Catching RV Mice + Elfin Lakes Hike

Hi everyone, Gordon here, and Mickey unfortunately isn't with me today. She's at home. She says her allergies are acting up, so she wanted to stay inside for a good portion of the day. Personally, I'm not too sure if that's the truth, because I'm at the van here today to check for mice. So we want to share with you a little bit about some of the challenges we've had with mice over the last few days, and also a trip that Mickey and I did just a couple of days ago up into the mountains with the sun and snow and mountain peaks. Just amazing. We'll share that with you. So, hope you enjoy the video today. When we came back from Whistler in our last trip, we noticed what we thought was probably mice poop. We found it in our drawer, in our cutlery drawer, and we also noted it in our fridge. Now, not while we were on the trip, but the day after we came back, we were just checking some things out in the van, and that's when we noticed what looked like some mice poop in the cutlery drawer on top of the cutlery, and then in the fridge. Now, we leave all our drawers and everything open when we're when we finish the trip, and the van's just sitting in storage lot so that all the all the cabinets and everything are continually airing out and have access to the desiccants to dry out the air. So that was it was a bit of a surprise. We'd had mice before, but we'd never we'd only seen them, and they seemed to have disappeared. So this time we had to assume that we did actually have mice. So we actually cleaned everything again, scrubbed the floor, scrubbed the bathroom, scrubbed the fridge, and then we left out a couple of mouse traps. So the first day, I actually came back after we'd laid out the mouse traps, and much to my surprise, yes, we had a mouse. Cute little thing, and I have a quick video of just when I picked him up and ended up him or her, and then took the mouse to a local regional park to let it free. Okay, so this little guy I found in our van. When we got back from Whistler, I put a mouse trap out because we thought we saw some mouse droppings previously, and this is the little guy. So I'm just about to release him here into the park. Let him go over here, a long way away from where we we found him. Hey little friend, how'd you go? Come on, it's okay. There's peanut butter there. That's how we attracted him. Come on, can't stay in there. You gotta go. It's a nice park, you'll enjoy it. Come on, come on. Ah, boy, there you go. Come on, there you go. Oh, he's gone. So that was day one. The next day, I came back, checked the mouse trap again, not expecting anything, and there was another mouse. Again, another cute mouse, and so this mouse ended up being... I didn't bother filming. I just picked it up and carried it away in the trap and released it in a different regional park. So this is sort of day three. I was actually here yesterday, actually, so I guess it's day four, and there was no... When I came in yesterday, the mouse traps looked fine, but I'm going to try again today, and hopefully, if there's no mice today, we're probably okay. I'll probably leave a mouse trap around for a while, but I just won't check it as regularly. So we'll see how that goes. Okay, so we have a couple of mouse traps set up in the van, both near the front. Hopefully, we have no guests. First trap right here, and you can see, yeah, nothing. Second trap's just over here, and this is where we've caught a mouse twice, and you can see there's nothing. The peanut butter is still there. I'll have to refresh on that, but I'm glad to see that we don't have any more mice with us right now. Here's the cutlery drawer, and you can see it's nicely clean. No evidence of a mouse anywhere in here, and the same with the refrigerator. I think in both cases, there may have just been sort of a remnants of smell of food in them, and it was enough to draw the attention of the mice when they did come to visit, even if temporarily. So this is how this particular catch-and-release mouse trap works. It's got a little door at the back, like you see here, an area where you can, actually, you can see the peanut butter in there, hopefully. So this goes on the back. A little lever here that, once you set the door like this, will lock it, and you put this back in here with the attractant, in this case, the peanut butter for the mouse. The mouse will go in here, and if it walks to the back and steps here to sniff the, in this case, peanut butter, it just flips up. One more time. So the mouse is simply trapped in there until you come catch it and release it. Humane, and they actually kind of look cute in there. You see that from the video, I think. So hopefully, that's our last challenge with mice. It's been for a little while. You know, we're very careful when we bring our RV back. We park it, we clean it, we make sure we don't leave any food in it that might attract a rodent, but, I don't know, they'll come in for a variety of reasons. Maybe they're just trying to get out of the rain or the heat or the cold, and hopefully, they won't stay very long. In this case, we've had two guests, but they're now enjoying the hospitality of a couple of different regional parks in the Lower Mainland. So with that done, we hope you enjoyed the video that Mickey and I took of our trip up to Elfin Lakes. It was wonderful. Snow, sun, mountains, just gorgeous. Almost too much sun, actually. I think we both ended up with some sunburn, so a great day. Hope you enjoy it with us. Morning, everyone. We're off to an area which you've seen before in some of our videos called Elfin Lakes or Elfin Shelter. We're just on the trail, maybe the first kilometer. We still have a little bit of snow, but mostly dirt still. I do expect we'll be in snow for a good portion of the day. We're not too sure how far we're actually going to go. We'll see, but it's a gorgeous blue sky day. Very warm. It's already about 20 degrees here in the shade, so a very hot day at the and the bugs are starting to come out. We're looking forward to the hike. It's not too far from where we live. It's very pleasant to be able to drive. I think it was 90 minutes from home to trailhead, and that's getting our gear on and started. So looking forward to a nice day to take you along with us. And we didn't take the van to get here. We were looking at the road. I think a bit too bumpy for us. Yeah, we'd be pushing it. A small car would be okay. Yeah, our van may do it. The other thing too is just some of the branches are kind of low, so I think we could probably make it if we wanted to next time. I doubt it. So the hut's open. It's limited to eight people. Masks are mandatory. 