All the Way to the Top - Soo River Adventure

Vancouver is known for it’s proximity to the mountains and wilderness. However, even though these beautiful places are within eyesight it is easy to feel trapped within the city. My biggest fear in moving to Vancouver was that it would be too hard to get to the wilderness and that I wouldn’t go. That I’d end up fat and lazy on my couch or spending too much money for breakfast on the weekends instead of camping. I grew up camping at provincial parks and forestry sites, but Daniel grew up camping basically wherever he wanted. With all the designated campsites booked for months we were going to have to just drive off into the woods to find a good spot. I did a bunch of research and found various suitable places we could camp, so on Saturday morning we took off in the direction of Whistler.

For this adventure we only had one night, so we planned to go somewhere up near Whistler, less than two hours from our homebase in Vancouver. This would be the first (hopefully of many) off-road trips we have taken since making the move from Vancouver Island.

Driving the Sea-to-Sky the first thing we noticed is how incredibly blue and turquoise the ocean is up there, and how even with the drought the everything was lush and green. It provided instant relief for being out of the city. When we got to Whistler Daniel realized that he forgot to pack a sweater or jacket or anything remotely warm as we headed up into the alpine. So we stopped in Whistler, which had absolutely nowhere to find a cheap sweater. We headed into Pemberton and Daniel bought a ski jacket for seven dollars at the thrift store and I bought an offroad map book fro thirty dollars at a gas station.

In the book we located a series of roads around Soo River, and hoped for the best that there would be no gates and somewhere to camp. When we first detoured off the highway the gravel road a really nice, well maintained, we actually passed a Jetta coming the other direction, making the lifted 4Runner feel a little unnecessary. Where the road splits so you can follow the river on the north or south side there was actually a little encampment of people hanging out, so that gave us hope that we would be able to camp in this back road system.

We took the road north of the river first and after about 8 km we turned off onto another road that wound our way up the side of a mountain to spectacular views. From that viewpoint we saw a lake which we thought had located it on the backroads map and decided to try and find it. Retracing our path we went back to the break and took the south road for a while and then up a steep embankment, it was signed at a 4X4 road only in the map book and I would say that is justified, the Jetta would have been ruined in it’s first three minutes on that road.

We knew we were headed to the ancient cedars trail but we didn’t really know what to expect when we got there. We emerged from our wilderness road into a parking lot full of cars. Which was disorienting after being on the backroads seeing all these city slickers who had obviously came from another direction in their volvos. The Ancient Cedars Trails are very poorly marked. We took a route that was signed as a 4X4 only, which winded around and around until I’m fairly certain we were on a walking path and we quickly pulled a 180 before pissing off any hikers. We eventually found the lakes, they were nice, small and buggy. And although we found a couple small cabins and a yurt we weren’t confident that we would be allowed to camp there. Again, very poor signage. So we retraced our steps once again and headed back down the mountain to where we had been earlier in the afternoon.

We winded up the south side of the Soo River and found a ledge to camp on. Since seeing the Jetta on the lower roads at the beginning of the day we hadn’t seen anyone on this side of the 4x4 only road so we pulled over and set up camp. Of course it was only fifteen minutes after that that we saw someone else on the ridge, but they didn’t come over.

We camped in that beautiful spot and it rained all night. In the morning we quickly packed it all into the truck and drove out to the main route, and directly into an Ironman Triathlon cycling leg. Turns out the main highway has loads of road closure signs but we were in the woods. We ended up being stopped at a cafe for two hours waiting for the roads to open again before heading back to the city.

All in all it was a great little system of roads, the views were spectacular and the water was gorgeous everywhere we went. If you know of any places we should check out please let us know as we are always looking.