I woke up to a brilliant glow illuminating the curtains. Startled, I quickly peel them apart unveiling a bright yellow-orange sky. No clouds. No sun. An eerie blanket of uniform color was all that was visible beyond the immediate tree line. My brain still foggy from 3 to 4 seconds of consciousness, I convince myself it's some sort of phenomenon which commonly occurs at dawn on a mountain top. What a relief. My head hits the pillow and I'm out.
A few hours pass and I hop in the driver's seat to drive to the washrooms near the hiking trailhead to prepare for the day. The sky is a little hazy but blue. I vaguely recall the yellow morning sky. Weird.
We head down Cypress Mountain toward North Vancouver in search of some internet access and a place to watch the Women's World Cup match. Following an aimless self guided tour of North Vancouver's business district, we stumbled upon a local pub, The Pemby. We took a seat on their porch to eat brunch. It wasn't until then that we discovered the match was 3 hours later than we thought.
I knew the tournament was in Canada but had no idea where the championship match was being played. It turns out it was in Vancouver! I guess that shows we aren't quite at Superfan status yet. A quick online search proved last minute tickets were beyond our financial grasp. We headed back toward downtown hoping to find a spot to watch the game near the stadium.
By the time we found somewhere to watch the match, the bar was packed and the score was 4-0 USA. We ended up sharing a table with a couple from Vancouver. They warned us that “the entire province is on fire.”
The U.S. women beat Japan 5-2 so we didn’t miss all the action.
Rachel looks so excited for the win.
We left smokey Vancouver and headed North on Highway 99. I surmise the yellow sky this morning was due to some combination of low sun angle, refraction, and smoke in the air. Or something like that. The news is reporting 180 active forest fires burning in British Columbia with an average of 30 new fires starting daily for the foreseeable future. We’ve been warned of highway closures and I’m getting a little nervous about being trapped while camping off forest roads. I'm reminded of the warnings of the province being on fire as we point deeper into British Columbia's interior.
Next stop, the Soo River Forest Road North of Whistler.
We peeled off the highway and bounced our way 3-4 miles down a rough road into the woods. The road split at a small gravel lot near the Ancient Cedars Trailhead. Looks like a good spot to set up camp for the night. We made a hearty pasta dinner with constant glances into the woods as we were certain every creak of a pine bow and chatter of a squirrel was a hungry grizzly bear.