In late June of 2017 I went to Vancouver, British Columbia for a conference. I took a week of vacation after the conference to explore areas around Vancouver. Below are some highlights from the trip.
I attended a pre-conference event on the campus of the University of British Columbia. During breaks and in the evening we hung out at Wreck Beach which had an amazing approach down a steep stairs trail through thick forest.
I moved location to downtown for the actual conference and managed to see some beaches nearby in Kitsilano:
After the conference events concluded, we decided to explore the Vancouver area. Climbing in Squamish was a bucket list item for me after getting into the climbing scene around the time Squamish's hard sport routes started to be filmed heavily. The climbing there is brilliant and quite compatible with my home climbing area - Boulder Canyon - which are both very high quality granite areas.
With Canada Day swiftly approaching, we decided to make a push to a remote island off the west coast of Vancouver Island for some isolated camping. Our journey would take us on a ferry, through Nanaimo, to Tofino, on a water taxi, and finally to Vargas Island. We crossed from Vancouver to Vancouver Island via that ferry from Tsawwassen. We grabbed a quick lunch in Nanaimo and then didn't stop until high in the mountains before dropping down to the west coast. Our only stop had an amazing view of a still snowy peak:
We didn't actually make it to Tofino on our first day on the island. Instead we camped just outside Tofino in Pacific Rim National Park. I believe it was the Green Point campground. Everyone had decorations on their camp site for the 150th Canada Day.
In the early morning, we made our way to Tofino, got some coffee and last minute supplies, and checked out the amazing gallery of artist Roy Henry Vickers while we waited for a water taxi to take us to Vargas Island.
Upon landing at the harbor on Vargas Island (privately owned), you must complete a 2ish mile hike to the other side of the island which is public land. The hike was beautiful, but unfortunately, my shots did not come out from the hike due to very little light in the thick forest and my unwillingness to break out the tripod. Fortunately the beach camping was phenomenal and we had an amazing sunset while cooking over a beach campfire.
We arranged to be picked up by water taxi at 10 AM and ended up being picked up a little earlier because we hiked out much faster than anticipated. After getting some great Caribbean food at a place called Calypso in the harbor and dropping our friend off at the Tofino airport (it is tiny!), we started the drive up into the highlands. We stopped in a large Douglas Fir grove for a break:
We ended up relaxing in Victoria for a few days, but I don't have too many photos of that sightseeing.
All I really have to say about this trip is that the area is beautiful and I will definitely go back, if possible. I feel like I heard about or visited 100 places while there that would each be interesting destinations for a week-long vacation. From a photography standpoint, this was one of the first times I went out with only a single small camera, one lens, and one film. I really like this style of shooting for traveling to a new place. I didn't have to fiddle around changing lenses, the setup is light, and not having a screen to look at after each shot prevents me from spending a long time at one location and missing out on several other nearby shots. I only lost 2 shots on this trip due to user error, and one (taken at night) is probably a shot I should not have attempted with a 400 speed film and a lens that only opens up to f/3.5. I think I will go with this setup more often and may even write an article about using this setup.
Gear: Fuji GF670 and Portra 400 film. Scanned on an Epson V500.
© 2010 - Andrew Reineberg