Renting the Retreat Centre

The Monkey Valley Retreat Centre is pleased to create a rental arrangement customized to your needs, whether you are planning a private meditation retreat in nature or wish to bring a group of 30 for a yoga weekend. The remote location of the land is ideally suited to nature pursuits such as stargazing, bird watching, and winter activities such as snowshoeing and cross-country skiing.

Prices vary according to group size and whether you will be providing your own meals. Please contact us for a customized rate package.

Examples

• Winter special: log cabin rental for 1-6 people—$2,000/month or $1,250 for two weeks
• Camping groups of 5 to 50—$20/person/day (meals excluded)
• Summer log cabin rental for 1-6 people—$400/group/day (you do the cooking)
• Solo camping meditation retreat—$350/week (meals included)
• Solo camping meditation retreat—$150/week (meals excluded)
• Solo meditation retreat with indoor accommodations—$500/week (meals included)
• Organic meals cost $30-50/person/day.
• Rentals provide exclusive use of the land, affording your group complete privacy.

Monkey Valley is surrounded by crown lands on all sides, affording an exceptional experience of privacy and feeling of being away from civilization. The retreat centre is off the grid, which means that no power lines or phone lines go to the property. We do all we can to maintain the wildness of this place.

The way of life at Monkey Valley is designed to minimize human impact on the earth. The retreat centre runs on solar power, with an energy-efficient, quiet backup generator for extended cloudy periods. We use as little energy as possible, and try to keep waste to a minimum. We use biodegradable products as much as possible, because the water that goes down the drain eventually finds its way to the creek.

Our water supply is from an underground spring that is bountiful year round. The water has been tested to ensure it is safe for your drinking. It is crystal-clear and delicious, straight from the tap.

The centre has a cell phone for emergency use. Your cell phone will work in the house, but we encourage you to unplug from it while you are here!

The retreat centre is a haven for steeping in the energies of nature. Time here is free from traffic, TV, radio, and newspapers. We honour and acknowledge the shamanic traditions that use mind-altering substances to shift consciousness. However, at Monkey Valley we don’t use these methods to journey to other states of awareness and deepen into our true nature. No recreational drugs or alcohol are permitted at the retreat centre.

When you come to the retreat centre we will teach you about low-impact camping and ways of being in harmony with the land and her creatures. We also teach safety topics such as how to stay found and how to handle wild-life encounters.

After a decade of working as a technical writer, she earned a master’s degree in ecopsychology from Naropa University, and trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. She has studied the medicine wheel since 2003 and has been a student of the Diamond Approach for many years. She is a registered yoga teacher and Reiki master, committed to providing a safe environment for self exploration and growth. She is a member of the Wilderness Guides Council.

Munro Sickafoose is a vision quest guide, an initiated man, whitewater river guide, and ceremonial leader. He has been deeply involved with indigenous earth–based ceremonies for many years. He trained as a vision quest guide at the School of Lost Borders, and has been leading groups and individuals in the wild since 1996. He has also trained at the Ojai Foundation as a facilitator in the Way of Council. He is currently Netkeeper of the Wilderness Guides Council, and is working towards a Masters of Divinity degree.

He guides at Monkey Valley and in Oregon and Washington. He also guides through the School of Lost Borders, teaching a program on the four shields of leadership with his wife, Susanna Maida. Visit his web site for details of other guiding trips he has planned.

Angela James has run 18 marathons and completed Iron Man Canada in August 2008. Angela has been a Team in Training marathon coach with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s (LLS) groundbreaking charity sports training program since 2004. She no longer has Achilles tendonitis since using the ChiRunning form. Now Vancouver’s only certified ChiRunning instructor, she plans to give workshops all over the world teaching others this revolutionary technique. Her shining spirit uplifts and motivates everyone she teaches.

Angela incorporates ChiLiving as a practice along with her tea business. “Chi Tea” is her catch phrase, because she believes so strongly in the benefits of both ChiRunning and health-promoting, organic Rooibos tea. Angela is also an accomplished cello player. Visit her web site to learn about Angela’s upcoming ChiRunning workshops in Vancouver.

