ran into these two at a Tim Hortons outside Victoria, and they were just returning from a hike in Strathcona Provincial Park before returning to Ontario.

We were able to grab brunch in Nanaimo and go for a little walking tour of the city, before bringing them to Serious Coffee to try out their incredible Nanaimo Bars. Might sound cliché but it’s a rule were sticking to – new to Nanaimo, you need to get a Nanaimo bar.

Becca made it home in the evening, and I made her a really nice meal of steak, mashed potatoes, and even brownies for dessert! Yeah, those Hungry Man microwave meals are incredible! Just kidding to all the parents out there!

Exploring more of Nanaimo

The next day I took my bike out for another ride around Nanaimo. It was a relatively short ride, as when I mentioned rest day above, I really should have pluralized it. Rest and recovery days are important for everyone, and my activity level had been high for a long time. It was good to take it easy for a few days.

I took the bike up towards Benson Falls regional park, where both Ammonite Falls and the other waterfall we had explored are located. I hopped on the OHV Road (Off-Highway Vehicle, common slang for the motorheads) and wound my way up towards the foothills of Benson.

I’m always surprised with the amount of logging so close to cities such as Nanaimo. But, I realize there is quite a bit of irony of biking on logging roads and being surprised that logging has occurred. It’s what the roads were built for, even if I like my use of them better!

Overall it was a solid 46km bike ride with 860m of elevation climbing. Maybe not quite the rest day I needed, but compared to some recent activities, it felt like it!

Nanoose Bay and Moorecroft Regional Park

The 10th was yet another bike ride out to Nanoose and Moorecroft Regional Park. Rain was in the forecast, but Becca and I were not going to let a bit of water stop us! We had less than a week left on the island, and we were going to make the most of it!

Nanoose Bay is a wonderful place. It is a secluded little town with a couple nice restaurants, usually great weather, and multiple ocean access points. I’ve met a few people from Nanoose in my travels and not one seems to want to leave. A plus for Becca and I as it also has great cycling, with steady climbs and not too busy of roads!

Well, I said usually great weather. We got to Moorecroft, ate our lunch, and started to make our way back towards Nanaimo when the rain came down. A side note on the Regional Park, the picture above shows a nice round inlet from the ocean. This inlet is quite shallow, and the water gets somewhat trapped. When the sun is out, the water warms up beautifully, making a perfect swim spot most days! Definitely a hidden gem on the island for nice ocean swimming.

Back to the rain. It poured on us for a solid 45 minutes. Dark, wet and cold, Becca and I kept our heads down and pushed to make it back to Nanaimo as quickly as possible. We were drenched, but we eventually made it. Yet we look back at this ride with only fond memories, as it was our first one together in quite some time!

Mt. Horne Hike

Hiking Mt. Horne was another really cool experience on the island. Starting off in the old growth forest of Cathedral Grove, the hike winds through into the backside of Cameron Lake to a bunch of old-timey cottages. Cameron Lake itself is known for its crystal clear water, and the blues of the lake are incredible!

Our hike wound up the mountains on the north side of the lake, and after a decent amount of steep climbing both on hiking trails and logging roads, we summited Mt. Horne. It was a relatively quick hike with a little bit of scrambling at the top. But it was very worthwhile, as it afforded great views of the surrounding countryside and the lake itself!

Little Qualicum Falls

With time running out on the island, in the late afternoon of the 11th right after Mt. Horne, we headed to Little Qualicum Falls. This place had been on my bucket list for quite some time. Between seeing cliff jumping videos emerging from the area and videos of the beautiful and fast flowing water itself, it was calling my name.

We hiked a 2km loop in the area and were rewarded with incredible scenery. Qualicum River flows right through that area creating incredible gouges along the high cliffs. The area has multiple waterfalls, and it was a neat hike to see most that Little Qualicum Falls had to offer.

