I’ve lived on Vancouver Island my entire life, and yet, until recently I had never been further North then Parksville. For reference, that’s only about one third of the way to the top of the nearly 500km long island. Exploring farther North is always something I’ve thought of doing, but never really had a compelling reason, so when my girlfriend was visiting and wanted to get out of town for a few days I figured it would be a great opportunity to see some parts of The Island I’d never visited before.
We had originally planned just an overnight stay in Campbell River (roughly a 3.5 hour drive from Victoria), but we ended up having such a good time that we decided to spend an extra night away from home.
While our first night was spent in Campbell River, we found a good deal on AirBNB for a place on Mt Washington, near the town of Courtenay right in the centre of the island. The apartment was quite comfortable, and after getting settled we headed up to the resort to get some food.
Mt Washington is one of only two ski resorts on Vancouver Island; and being centrally located it is, by far, the most popular. Mt Washington is best known for it’s skiing, but the mountain is also open during the summer – primarily for zipline tours and mountain biking. Since options for food in the village were basically nil, we decided the best option was to grab dinner at the resort since it would be open for a couple more hours. Since it was the end of the day, I wasn’t expecting the mountain to be very busy, so imagine my surprise when we arrived to find the parking lot full and a huge lineup for food. Seriously, this line was one of the longest I’ve ever waited in for food! I estimate it was 45 minutes from start to finish, and there were more people joining the line after us too!!
By the time we got to the front I had figured out the reason – there was a full moon that evening, and today was the first day that Mt Washington was staying open late to let people ride the lift to the top and watch the sun set and the moon rise! Pretty cool idea for drumming up some more business. We had our dinner of chicken strips and poutine (everything else was sold out; attendance was apparently way higher then expected), dropped some food off for Blair, who was staying at the apartment, and headed back up to the resort to watch this moon rise!
We bought our left tickets and got to the front of the line just as dusk was starting to settle in; the perfect time to catch the show without too much waiting!
Believe it or not, this was my first experience on a chair lift, and I have to say I quite enjoyed it. Very cool feeling to be sitting more then 20ft above the ground with nothing more then a removable bar stopping me from a sudden drop followed by certain injury! It was less strict then a ride at an amusement park with no belts or harnesses to keep me constrained. It was liberating!
I would quickly learn the hard way that with this freedom came responsibility! About half of the way up the mountain I heard a sound; faint but distinct – the sound of something falling to the ground below. My girlfriend looks at me “What did you drop!?”
I took a mental inventory of my pockets – AirBNB keys, car keys, phone, headphones. I knew where my phone was, since I could feel it, and I doubted my headphones would make enough noise for me to hear it. By now though, I was paranoid about potentially dropping anything else, should I begin shuffling though my pockets, so I did the only thing I felt comfortable with; which was to insist we wait until we get to the top to assess, but that I was “sure it was fine.”
Fact is, I wasn’t sure, and sadly did not enjoy the rest of the ride to the top. After we passed two more support towers I had the presence of mind to snap a couple of photos to try and identity the location of the “incident.”
The top of the mountain was a busy place with hundreds of people wandering around and having a great time, many of them with glow-sticks and LED lights. I, however, was not one of them. As I inventoried my pockets my heart sank – while I had the AirBNB keys the rental car keys were no where to be found!
Upon delivering this news I was, of course, immediately scolded (probably deserving), but the question remained – just what does one do after dropping the car keys from a ski lift near nightfall!? I spoke with the attendant who sent us back down the lift to try and see if we could spot it. The sun had nearly set by this point, so I doubted my success, but lacking any other ideas I hopped back on the lift and spent the ride down looking, and worrying.
As expected, I didn’t see anything of note, just a lot of dark bushes and I flagged down the attendant at the bottom to ask just what our next steps should be. This guy was a little more helpful and made a call to “ski patrol” who would give us our next options.
By this time time sun was down, and the mosquitoes were out in full force. I kept swatting them away as I searched through my phone trying to find the rental car agreement, should I needed to call the company and ask for help.
I figured since I had been given a Tesla (not by choice, literally everything else was sold out), the rental company would probably have some master key they could use to unlock the car, but at what price and how long? The ultimate irony that my girlfriend had been talking about how the Tesla smartphone app could be used to unlock the vehicle, was just starting to sink in. This wouldn’t have solved the missing key (which I expected was going to be a hefty charge) but at least it would have made the car mobile again.
As I contemplated my situation, ski patrol showed up and we loaded ourselves onto a gater piloted by a rather bemused driver.
As we drove up behind the maintenance buildings, along a dirt service road, our driver tried to narrow down the location of the lost keys; asking probing questions like “When you go up the hill, there’s a road, was it before or after that road?” and “All the poles have numbers, what number pole was it near” – all excellent questions that I probably should have had an answer to. After reviewing the pictures that I had hastily snapped, I ruled it down to somewhere between posts 8 and 12 – still a massive search area.
After a stop at the maintenance building for high powered flashlights, the three of us arrived at the base of post 8, which was as far as the service road would take us. From here on out it was on foot – time to hike up the mountain and look for the damn keys! While my girlfriend only lasted about about 5 minutes before announcing she was going back to the gater, our driver was kind enough to help me in my search, though he quickly speed well ahead of me. So it was, that I found myself tromping alone through brush, mud and rock trying, in what felt like a vein attempt, to find these damn keys. As the mosquitoes buzzed around me, and people on the chair lift above kept shouting “what are you looking for!?” I felt like I had definitely hit a low point on my trip.
By the 40 minutes mark I had found nothing near post 8, and nothing near post 9. Three more to go, and the terrain was starting to get pretty rough. As I started on my march towards pole number 10, I heard off in the distance the best three words of the trip; “I’ve got them!”
I felt a wave of relief wash over me as the keys were handed back to me. “Found them just past post 10 out in the open – you would have found them eventually.” Never before had I been so happy to have laid eyes on a friggin key card!
The rest of the trip was uneventful; we hiked back to the gator and were even given a ride back to our vehicle; something that was easy to spot since the parking lot had fully emptied by this time!
It was now late – I was tired, muddy and nursing a half dozen or so new mosquito bites; but at least I had the car keycard in hand. The very next thing I did was install the bloody Tesla app and pair it to the car; I did find it quite convenient to use but still not thrilled with installing yet another app on my phone.
On the way back to our accommodations we stopped to gaze out at the full moon, which, without the light pollution of the city, was remarkably huge and bright. It was truly beautiful; and, as my girlfriend is quick to remind me, would have been a spectacular sight to see rising from on top of the mountain. It’s going to be a while before I live this one down.
I have one closing anecdote to this story; the next day, we were back at Mt Washington for a zipline adventure and I overheard some staff talking about “the guy who lost his car keys last night.” At least my story had become locally infamous?
Let it be a piece of advise to all of you – if you’re taking a chair lift; don’t leave stuff in your back pockets. I know I won’t be.