Kim Ashley guides vision fasts at Monkey Valley and is a life coach. She is the founder of Transformational Learning and Coaching. She is a PhD candidate in East-West Psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, is a certified life coach through NLP and Coaching Institute of California, and is a member of the International Coach Federation.

She trained as a vision fast guide at the School of Lost Borders. Her background and education blend the ancient wisdom traditions of the East with contemporary success principles of the West, resulting in a step-by-step coaching approach to living with greater courage, balance, abundance, and happiness. She loves walking in the wilderness with her dog, Chai.

Here is the posting on Craig’s List:

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/vac/1484724729.html

If you have any friends who will be visiting BC this winter, and who are interested in a unique winter getaway with their own 160 acres of private snowy wonderland, please pass on the word.

The log cabin

The original log cabin was built about 40 years ago, with a unique construction that stacks the shaped logs together, eliminating gaps and the need for chinking. The main room of the log cabin has a sitting area and dining area, shown here. The kitchen is to the left, out of view, and the living room area is located behind the dining area. Donald wants to go out on the deck to scamper with the chipmunks. The fire awaits a match. The chairs are pulled close for an intimate conversation…

The dining area is conveniently located by the wood stove, with views out the customized antique stained glass windows. The wood stove has a glass door to enhance enjoyment of the fire. The two eco-fans on top of the stove circulate the heat throughout the house without using an electric source.

The kitchen has a window overlooking the meadow, and another facing out onto the deck, handy for passing plates through the window to enjoy dining on the deck. The propane fridge is new, and the propane stove is just a few years old. Rustic cabinets suit the flavour of the log walls.

The living room and entertainment area feels cozy with the warmth of the log walls. My sister Kim made the stained glass lamp, creating a custom match with the couch, in shades of cream, orange, and brown.

I must say this couch is perfect for the house! I bought it and two matching chairs at an antique store in New Westminster shortly before I found Monkey Valley. I believe I had some divine guidance! Donald thinks so too. My Tante Anne crocheted the afghan, which also matches perfectly.

Here we find Mr. Moose sitting on another antique sofa, which I found at The Peg antique store on Commercial Drive in Vancouver. He is reading about himself in a book on BC Mammals. Mr. Moose was a gift from Eric of Colorado, and he loves living at Monkey Valley.

Here is a close-up of one of the two antique windows. I found this one at an antique store on 12th Street in New Westminster, and my sister Kim restored it and made a matching window in complementary colours. We had to get a guy with a chain saw to come in and help install the windows! They are triple-glazed for maximum energy efficiency.

The loft and master suite

If you climb the unique log ladder up into the loft, you will discover two rooms facing south down the valley. I use this area (not shown) for my office. Climbing a short set of stairs, you come into the master bedroom, shown here. This is an amazing room, with five windows and the glass door leading onto the upper deck. I love that it has windows facing in all four directions! It has plenty of open space for doing yoga with a friend.

This antique claw-foot tub has funky $-sign insignia on the feet. It was the first thing I bought after I purchased Monkey Valley, and I hauled it up here in a blue volvo station wagon! It took 3 strong people to carry it up the stairs. And it took Hugh and me two years to install the solar power and get hot water running to the tub! Note the charming pedestal sink. The tub also has antique-style fixtures.

The guest wing

From the loft you can take the log ladder back down, or use a regular staircase to come down into the addition. This wing contains two guest bedrooms, a bathroom with a large double-headed shower (not shown), a laundry and work area, two entry areas, and the power room.

This spacious guest bedroom with wood flooring has two windows, one facing east over the creek, and once facing west over the meadow. My Uncle Sebastian made this dresser and matching bed-side table when he owned a furniture factory in the 60s, and my dad designed this piece!

This guest bedroom has a window overlooking the meadow, with forest in the distance, and is furnished with some antique pieces. Hugh sold me this bed, which belonged to his grandmother, for $2 after we split up. I love the cozy green down duvet lined with velvet trim. This was always my friend Dorrie’s room when she stayed with me at Monkey Valley.