I would highly recommend this place for a short day hike to see some pretty spectacular waterfalls. Sadly, the cliff jumping in this area got too commercialized and shut down, with barriers along the high cliffs. But, now that I’ve been there, the jumps look pretty sketchy and I can imagine that huge safety factors took a role in the barricades and “No Cliff Jumping” signs.

Day Tripping – Strathcona Provincial Park

August 12th rolled around, and today was planned as a BIG day. Brandon, our friend from Vancouver, was planning on grabbing a ferry to the island late in the afternoon. Becca and I knew that this would be our last day on the island for a hike in the famous Strathcona Provincial Park.

Another long-time bucket list item, this park holds Vancouver Island’s largest mountains. As I said in my Climbing Mount Arrowsmith, Looping Benson and More – Week 13, Mount Arrowsmith is the largest mountain on the southern half of the island. The largest mountain on the island is the Golden Hinde, sitting ~400m above Mount Arrowsmith at around 2,200m. Mount Albert Edwards is also in the park, and is a huge goal for a lot of island hikers.

Becca and I were on the road around 5am, as it is a bit more than a 2 hour drive to the park from Nanaimo. We hit the hiking trails at 7:30am, and headed out to Mt. Elma. Now, Mt. Elma is not a “popular” trail in the park by any means. It was more of a decision on what we actually had time for, as the plan was to grab Brandon from the ferry terminal in the early evening.

The mountains like Albert Edwards and Golden Hinde are basically epics – large hikes totaling at least 35km roundtrip with huge climbs. Backpacking rather than hiking is what I’d call that, and way too long for a normal day hike. But Mt. Elma on the other hand seemed a lot more manageable.

Strathcona and Mt. Elma Review

Our expectations were high for Strathcona as we had heard so many great things about this park. Everyone we met seemed to discuss some element of the place, such as the beautiful lakes, the untouched meadows or the unique forests. We were definitely looking forward to seeing it ourselves.

When we arrived, the first thing we noticed was the “trails” at the entrance to the park. They were massive. It seemed like a gravel highway, and there was probably about 20 people starting out on their hikes at the same time we were. So much for a secluded hike!

As we got further along, we came across the lakes and meadows. I was a little disappointed, and we both agreed that unlike the alpine and other mountain lakes we had seen on this trip, these were rather bland. Truthfully, it looked like our home province of Ontario, and I wouldn’t even give it our “Muskoka Lakes” title.

Once we got a bit further in, the pathways shrunk a bit into something more than a trail but less than a gravel highway. When we finally cut off the main path for Mt. Elma, it finally turned into an more rugged hiking path as it made its way up one of the shorter mountains (i.e. hill) of the park.

The summit of Mt. Elma provided awesome views of Mt. Albert Edwards off in the distance. Without the clouds, the Golden Hinde would have also been visible – but when are there not clouds on the island?

We ended up doing 15km and 500m of climbing in about 3.25 hours. That’s considered pretty fast hiking, but I’ll give credit to the wide walkways and easy trail to get through the park.

On the opposite side from Albert Edwards on Elma was Mt. Washington, the islands famous ski mountain. If you look past the trees in the image below, you’ll see the runs down the mountain – this is also where the car was parked for our adventure, as a reference!

To Be Fair About Strathcona…

So far it’s been a relatively negative review on the Provincial Park. But, to be fair, I think if we had more time and got deeper into the park (such as hiking Mt. Albert Edwards) where less people are, the park would have got a much better review. The shorter hike close-ish to the parking lot just seemed almost like an amusement park compared to the wilderness that we had been hiking in up to this point.

The park is still on my bucket list for hiking plans when I return to the island. But this time, I’ll come prepared with backpacking supplies, and plan to make it deeper into the park.

Becca and I scooted back to Nanaimo after the hike and grabbed Brandon without a hitch (aka, luckily, the ferries are always just a little late, like me)! So the next blog will be more adventures with Brandon, and the start of our trip back to Ontario, Canada! Weddings, anniversaries, cottage weekends and more. All in due time, friend.

Cheers all,

-GoHikeABike