Camping and Biking in Squamish in our Roadtrek Zion

So we're in Squamish at the Mountain Fun Base Camp campground. It's the third weekend in April and the weather's finally starting to look nice after weeks and weeks it seems of rain. Staff here actually have been very helpful. We checked in online and showed up and looked at some of the sites, they were very accommodating and we wanted to move. We're actually in spot number seven. It's a large pull-through site so the bigger that we need but it's nice. It's got some greenery, some nice trees, some rocks behind. It's very pleasant. They have a number of full and partial hookup sites and also a number of unserviced sites. I took a look around and actually I thought some of the nicest and most private sites were actually the ones that weren't serviced. So we're here for a couple nights primarily to de-winterize our van. You can see that in our previous video. But we're also going to do some outdoor activities, probably a little bit of hiking and we're going to try some cycling. Now we're not cyclists but Squamish has miles and miles of mountain bikes trails so we're going to try some of the easy ones and see how much we enjoy it. For the first time we're going to install the shower. Instructions, washers if that makes sense. Each end looks the same. There's a little filter. That's the TVU here in the background. Gordon misplaced the remote so I don't know where it is and we can't turn it off. This is what happens when you probably don't read directions. All right, shower's all hooked up now. Once we realized that you don't hook up the shower to the threads here and instead that black attachment at the back, it took us less than a minute to get the shower hooked up including putting in the shower head. The shower head itself will probably replace with an oxygen shower head just to give us a bit better flow and also to conserve water. Other than that, very easy to do. The instructions when we did actually go look at them in the end weren't very clear but soon figured it out and within a minute of having an idea where it's supposed to hook up, we got it all done. Cut up some vegetables at home, washed and cleaned and cut them up so that it's easy once they get here. I don't have to do much work. Looks healthy. I think we sit over here. The side window is incredibly handy for getting things in and out when it's a cold evening like this. Perhaps I will. Who turns down cookies? Bathrooms here at Mountain Fun Base Camp. Really basic, clean. There's a men's washroom of course and you can see there's three stalls. Functional, generally very clean. We're gonna talk a little quietly this morning because we don't like other people up but it's a beautiful day and Gordon wants to show you the EMS. Good morning. We picked up an energy management system from Progressive Industries. It's kind of like a, describe it maybe as a surge protector on steroids. It provides against bumps up in power and it also restricts issues or prevents issues if the power goes really too low as well as another irregularities with the power supply. It's supposed to be one of the best. A lot of people have them either built in or you can buy a portable one like this. The Zion has a system built in and Roadtrek says that these aren't required. It seems to be a sort of a 50-50 decision. A lot of people still want to have them just simply because if there is a problem and the Roadtrek system maybe stops it you might also may fry some of the Roadtrek system in the process so they didn't want to have to wait while it's at a dealership. There's all sorts of reasons. Anyway, I decided to pick one up. They're reasonably expensive but you can see that this is also very large and it has a nice little cover. Lifetime warranty which is great but I want to show you a problem that we ran into. This is the first time we brought it out with us and I'll just show you a problem that we ran into at the campsite that we're in now. So what you can see is that the power receptacle is very small. This thing I tried yesterday. We're just hooked up relying on a Roadtrek system right now or the Zion system. I tried putting this in yesterday and it was literally too tight up here and too much of a bend down there. It kept prying itself out and coming undone. So this is simply too large of a system at least for this electrical power connection. Other places we've been I think this would fit fine but just one one cautionary note I think it's probably a very good product but in this case we couldn't use it because it's simply too big to hook up. All right nice little trail behind the campground. About a two minute walk from where we're camped. Just doesn't cross this little creek and then goes up the ridge on the other side which I'm just going to take a look at and see what the views are like up there. All right scramble up. Not really a scramble. Just a steep walk. We're close to the highway here so you can hear the highway noise. It's on the other side of this ridge but you can still hear it echoing up the valley. You can hear the highway just below me. What a beautiful view. Beautiful peaks. I think that's actually Skypilot but I'm not sure it's either Skypilot or Halbrick that you can see the pointed mountain. Then the broad ridge that goes along is Goat Ridge. See the Sky Gondola is before Goat Ridge quite a bit. There's a you'll see another bluff there that's actually the Squamish Chief and then it gets a lot steeper into the snow and the Gondola is closer to the big first bluff but it's up in that area so you can imagine the views. And again just some of the views you can see from here. Spectacular. Whistler's up this way and then you can see the big ridge behind us which is about maybe three times as high as this one. And the campground that we're in right now comes basically as far back as this for tenting and then it's down quite a bit lower and then runs through that little valley. So a little bit of highway noise but just a area. Oh there's a big water tower right here. That would explain why it looks like it's a route more traveled and likely even a path down as opposed to the route that I actually came up. So let's try the proper path down. All right so much easier much easier route down on this trail than the pathway I came up but you know what I kind of preferred the pathway I came up. You can hear the highway here. That's not all that much fun to listen to. The other side is much more beautiful and I'm sure you'll agree having seen the video up and down both ways. Yes precious, what would you like? What would you like? What are you looking for? Are you looking for some pets? What are you looking for? Are you looking for some pets? Who's my lovely girl? Look at you. Oh you're a good dog aren't you? Hey Howard. You're a good dog aren't you? Look at you. Oh yes, good dog. You're a very friendly big dog aren't you? For a bear. You're a very friendly bear aren't you? Okay we've got the potatoes in. We've got four this time. We're gonna try them maybe at about 35 or 40 minutes compared to our last batch at 60 that seemed to be almost burnt. The other secret is to have a fire this time that's mostly coals. You can see it's got a lot of coals developing as opposed to a lot of big flames. So it's got about another 20 minutes or so in there and those coals. So hopefully those potatoes come out great. This time we went 40 minutes. I still think we created dinosaur eggs. Oh not as bad. Oh not as burnt. We'll pull one more. See what that looks like. We did four. I won't bother with you seeing all four. So this is at about 40 minutes. Okay so crispy. We'll see what they look like on the inside. So 40 minutes to fire mostly coals. Oh a lot better. A little bit on a couple sections but generally I think something will be a little bit. It's like maybe the end. But by and large they're hot. Looks good. We've got two others I'm sure exactly the same. I think we've, I think we'll call this one success. An idea of the big bed in the Zion. We just actually cleared it up for us in the morning. We're packing up and getting ready to go. But you can see just the amount of room. There's our cat sleeping off in the corner. Precious. And I don't think you'll be able to see down here because it's very dark. But you can get an idea of the space that's underneath that you can also store during the evening if that's of interest.