Inner workings: the heart of the house

In an off-grid home, keeping the house dry and warm, with electricity and hot running water, are the challenges to address. The heart of this house is the systems that accomplish these goals. I use power from the sun, heat from wood and propane, and heat water from the sun too.

I purchased this propane heater the second winter I lived at Monkey Valley. It is very handy for keeping the house from freezing when I go away on short trips in the winter time. On those rare occasions when the temperatures drop to -30 or -40 degrees Celsius in the winter time, this heater also provides great back-up for the wood stove. The rest of the time, the wood stove is more than adequate for keeping the house warm, due to the high R-factor insulation I installed in the ceilings and floor of the log cabin. The addition is also very well insulated. Past the propane heater you can see the workbench, which is featured below. It’s handy to be able to do small tasks right in the house.

Okay, so it’s just a washing machine. But it’s a very energy-efficient washing machine, suited for a home that runs on solar power, with a super spin cycle that finishes with the clothes much dryer than a regular washer. Clothes line-dry easily overnight, on the handy line I strung up in the laundry room.

There’s also a short line outside for drying stuff that you want right away, like your bathing suit!

I love this workbench, which Brent Ross and Tom of Tri-Ross Construction built for me this summer. Previously I had slung the boards, a gift from my friend Tricia, across some black plastic barrels. Now there is a proper wood frame support for it. Although there is 4,000 square feet of space for a shop and work area in the barn, I prefer to do most jobs here in this work area right in the house. The shelves are well-stocked with the most common household fix-it items, to prevent the need for a trip to town for most simple jobs.

This baby is the power board; I am as proud of it as a real baby. Hugh and I did the planning and installed the solar power system ourselves, and I did the wiring for the back-up generator myself after we split up. We learned so much during this process, and Hugh’s general carpentry skills sure came in handy.

There is a battery bank in a box below the power board, which stores energy for a rainy day—for three rainy days, in fact. I’ve very rarely used the generator while I’ve lived here. We get a lot of sun at Monkey Valley! The box at the lower left of the power board is the step-up transformer, which provides power to the water pump. The box above that converts the DC power from the batteries to AC power from the house. From there is goes to a regular electric panel that leads to all the power lines in the house.

Wow, look at all this cool water stuff! The blue tank is the cold water storage tank. Above that on the upper left wall is a water filter. Water is filtered before it goes into the storage tank. From the storage tank, some cold water goes directly to the house, while other cold water feeds through a triple system that heats the water.

The pink insulated box contains the solar boiler, which heats water using solar energy. It passes the heated water into the big white hot water tank for storage. The hot water tank is also fitted for propane heating, so you can do that when you need large quantities of hot water quickly. From the hot water tank, the water goes through the big square flow-through heater on the wall. This baby is a Bosch, and it uses propane to heat water on demand. If the water is already hot as it flows through, it can either add to the heat, or you can just keep it set to pilot and turn it on as needed (on those rare cloudy days).

Entries and exits

This doorway is the entry through the yellow door at the west side of the house. In the country, the back entry is usually called the mud room, because things get muddy out on the land, and people need a place to take their boots off before they go into the house. This particular mud room is quite unique because it contains two showers, and there is a drain in the center of the stone-tiled floor.

There is a curtain to divide the room in half when both showers are in use.

I installed these extra showers for times when I am hosting retreats for large groups of people. This is also why I added the solar boiler with the propane hot water heating option, to be able to provide enough hot water for the house’s three showers and bath tub when large groups are here. This could come in handy for other uses too though, such as a place for ranch hands to shower.

And now it’s time to go back out the door onto the deck. Take one last look at the cozy sitting area by the fire! The wood object in the foreground at the right is the log ladder that goes up to the loft. Climb it if you dare! I can actually go up and down it in the dark, with a book and glass of water in my hands. Soon you will too!

And so here we are, back out on the deck overlooking the creek. This is really my favourite place at Monkey Valley. It gets the morning sun, and provides cool shade during the afternoon heat. Birds dart about in the willow bushes down by the creek, and the resident chipmunk brings flowers onto the deck to eat. You can see the satellite dish mounted at the end of the deck. This provides two-way satellite internet. And in the background, down by the creek, you can see the roof of the pump house. It’s a great place to hang out and watch the birds, read a book, or chat with friends and family.

