About Me
Hey there, I’m Andrew, based in Vancouver, BC. I’m originally from the UK so my sense of humour is largely sarcastic and self-deprecating. Canadians usually don’t understand it, but that’s fine, I’ll keep trying. If you don’t take things too seriously, enjoy light hearted banter and cynical, sarcastic humour, you might just like it around here. I’m one of those hikers who ideally wants to know there’s a payoff for all the hours of effort I’ve put into a long hike, and that I won’t be disappointed at the end with the “panoramic” views of trees with a marginal gap between them.
Being based in Vancouver, hiking and the great outdoors is a religion to many, myself included. Getting out into nature keeps me sane, and I tend to prefer to be as far away from crowds as possible. I often like to hike alone as I feel it has many benefits, but I also hike with friends, particularly if it’s a challenging backcountry expedition.
Background
Stemming from the UK, a move to rainy Vancouver was surprisingly easy. I hopped over the pond back in 2012 and never looked back. I had zero hiking experience coming from the UK, where mountains are in short supply and most hikes are just a long walk on rolling meadows. I realized the other day that some of the hikes I’ve done here have 1.5x more elevation gain than the highest mountain in the UK, so that tells you everything about hiking back home.
Surprisingly my love for hiking and the great outdoors really only took off in 2017 and has grown stronger ever since. Back then the thought of a long hike with significant elevation gain terrified me, and I had always assumed I was terribly out of shape and wouldn’t be able to keep up with “proper” hikers. After completing a few shorter hikes I guess my confidence grew a little. One day I decided to join a group hike up the Black Tusk and had assumed I’d struggle to keep up and questioned if I’d even make it. The group turned out to be lightning quick, summiting the tusk in just 3.5 hours, and somehow I managed to keep up the whole time. Not only was I blown away by the views, I was stunned at how competent of a hiker I seemingly was. Not only did I enjoy it, I was good at it.
That really kickstarted my love for hiking. Ever since then my self-doubt about hiking fell away, to the point I’d now consider myself on the faster end of the spectrum for most hiking groups. I gradually gained more and more experience hiking with a variety of different groups to the point I became comfortable and confident going it alone, something I’d always been too scared to do.
Over the past year I’d say I’ve done more solo hikes than I have group hikes. Lately I’ve taken to solo hiking on longer and longer outings, with my longest solo day hike coming in at 35km while hiking Frosty Mountain & Windy Joe. It took a long time to get to the stage of being this comfortable though, and it requires a lot of preparation and safety, so I only advise it to experienced hikers. I do enjoy group hiking, but there is really something extra special to being out there completely alone.
Nowadays I try to get out on a hike every weekend and I usually aim for more difficult, less explored hikes (think 1,000m+ elevation gain). The harder the hike the better for me as I prefer hikes that aren’t inundated with “casuals” so to speak. It also feels SO good to reach the summit of a hike with 1,000m+ elevation compared to a hike with 300m elevation. The sense of achievement for completing a big hike is addictive.
Due to the above, many of my hikes on this blog will lean towards the moderate/difficult range and less so towards the easy range. I’m a person who likes to push myself physically, so the thought of a tortuous 30km+ hike to a place few have been to appeals far more than a 3km stroll in the woods. That being said, as this site develops I’ll likely try and head out on some of the shorter hikes to fill out the site more.
What's different about Best Hikes BC?
While there are plenty of hiking resources in and around Vancouver, I’m hoping to bring something a little bit different than the other sites. Most websites tend to focus heavily on the ultra popular, front country hiking trails that literally everybody is doing, or has already done. While I enjoy these hikes too, and many will be featured on this site, I tend to prefer lesser traveled hikes to more adventurous summits these days. I have found there to be very little information, sometimes none at all, on some of the hikes I want to do (and am doing), so I figured it’s about time that changed. BC has an abundance of incredible hiking options for all kinds of outdoor enthusiasts, yet most people tend to flock to the same places because frankly there is little to no information about the backcountry available.
Unfortunately this has resulted in popular parks such as Garibaldi, Golden Ears and Stawamus Chief becoming totally overrun with hikers doing the same old hikes year after year. People simply don’t realize BC has plenty of hiking options with just as great views without everybody going to the same places. Ultimately I want to open up the door to exploring deeper and deeper into what BC has to offer, there’s a much bigger hiking world out there than most people are led to believe.
One of the keys to all of this is that every hike I feature will be one I have completed myself, no second hand information here or lists of great hikes that the writer hasn’t even been on. Every hike I feature will have a GPX recording and detailed information about the hike difficulty, conditions, experience required, scrambling/exposure levels, when to go, how to access the hike (with coordinates) and lots more. I want to take the fear factor out of exploring our backcountry as much as possible.
You can find more information here on how each hike is going to be ranked.
Photography and sharing my passion
After I discovered my love of hiking I soon realized I was taking a lot of photos on my hikes, but they never turned out to be very good as they were always on my cell phone and either came out grainy or hazy. I was interested in photography but never really bothered to invest properly in it as it’s quite expensive and I didn’t want to commit. Eventually, as I hiked more and more, in early 2020 I decided to buy a “proper” camera, learn some basic photography and take it hiking with me to try and capture the beauty of the mountains and actually do it justice. This furthered my love of hiking even more, adding another dimension to what was already a great hobby. Not only was I now seeing these amazing sights, my mission was to capture them in a way that inspired others. Trying to find that great photo, rushing home to edit them and sharing them with friends and hiking groups only made me want to explore more and further.
If the combined love of hiking and photography didn’t give me enough purpose to hike frequently, I’ve now decided it’s time to give myself even more purpose to explore BC as much as I can. I’ve always enjoyed sharing my passions and this is evidently why I’m starting this journey into creating a website. I’ve learned a lot from the hiking community over the past few years, and I love to give back in any way I can. Ultimately I am not sure where this website is going to end up, but my goal is to fill it with amazing hikes and amazing photos. I just want to inspire people to get out there and explore this insanely stunning province.