A favourite saying of us “Good Ole Girl Guiders” who get together each year is: “We don’t have to prove anything to anyone!” In our younger years, we took girls outdoor adventuring but now we leave that to younger Guiders. However, we aren’t ready to quit so we still get together and do something. Some of us have trouble bending this or moving that, and we’re slower, but we carry on – with adaptations. Last year when four of us met, we stayed in Barb’s comfortable home in Courtenay.
Setting a date comes first, working around happy family reunions, grandmotherly duties, and appointments that are all too often medical in nature. Selecting a place is next. “I can no longer camp,” I moaned.
“Let’s arrange accommodation at a ski village,” suggested Mary.
“Friends of mine were at Silver Star in the winter and liked it,” added Sandy. So we booked a house. Three of us “inlanders” met in Vernon, knowing two more from Vancouver Island would be joining us. Up we drove to the ski resort, late afternoon in early August. The village surprised us with its small size and brightly painted buildings decorated with overflowing flowering baskets. Ski lifts were running and mountain bikers were cycling. In seeking places to hike, our jaws dropped open. The lift that takes hikers up and down from the village would not be running any of the days we were there. “But there’s another one that takes bikes and riders up,” we were told. “It’s only a 20-minute walk down to catch it, but you cannot ride it back down again.” My cranky knee trembled, and we realized that mountain bikes were King of the Summer Slopes.
“Home” was up on the knoll. Exploring it, we found bedrooms on the middle and lower floors, kitchen on the top floor, with living rooms, TVs, and bathrooms on every floor. Camping, anyone? Next morning, we high-tailed it to the Information Centre. Closed! Fortunately, a nice lady saw us looking lost and dejected and rescued us, telling us what our hiking options were. Oh good, there were some – but not many. Feeling slightly more optimistic, we checked out the goodies at the coffee shop. That afternoon, we walked on partially-paved, 3.5 km TinTin Trail, below homes on the knoll grateful for trees and shade. “We are breaking ourselves in gently,” we assured each other, as we headed “home” to toast our successful beginning.
Each day as we set out to hike, bikes whizzed by, their wheels making no sound on pavement. “Say something!” we begged, but 99.9 per cent gave us no warning. Their posted code of ethics makes no mention of pedestrians. With the especially-adapted ski lift depositing bikes and helmeted, armour-plated riders at the top, this is a fabulous place for them to play dare-devil on steeply-descending, sharp-turning trails. Their routes crossed ours – scary!
Our intrepid group found trails to the top without using that lift. Flowers covered parts of the open hillside: fireweed, paintbrush, daisies, larkspur, some lupines and columbines, and the invasive orange hawkweed. Clear skies gave onto sweeping views from Okanagan and Kalamalka Lakes to the Monashee Mountains and beyond. To come down we negotiated a steep, zigzag, roly-poly trail, hiking poles held in a death grip.
Elaine came from Vernon one evening bearing fresh-picked corn; we saw “Amazing Race” on one of our many TVs; middle of the night “trips” were civilized(!) – but we missed the crackling campfire. Yes, we are still out there, doing it, sort of. As always, togetherness is the key ingredient.
