Category Archives: News

2016 Spring Thaw Registration

The registration opening date has been set! If you’re interested in being one of our guests on the 8th running of the Hagerty Spring Thaw, you’ll want to mark your calendar! Registration forms will be posted on the website in the early (wee) hours of Sunday January 10th. Registration officially opens at 10am. Please be sure you’ve read the event supplementary regulations before submitting an application.

As per previous years, applications are accepted via mail, courier and in-person at the CCA Squamish office. A number of spots have been reserved for guests using mail or courier to submit their application.

The Hagerty Spring Thaw sells out every year, so we definitely encourage applying early. So far, in eight years, we’ve managed to get every guest on the waiting list an open space…so don’t be scared to enter if you see things filling up. It’s never surprising to hear a restoration isn’t going as quickly as planned, and a space subsequently becomes available.

2016 Event Schedule

The 2016 Classic Car Adventures Schedule has been released! We’re very excited to have the dates to each of our events decided, which certainly helps when planning vacation time and restoration schedules! Our season begins in British Columbia, for the 8th running of the Hagerty Spring Thaw, which runs April 29th to May 1st. From there it’s off to Colorado in May (20-22) for the 2nd running of the Hagerty Silver Summit. August 26-28 brings “Dave’s Birthday Touring Adventure“, a B.C. event that’s better known as the “Rush to Gold Bridge“. In September we’ll be running the Hagerty Fall Classic (WA/OR, Sept 16-18), and the Hagerty Maple Mille (Sept 23-25).

Information on each of the events can be found by using the pull-down menus at the top of our website. We suggest joining the mailing list for your region, as we release advanced-notice entry information via the mailing lists…it’s a great way to ensure you’ll get a spot on your chosen event. We don’t share our mailing list info, and we send out very few (less than 12) emails per year.

 

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2015 Hagerty Maple Mille – Day Two Preview

Glorious weather welcomed us for day two of the Hagerty Maple Mille. The group descended onto a figure eight of Muskoka Loops, before heading North, and then East to North Bay Ontario. The hotel check-in staff couldn’t believe we took eight hours to get from Parry Sound to North Bay, as the trip is normally just 1.5 hours by the fastest route! But the fastest route would miss favourites such as Muskoka 632 to Port Sandfield, the Bunny Trail from Dunchurch and of course lunch at the Red Door Bakery.

Throughout the day we began to see the fall colours taking shape, and there is nothing quite like rolling hills, twisting turns and classic cars against a backdrop of yellows, red and orange.

Once again it seemed that everyone wanted to try someone else’s car. Cars, keys, seats and co-drivers were being traded so often it was hard to keep track. At one point, as a group of cars pulled into a gas station one owner was heard to exclaim “wait, if you’re here in a Triumph…where is my Mustang!?!” Eventually all the cars, drivers and co-driver’s arrived at our hotel and combinations returned to matching the entry list.

A preview of photos, courtesy of Ralph Saulnier:

2017 Hagerty Fall Classic Alternate Entry Information

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With potentially dangerous fire conditions in Oregon,  in order to keep all our participants (and their cars) safe we made the difficult decision to cancel the 2017 Hagerty Fall Classic. While we plan to return to Oregon in 2018, we realized we’d all have the original weekend free with nothing to do.

And so, we created the 2017 Hagerty Fall Classic Alternate! The Fall Alternate is an event styled after our traditional offerings, with a few important changes due to the speed in which it was created. With just seven days between idea concept and our first meeting, we’ve narrowed down the event to just the most important details.

The Hagerty Fall Classic Alternate is offered without entry fee, but also without the usual frills you’ve come to expect from our events. There is no schwag bag, no coffee mug, no hotel bookings or perhaps even a route book! What you will get, however, is great roads, great friends, great cars and the comfort of Hagerty Roadside Assistance should anything happen to your car along the way.

2017 Fall Classic Alternate Schedule:

Friday, September 15th

  • 6:45ish – Optional ‘pre-event’ dinner in Squamish BC, location and details to be announced…soon!

Saturday, September 16th

  • 8:15am – Optional Breakfast, at Norman Rudy’s Restaurant. Squamish BC (in the Executive Suites Hotel)
  • 9:15am – Registration, which consists of signing the waiver and showing your insurance papers.
  • 9:45am – Mandatory All-Participants Meeting
  • 10:00am – Departure
  • 5:00-6:00pm (estimated) – Arrive at the Hotel 540, Kamloops
  • 7:30pm – Group dinner, details to be announced.

Sunday, September 17th

  • 8:45am – Mandatory All-Participants Meeting
  • 9:00am – Departure
  • 1:00-2:00pm – Estimated arrival at finish location, somewhere near Hope BC. Lunch available. Details to be announced.
  • 3:00pm – Latest Departure. We’ll probably wrap up significantly earlier, and we anticipate there will be two travel groups. Some are already talking about heading North from Hope and doing the Duffy Loop.

 “This sounds awesome, how do I register!?!”

Registration for the 2017 Hagerty Fall Classic Alternate is a three step process.

Step One: Call and book your room at the Hotel 540 in Kamloops. Rooms are $135/night, and include the underground parking. Simply call 250-372-2281, and let them know you want to book a room under the Classic Car Adventures block.

*Note: There are limited rooms available at the Hotel 540. If you call, and there are no rooms left, but you’d still like to join us…you can! We have rooms available at another hotel, but it’s about 10min driving away. Simply email Dave for the details.

Step Two:  If you’d like to stay in Squamish on Friday night, call and book your Squamish room at the Sandman hotel.  The rate is $139 a room, simply call 604 848 6000 and let them know you want to book a room under group quote #94317.

