Odds & Ends: Pemberton & The Cheakamus River, British Columbia, Canada
In additional to spending the largest part of our time in Whistler, Squamish, and Vancouver, my friends and I took side road trips and did short hikes to see what else British Columbia had to offer on our long-weekend holiday.
Pemberton
Our first stop came the day we realized no hiking could actually be done in Whistler because of the snow level on the mountains. We hiked what we could, headed down to the car, and drove an hour north to Pemberton, British Columbia, where some riders on our gondola mentioned that the water was raging.
After a short hike into a shaded woods, we reached Nairn Falls -- a torrent of river that spills behind an open granite gap -- for a picture-frame view of the falls.
Nairn Falls, Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada
Nairn Falls, Pemberton, British Columbia, Canada
The Train Wreck on the Cheakamus River
Our second stop was on the way out of Whistler as we headed to Squamish. What was supposed to be a quick 5k out-and-back ended up taking a larger portion of our morning. We learned on past hikes and would continue to learn on future hikes -- that signage in British Columbia isn't exactly accurate. Whether it was trail markers, trail milage, signs for trailheads, or the simple instruction on where to go, nothing seemed to be labeled quite right.
After blindly wandering a dirt-road neighborhood and crossing bridges that weren't even on our maps, we finally found our way onto the actual Trash Trail (what a name!) to a mystery that has long haunted Whistler: a train wreck in an old-growth forest -- with no train tracks or tree damage anywhere.
Suspension bridge over the Cheakamus River, British Columbia
Scattered boxcars on the Trash Trail, British Columbia
Scattered boxcars on the Trash Trail, British Columbia
Scattered boxcars on the Trash Trail, British Columbia
The mystery of the train wreck has since been solved, but it was fun diving into the woods, seeing the wreckage, and hearing others hikers' and mountain bikers' theories of how this oddity happened.
