The Adventures of Andrew Maurer

After waking up, breakfasting on oatmeal, and taking down camp, we headed back to the car for our next destination. We drove to a closed and snow-covered viewpoint for lunch and then decided to head to the Green Mountain Lookout, which we had seen on the park entrance map.

We learned from the previous day that snowshoes and gaiters are a must. It was frustrating the day before, post-holing with every step. So putting on our snowshoes for the first time, we set forth on the snow-covered road. We were following some old looking snowshoe tracks.

We arrived at the tower, a big wooden structure overlooking the valley and mountains. Although it was supposed to be a day use area, we figured that that didn’t apply in the winter when the park was closed, so set up the tent.

With my rather lackluster fire-making skills, we got a little smokey blaze going to keep us entertained. Katie managed to find some relatively dry wood for us to use, and there was some dry grass for tinder.

I was up all night last night, alternating between studying for my final econometrics exam and packing for the Road Trip. Unfortunately I had left both tasks to the night before, so I had lots to do. I ended up finishing my 8:30am exam early and Katie picked me up, car packed and ready to go, at 10:30am. After a last minute stop to MEC and a stop to Canadian Tire for chains, we were off!

This was my first time setting out to drive so far north in BC, and we were both awed by the scenery. It was a beautiful day with landscapes ranging from snow-capped big-mountain terrain to cold deserty terrain. An hour or so before dark we were parked at a trailhead in Well’s Grey Provincial Park. We hiked in and set up camp, practicing the knot tying skills we had been honing over the previous week to get the tarp taught. After a quinoa, cheese, and sausage dinner along with a bottle of wine, we set up a bear cache and hunkered down in my 3-season tent. We chose the lightweight tent over a heavier, more stormproof winter tent.