Step Three: Fill out the following ‘registration form’, after you’ve booked the necessary hotel rooms. (continue to scroll down and ensure you’ve hit the “done” button after all the questions)

Create your survey with SurveyMonkey

 

Hagerty Silver Summit – Day Three

I awoke for day three of the Hagerty Silver Summit at 4am. Something didn’t sound right. I could hear water flowing off the hotel, which meant the storm from the evening hadn’t moved on. Would we awake to rain…or snow?

A 6am look out my window, and I knew I had a challenging morning ahead of me. The snow was definitely sticking, though the roads appeared clear. The mountain pass we were planning to use out of Keystone was so snowy, chains were required. The back-up plan, through the Eisenhower tunnels, wasn’t going to work either. Road reports and cameras showed a slushy, icy, slippery mess. One entrant awoke to find his flights home from Denver had already been cancelled. The snow had certainly hit the fan!

Having explored all the roads in the area earlier this year, I knew there was one last option, but being a smaller route it wasn’t featured on our usual sources for road conditions. I’d have to go for a morning drive. Andrew Snucins was deployed in the role of organizer, relaying the message to entrants that the driver’s meeting would be delayed but I was working on an alternate route. I buzzed down the highway, exploring our last opportunity to get out of the resort…and wrote a new route book at the same time. While our entrants dined on breakfast, I typed up a quick and dirty set of route instructions.

I explained our new route in front of the windows of our hotel, as the snow fell behind me. We handed out route instructions and maps, and ensured that everyone understood the plan exactly before heading out. We were standing at 9,280 feet above sea level, and I was sending the group over Hoosier pass, an 11,000 foot mountain pass a little to our south. Despite the group being incredibly adventurous and easy going all weekend, it was understandable that some of them were a little concerned. I took on the role of sweep this morning, not because I wasn’t willing to lead the charge over the mountain (I had been up there once already), but because I wanted to ensure each and every one of our guests made it over without problems. We loaded up, added another layer of clothing, and set off down the road…

There is something magical about following a group of enthusiasts who are determined to make the best of any situation. Instead of simply blasting off onto the route, groups of friends (newly formed over the weekend) traveled together. At the top of Hoosier pass, snow falling but not sticking, a number of cars stopped for a group photo. Without it, no one in their respective clubs was going to believe the story!

A few miles down the road, on the other side of the mountains, the snow and rain stopped…and the sun came out. We enjoyed mile after mile of winding pavement, dark menacing clouds over the mountains to the left, and blue skies above us. Soon we rejoined the original route in the book, and cars were pulling over to remove windows and clothing layers. Central City, Blackhawk and Rollinsville rolled on by, and soon we were together as a group for one last time in Nederland.

Patricia Fredrick was awarded the Hard Luck Award, her T-Bird failing on day one. Kevin Lewis was awarded the MacGyver award for his ingenious repair for a broken exhaust hanger. Without any wire to hold it up, he used the lanyard from his name tag! Knowing it was going to melt, he recruited a few other entrants to ensure he had enough lanyard to make the finish. Fred Phillips was awarded our first ever “Spirit of the Summit” award. Not only was his enthusiasm throughout the weekend contagious, but he also roped four other friends into joining the Hagerty Silver Summit.

Honestly though, I wish I had created 46 Spirit of the Summit awards this year, one for each person on the event. The weather, at times, was more than anyone had bargained for. But each and every person smiled, shrugged it off and made the best of it. The roads were enjoyed to maximum, every entrant was watching out for each other and ensuring each and everyone one made it through the adversity. When we met at the end of each day, it was smiles and laughter and cries of “Adventure!”

Often at the end of an event the fatigue and desire to ‘get home’ clears out the finish pretty quickly. Not so with the Hagerty Silver Summit. Our friendships forged over the weekend became obvious as each guest was ensuring they said goodbye to each and every other participant. No one was to be missed, we had come too far together to simply drive off without a goodbye.

A year and a half ago I fell in love with Colorado because of the roads. I cannot wait until next year’s Hagerty Silver Summit. We’ll be planning great roads, anticipating your great cars. But the truth is, I’m coming back for the people. We have a new ‘Colorado Classic Car Family’, and can’t wait to add more members next year.

-Dave

A selection of Andrew Snucins Photography photos below:

2015 Hagerty Spring Thaw Day Three Photos

Day three of the Hagerty Spring Thaw finally brought the full sunshine! Our run from Kamloops to Whistler was with tops down and windows open, and for many of us the most fun we’ve ever had. Typically on a Hagerty Spring Thaw cars shift out into groups of 3’s and 5’s, and run together at similar paces. A sunny stop just before the Duffy Lake road saw a number of cars bunched up into large groups of 12’s and 15’s. As fate would have it, the paces matched and we travelled towards Whistler in large groups. The air at the finish was one of excitement and joy, with many people commenting on how it was the most fun they’d ever had. Wonderful photos by Andrew and Samantha Snucins are below:

2015 Rush to Gold Bridge Survey

The Rush to Gold Bridge has always been about great friends exploring new destinations and roads. Our 2012 event was all about visiting Gold Bridge, a unique and cool destination on the map that Dave & Warwick had never been to. It certainly helped that there was an amazing road along the way! For 2013 and 2014 our events were very casual, and amounted to a few friends exploring new gravel roads which we hadn’t tried before. We’ve had a lot of inquiries about the 2015 event, and it seems there are quite a few people interested in an adventure this year. The Rush has always been about a great time, and we thought what better way to make it the best then ask you what you’d like to see? It doesn’t have to be gravel. It doesn’t have to go to Gold Bridge. Heck, it doesn’t even have to cost money. \ This is the Rush, and we can go anywhere we want to! So, if you own a 1989 or earlier car, and you’re thinking the Rush to ____ is something you’d like to enter, please be sure to fill out our survey: 2015 Rush to Gold Bridge Survey