2020 Run # 2 – 21 June 2020, to Golden Ears Provincial Park

To go or not to go, that was the question on Friday, 19 June….. the hourly forecast for the start on Sunday was not too promising with 10am shown as 16 deg, cloudy with 40% possibility of a shower, but by Noon 17 deg, a sun/cloud mix with 30% for a shower was indicated, and improving into the afternoon…. So, with fingers crossed, it was decided to send out a notice to confirm that the Run was on.  On the Sunday we were fortunate – it was overcast to start with but there were no showers and it improved with some patches of blue sky by Noon and still dry and even more clearing in the afternoon for the drive home…. All-in-all, it paid off to take a chance on the weather.

There were 9 vehicles in the line-up to start from Chilliwack and 8 who came to join at Lepp Farm Market on Route 11 in Abbotsford, so 17 in all of which 5 were from LAMB.

One car did not actually come on the Run – the driver came for the line-up and a chat, but had a Fathers Day lunch to attend and another had advised that he’d start, but would maybe not come the full distance. The cross-country to Fort Langley was without incident and everyone found their way across the Golden Ears Bridge to 128 Av, then 216 St and 132 Av. However confusion struck at a roundabout where an exit signed for Fern Crescent was expected but not found by the leader who went round to continue on 132 Av and realized he’d gone astray, so pulled over with five cars behind him. A check on a phone with GPS indicated a back-track was required and the rest of the Run were sighted coming up, so the leader set off to do a GPS-guided return loop through a neighbourhood. Fern Crescent was found and this led to Golden Ears Parkway and the parking area at Alouette Lake South Beach at just after 1:00pm with 63.2 miles being indicated as having been run from the Chilliwack start. The weather had remained dry and had brightened somewhat. Some of the group set up chairs for a picnic on the grass in the carpark median, others went down to the Beach public area where there were Park-style wooden picnic tables. People started to leave around 1:45pm and most were gone by 2:00pm. The return route was by personal choice, some electing to go back via the Golden Ears bridge or via Mission, others going back to Chilliwack via Dewdney Trunk and Route 7 to Agassiz. With this route, the total distance run was indicated as 143.4 miles. There were no reports of any problems.

Text and Photos by Michael Hamilton-Clark, Run Coordinator