Hikingcamping Where Locals Hike in the West Kootenay

A Serene Mountain Enclave After four years of working in downtown Vancouver office towers and living in a 480 sq. ft. apartment amid the city’s West End, one of the most densely populated urban areas on the planet, we decamped to the hinterland. Vancouver is a gorgeous, stimulating city—a yeasty brew with an international flavour that we savoured gratefully and left reluctantly. But we yearned for wilderness. Seeing the North Shore Mountains across English Bay wasn’t enough. We wanted to live in the mountains. The remote east shore of Kootenay Lake, wedged between the Selkirk and Purcell ranges, seemed as far into the wilds as we could go and still run a publishing company. So we bought a cabin on the lakeshore, chased out the packrats, stuffed our book inventory into the tiny basement, and settled in. The West Kootenay is a serene mountain enclave. Lightly populated by quirky peaceniks who relish their seclusion. Punctuated by just enough glacier-crowned summits to tantalize a peak freak. It was everything we sought. Just one thing was missing: a hiking guidebook. The only one ever written on the area was out of print long before we arrived. Asking locals for trail information led us to mountaineers who bushwhack like baboons and climb like lizards. With labour-toughened hands, they unfurled worn, weathered maps and pointed out the feral, vertical, trail-less terrain where they’d scrambled, tumbled, thrashed and roamed. It was inspiring, yet disappointing because it left us wondering, where are all the trails? During five years of living in and exploring the West Kootenay, we boot-tested more than 100 answers to that question, many of them repeatedly. The very best of those answers are illuminated in the book you now hold in your hands. It’s the resource we needed when we moved here.Why isn’t this an encyclopedically exhaustive volume? Because detailing every wretched, obscure scratch in the dirt would overburden and confuse the vast majority of hikers, therefore failing to guide them. By definition, a guidebook should winnow and recommend, sparing the reader unnecessary, tedious decision-making. It should also be eloquent. Guidebooks have languished too long as a knuckle-dragging subspecies of literature. So our goal was to write a superior primer—accurate of course, but also lucid, as well as entertaining— that most local or visiting hikers will find helpful and enjoyable.What’s not in this book? Punishing, dreary, sketchy trips, mostly. Their appeal is limited to inveterate explorers and intrepid mountaineers. The average hiker would find these journeys frustrating, disappointing, or overwhelming. So now you can quickly, easily choose a West Kootenay hike, confident that each one in this book offers a transcendent experience. Our opinionated descriptions will help you decide where to go and understand why you’re going. Our precise By Vehicle and On Foot directions will ensure you get there and back without difficulty.We hope Where Locals Hike compels you to head outdoors more often and stay out longer. Do it to cultivate your wild self. It will give you perspective. Do it because the backcountry teaches simplicity and self-reliance, qualities that make life more fulfilling. Do it to remind yourself why wilderness needs and deserves your protection. A deeper conservation ethic develops naturally in the mountains. And do it to escape the cacophony that muffles the quiet, pure voice within. A Serene Mountain Enclave After four years of working in downtown Vancouver office towers and living in a 480 sq. ft. apartment amid the city’s West End, one of the most densely populated urban areas on the planet, we decamped to the hinterland. Vancouver is a gorgeous, stimulating city—a yeasty brew with an international flavour that we savoured gratefully and left reluctantly. But we yearned for wilderness. Seeing the North Shore Mountains across English Bay wasn’t enough. We wanted to live in the mountains. The remote east shore of Kootenay Lake, wedged between the Selkirk and Purcell ranges, seemed as far into the wilds as we could go and still run a publishing company. So we bought a cabin on the lakeshore, chased out the packrats, stuffed our book inventory into the tiny basement, and settled in. The West Kootenay is a serene mountain enclave. Lightly populated by quirky peaceniks who relish their seclusion. Punctuated by just enough glacier-crowned summits to tantalize a peak freak. It was everything we sought. Just one thing was missing: a hiking guidebook. The only one ever written on the area was out of print long before we arrived. Asking locals for trail information led us to mountaineers who bushwhack like baboons and climb like lizards. With labour-toughened hands, they unfurled worn, weathered maps and pointed out the feral, vertical, trail-less terrain where they’d scrambled, tumbled, thrashed and roamed. It was inspiring, yet disappointing because it left us wondering, where are all the trails? During five years of living in and exploring the West Kootenay, we boot-tested more than 100 answers to that question, many of them repeatedly. The very best of those answers are illuminated in the book you now hold in your hands. It’s the resource we needed when we moved here. Why isn’t this an encyclopedically exhaustive volume? Because detailing every wretched, obscure scratch in the dirt would overburden and confuse the vast majority of hikers, therefore failing to guide them. By definition, a guidebook should winnow and recommend, sparing the reader unnecessary, tedious decision-making. It should also be eloquent. Guidebooks have languished too long as a knuckle-dragging subspecies of literature. So our goal was to write a superior primer—accurate of course, but also lucid, as well as entertaining—that most local or visiting hikers will find helpful and enjoyable.What’s not in this book? Punishing, dreary, sketchy trips, mostly. Their appeal is limited to inveterate explorers and intrepid mountaineers. The average hiker would find these journeys frustrating, disappointing, or overwhelming. So now you can quickly, easily choose a West Kootenay hike, confident that each one in this book offers a transcendent experience. Our opinionated descriptions will help you decide where to go and understand why you’re going. Our precise By Vehicle and On Foot directions will ensure you get there and back without difficulty.We hope Where Locals Hike compels you to head outdoors more often and stay out longer. Do it to cultivate your wild self. It will give you perspective. Do it because the backcountry teaches simplicity and self-reliance, qualities that make life more fulfilling. Do it to remind yourself why wilderness needs and deserves your protection. A deeper conservation ethic develops naturally in the mountains. And do it to escape the cacophony that muffles the quiet, pure voice within.

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