The wasabi pea that likes to hike

Phillips Ridge, Strathcona, Vancouver Island. 23 August to 27 August

Goodbye to Lasqueti, hello to the hills once again. We’d sought advice from Tom Carter (hiker, Nepalese explorer) before leaving, looking for good spots on Vancouver Island, and he came up trumps. Vancouver Island is massive, something like 25 watersheds (most trashed with logging), and at its heart is the Strathcona wilderness area, and the jagged, crumbling peak of the Golden Hinde. Luce and Amelie were well up for an adventure, as long as no grizzlies were involved, so we told them the cougars were really friendly in this neck of the woods, stocked up on hot baths at our first motel-stop so far, and headed north-west.

A day’s hike takes us steeply up, through thick forest, and into the alpine. Amelie tough and determined, her big rucksack strapped tight to her small back. By the end of this adventure she looks complete, same sack, but in her element, like you can see the way the mountains have touched her spirit.

The second day takes us higher still, up some tricky rock scrambles, all the kids somehow keeping those short pistons moving, fed on yet more interwoven tales (mustang, king of the wild, a current favourite) and in and about the mountain tops, threading our way through broad banks of snow. No other soul to be seen. We’re a little band, celebrating being together in such beauty, and that night we find two precious little spots of almost even ground and camp perched amongst steep chutes. We’re just below a rim, a crossing point, and on the other side a broad glacier falls away, abrupt, as if surprised gravity hasn’t yet got the better of it. The kids are careful about where and where not to muck about in the snow, made wise to the dangers of a poo on ice. Wherever we are these days, on a farm, across a meadow from a bunch of grizzlies, out on a hike, it’s become a little ritual to get the kids to identify for themselves what the risks might be, what they need to be aware of. And they do it well.

Our campspot just below, across an ice-fed thread of a waterfall, we eat our pasta on the col, a breathtaking series of jagged peaks against a thin whisp of the vanished sun. The Golden Hinde turns black. It’s cold, and we spice up our basic grub with Annie’s dried marvels, the chillies now coming into their own as the nights lengthen and temperatures drop. So too those wasabi peas.

Lasqueti was brilliant. It gave us so much. But there’s a feeling of exhilaration rising as we climb and feel the space and begin to shake loose. And with the cold, mist blooming from our mouths, there’s strength returning to our bones and thighs and hearts. I sleep out, just the sleeping bag, the burn trickling beside me and the wind ruffling my feathers. I’m toasty as anything – thanks be to Fort William and that chance purchase of a really good sleeping bag in a sale years back – but when I wake the bag actually crackles from its thin veil of ice.

It’s also very special to be alone, just the six of us. I am a lucky man indeed to come from a family where we actually all like to spend time together, and get on, and really care about each other. And I’ve known Lucy for 36 years. But sharing this little journey feels like it takes the two of us someplace new.

Day three, and Becs hikes off alone toward the Golden Hinde. The rest of us follow more sedately along the Phillips Ridge, spotting cairns, carefully traversing snow chutes, getting the kids to really dig in, and rising to a spot where we look every which way and see only mountain tops. Stretching in layers, peaks behind peaks, just as when you think you see the stars and then your eyes adjust and you suddenly see what lies beyond. And then we swim! Of course. In fact right on top we find two pools of ice melt, one free of ice, the other half-solid. And Amelie and Freya (along with Tommy nutcase) leap across rocks back and forth from one to the other pretending that the one without is the hot-tub. The sky’s a brilliant blue, and these children with their young strong bodies and abandon and joy are on top of the world. The whole rest of the trip they keep on leaping into water, Kai too, minutes after he’s put his clothes back on suddenly all intent on taking them off again, like it’s a real treat, oh maybe I will have another choc from that rather tempting box, why not.

As we hike back to our camp we’re joined by three strapping sailors who’ve managed over five days to get up the Hind. Two crew and the captain of the Canadian Navy’s one and only historic Tall Ship, sailing out of Victoria at the south end of the island, and chuffed as anything to have managed the climb at the second attempt. Also absolutely shattered. Captain is the sort of man who had a dream aged dot, wanted to steer that ship, and does. He uses hardly any oil, meanders about under canvas for a living, crew of 20, and now wonders about the north passage. He also once wore a bright-green-wasabi-pea-hat. Which he drops somewhere down the ridge next morning, and we spot it and now wear it, usually the kids, taking turns to be the pea. It’s a particularly good way of keeping Kai warm now that he refuses to wear his woolen number. I half-thought to post it to ‘The Captain, Tall Ship, Victoria’ but the moment’s gone. His mate also gave the kids bright little Canadian-flag badges, which they wear proudly on their thermal tops.

Over the next two days we hike out. That night, camped beside a lake, the rain comes for the first time (we’ve been so lucky), and everyone save for me and Luce retreats to the tents after supper. We light a furtive little fire. They’ve been banned for weeks now in BC, in the face of the worst forest fires in more than a decade, but it’s pretty damp this high up, lots of snow melt still about, and now rain. We’re very careful, keeping it to a small glowing pool in a cradle of rock, feeding it twigs. Wayn (Lasquetian fire-fighter extraordinaire, when he’s not easing off the sweat that comes from a good day splitting wood by wallowing in a home-dug pond and finely balancing his glass of rhubarb wine on water) will fume himself if he reads this. But the smell of the smoke getting into our hair and the little haven of warmth is wonderful, and we talk for a long time.

The day we get out is the day before Amelie’s eleventh birthday. We race down the last steep stretches, Amelie and Luce speediest of all, Kai taking flying tumbles from time to time but just picking himself up, and off again. Then we’re back in cars and on roads but with the wonderful excitement of shared adventure and achievement bright about us. And that night, our second-ever of this journey (can’t make it a habit), feasting on the hot-water and the big tub, our damp tents and sleeping bags and clothes hanging from every door and knob, we go to celebrate Amelie’s birthday. In style. The kids scrubbed and dressed up and shining, Amelie beaming, her eyes so bright, and a Thai feast (thanks Luce). The guy serving us kept on suggesting that maybe just maybe we’d ordered too much, and then we ordered more again, and then every last scrap vanished. And we rolled back to the motel for bright pink and very fancy cake, dark chocolate buttons, candles, presents, happy birthdays. All the trimmings. Next morning, very early, Freya and Kai are up with the lark, determined not to miss seeing Luce and Amelie off. We drive along silent streets to the harbour and wait. No-one wants to say goodbye, but we’ve each stashed away a good nugget from what we’ve shared. Then their very own float plane touches down, takes off, and they’re gone.