Horsefly trip in the Fall

December 20, 2019

I’m interrupting the flow of weddings and engagement shoots on the blog, to share a more personal post with you about our trip to Horsefly in the Fall. It was a two part trip, with some “camping gone wrong”. And a nice cabin stay to make up for it. 😉

This year’s wedding season had been our busiest season ever. And we were working hard until the night before we left on our long anticipated vacation. We scheduled 7-10 days off on the calendar and looked forward to a completely unplugged experience. In Horsefly there’s no cellphone coverage, which forces you to be all the more present when you’re outside.

At first we considered camping in a tent, but we decided on the car, because the temperatures dropped below freezing at night. And there was plenty of rain in the weather forecast.

There’s something truly freeing about your life suddenly evolving around finding water, preparing food and collecting firewood to stay warm at night. We hiked around in the vast empty nature, without seeing a single soul all day. Well, that’s not true, we saw a mama and baby moose and many, many birds. Sorry, no moose photo, because we just slowly backed away on the narrow trail. It was a “picture in your mind” moment. Not a “let’s grab a selfie with the moose that might get mad” moment. 😉

While seeing plenty of bear evidence on our Horsefly trip (never saw rose-hip coloured poop before, lol) we luckily didn’t encounter any. Although I’m not sure what animals walked around our car at night, haha. Each morning we noticed plenty of new interesting tracks in the mud around our car. It looked like an animal highway at night.

During this trip, we also used a water filtration system for the first time. Beaver fever is real, haha. Confronting how much water you need per day with two people! We couldn’t find access to a stream near where camping was convenient, so we brought it in from elsewhere. Especially when doing the dishes, you easily use 10 liters a day.

So, what went wrong with the camping? The weather did. 😉 It was raining and that just started to wear us out. We didn’t foresee the mental impact of being contained to the car, and everything being wet all the time. Our car is more than enough big to camp in, but when it becomes the only dry place, not so fun. After 4 days we called it quits and drove back to Vancouver.

A do-over

Feeling unsatisfied with how that ended, we booked a nice airbnb for the end of the month, and had an absolutely lovely time (with nice weather).

We both LOVE the area because it’s so vast and wild. You can still walk around all day without seeing people. With proper preparations there are amazing hikes that are yours alone to enjoy. If you’ve read our about page, we have a plan to buy a cabin in 5 years, and it’ll certainly be out there!

The most “touristy” thing we did on our Horsefly trip was to visit the Moffat falls. And again, both upper and lower falls were ours alone to enjoy. In summer that location certainly gets more visitors, but nothing compared to Vancouver and the North Shore.

Horsefly is such a hidden gem. Fingers crossed in 5 years you’ll be able to come and visit us there. 😉