30 minutes maximum usage. And of course, manage your own risk. We filmed here before. It's not for overnight, just for taking a 30-minute break during the day. Okay, I think we take a little break and have something to drink and a little bit to eat at the hole. Hole in the snow. We elected to stay in the shade. It's a little too hot in the sun, is the terrain is always changing. Wherever you step, your foot slides, even when you're wearing microspikes. Up, down, a little sideways. It's fine, but it's a lot nicer to hike just on a dirt trail. Usually much smoother and easier and faster. We stay active, but we, during the whole COVID thing, we've been hunkered down. So if we do the whole trip today, it'll be about 22k, maybe 750 meters of elevation gain. Actually, a little more because you lose some once you leave the ridge run and go down and you have to come back up. So it's hard because we haven't done as much hiking. And again, although we do other things and some short hikes, we notice it. Plus, one of the things I think that's happened over the whole period with COVID is that gravity's actually increased. And I say that because just about everybody I talk to says they weigh more now than they did a year ago. And those that have started to exercise again have noticed that every dumbbell they pick up feels a lot heavier. So, I mean, that's simple science, I guess, but I think gravity's actually increased maybe 5% or something like that. So this hike's actually probably one of the biggest bangs for the buck you can do, and you can see why. Look at the views. That's Mount Garibaldi. I've done the summit. I don't think Mickey has. The area in front of it's called the Gargoyles, and we've gone up there. We've also gone on that big snowfield between the two. And then the hut, you won't be able to see it with this camera, is right over there, about five kilometers away, maybe four, something like that. Beautiful. That's the ridge where we stopped to take a break, and you can see back here. We're off that way a few more kilometers to the main hut. Okay, so Mickey's been a bit of a taskmaster. I said, it's getting hot, and I think I might need some more water. She said we have to go farther up into the trees before we can stop. She's taking over my role, which is much nicer, actually. I think that's Mamquam right ahead of us, which is a pretty decent mountain climb. You can hike to the lake, which is down at the base. Hiking to the lake and back is a long day, about 44 kilometers, so I think if you're going to go, you might want to camp there. But if you camp down there, it will be very buggy, unless you want to try it in the off season. There's some other camping areas that we're about to come up to as we get closer to the hut. Just a quick tip, if you're in the blazing sun and there's lots of snow, snowball in your hat. I've got one already. A little smaller snowball in the hat, I think makes more sense. I got one back here. It's been sitting here for a few minutes. A nice idea, but a little less snow, I think, is probably better. Like this. I think she just wanted to put a snowball on my head, period. I actually need it because I'm actually overheating. I'm getting kind of uncomfortable. You can see the two lakes are just starting to melt. The first one, and then the second one, just behind the second one, is the ranger hut, and then the hut a little farther away is the main hut. If you want to camp, there's campsites to the right of that, but there's a main hut that normally you can stay in. I think it holds about 30 people. It's beautiful. Look at the view. Yes, Mickey's just yelling. I think it's closed due to COVID, but it's gorgeous here. Here's the second lake. Right over there is the ranger's hut. Nice view. This is the food cache. At this time of year, a bear could just simply walk up and grab it without having to stretch too far. So it wouldn't be useful right now, but there's not going to be too many bears up here right now. I see some people tenting there. Most of the campsites are actually over here. I don't know if they're... they're probably still covered in snow. And then there's another day hut here, and the main hut's on the other side. Same rules. Eight people max, 30 minutes. Try and keep your distance. Nice views. Grey water for summer. You're not supposed to sleep in these huts. Just for having a snack or getting warm. Nice. Well built. So this washroom is still buried in the snow. Most of the tent pads would actually be over here, but they're still all buried. Gorgeous views if you camp here though. This is the other washroom. It's quite luxurious by backcountry standards, and it does have LED lighting inside that's operated by solar cells on the other side of the roof. Nice. And this is the main hut. You can see it has some solar panels up top. A ladder, because you can imagine in the winter sometimes you... I think it's also an emergency exit, but sometimes it might have a hard time getting in because the snow can get easily, well, half the height of the hut if not more. And it has, I think, propane heating inside and some lanterns, as it says right there, temporarily closed for COVID. But it's a very nice, very nice building if you don't feel like backpacking and sleeping in a tent. So we made it. It's about 11 kilometers. We're at the hut. There's a few other people, I think, here just for the day. There's a couple people also camped when we came in. Just gorgeous. Beautiful blue skies, but enough clouds to make it look just like the Simpsons. Anyway, yeah, it was a nice trip in. I actually overheated on the way in, despite the fact we're in snow. And we were joking when Mickey put some snow under my hat, but I actually had to do that. I was starting to feel a little overheated and a little uncomfortable, so we put a bit of snow. The other option would be to put something down your back, or I could have taken my shirt, and I've got my sunshirt on now, and maybe dipped it in the water and then put it back on. But I did need to cool down, and then we spent probably about five or ten minutes in the shade. And that's, I feel good now. It's just a little too hot, which is funny to say when you're at, I don't know what our elevation is here, maybe about 6,000 feet or something, and we're covered in snow. There's still probably, you know, two or three meters of snow, but it's kind of like being at the beach in Thailand, but you don't have to worry about sand. There is a hike that we've done that goes up this ridge behind us. Interesting rock formations called the Gargoyles. Yeah, basically up that cull, and then up the middle of that valley, and then you, I think you cut over to the left, and then up to the summit. But you do that probably when there's a little bit less snow. But we're going to enjoy the rest of the bit of the afternoon, and then head back. So we hope you enjoyed coming along on this hike with us today, and we hope to get to do some more in the near future. And we hope you enjoyed this video, and if you did, please be sure to give us a thumbs up, and subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already, and we'll see you next time. See you next time. Mickey was just noting that we could have done a nice glissade, maybe on our glutes, down to the water. That would definitely have cooled me down. Now we're on our way out. Yes, finally. Nice trip. Snow is beautiful, but it's very tiring to hike in.