Thank you for joining me on this virtual tour. I hope you are charmed by what you’ve seen. I’ve put a lot of love and attention into developing this house for comfortable, year-round living in harmony with the earth. I look forward to putting this care in the hands of the next people who will live here and love this place.

As remote as it is, you might be surprised to hear the unexpected visitors I’ve had at Monkey Valley. One time I was coming back from a run to the 5 KM marker—a favourite out-and-back route that takes about 45 minutes—and found two men in hunters’ gear on the wrong side of the fence at the top gate. They were standing behind the signs that said No Hunting and No Trespassing. Luckily I was feeling strong and confident with all the blood charging around my body from the run, so I grilled them, beginning with:

“Can you read?”

They claimed they could, but gave a lame excuse about wanting to look at the valley. One man tried to charm me by saying “It’s beautiful land you’ve got here.”

One had a bow and arrow and wanted to shoot a deer. The other one had a gun in case a bear came across them while the other one was shooting at deer. It turns out they were from Vancouver. Living out some kind of woodsman fantasy about hunting with a bow and arrow.

I made them crawl back under the fence on their bellies.

This is the place for a discussion of grown men shooting defenceless animals. Why do they want to do this? When I see the rows of hunting magazines in the grocery store in Merritt it makes me feel sick. All the covers have pictures of men standing smiling over the corpses of the animals they’ve killed. What is wrong with people?

I think all hunting of wild animals should be banned, except in the cases of people who have a hunting-gathering lifestyle and this is how they feed their families. And how many hunter-gatherers do you know? Probably NONE. Men from the cities, towns, and ranches who come into the wilderness to kill something to make themselves feel manly should just get over themselves and go see a therapist. The time for hunting is long over.

Aspen Grove

I later learned the realtor liked my curly hair, which might have accounted for why he told me about a property that was coming onto the market soon—160 acres, with a partially finished house and barn. He didn’t have time to show it to me that day, because it was an hour’s drive on the other side of Merritt, but he took me back to his office and showed me some pictures.

They weren’t that spectacular—just a bunch of trees, and a log cabin with an overturned chair beside it. I said I’d think about it, and drove back to Vancouver. I didn’t know what the land felt like, but I was very attracted to the fact that it was 160 acres and surrounded by crown land. It seemed like it would have complete privacy. I told my boyfriend about the place, and he thought it would be good for his ex-wife’s parents. That clinched it for me—I wanted it for myself, not for Hugh’s ex-wife’s family!

I called the realtor the next day, and said I wanted the property. He said I had to come and look at it first! So that Saturday I went up to Merritt with my mom and my friend Bev, and we met the realtor and he drove us to the ranch. I was so taken with the seclusion, and the beautiful yellow of the aspens on the winding country road we followed to get to the land. Little bushes all over the ground were red and orange. We found some late wild strawberries. My mom looked at the foundation of the house and said it was sound. And that was all it took! No building inspection, no appraisal… Just a conference with my advisors.

Me and Mom and Bev walked down the valley a little ways to talk about it privately. They both were very enthusiastic about the place. This encouraged me. I felt a peacefulness there, sitting on some rocks overlooking the creek, that seemed to be the answer to a longing in my heart. I had a vision of converting the barn into sleeping quarters and having writers’ retreats. I decided to go for it. We walked back to the house where the realtor was waiting on the porch, and I said I wanted to buy it.

The realtor helped me fill out the offer form, and advised me about the amount to offer. He felt the land was right for me and wanted me to have it, so helped keep the number of offers down by “losing” the key to the gate so that interested parties couldn’t come look at it. The property had been seized by the crown in a drug bust, so a few weeks later Hugh and I met the realtor and presented the offer in the Kamloops court house. The offer was accepted, and the property was mine!

And the realtor, who I had dared to tell the truth to, proved to be a real ally in helping me get the place ready to live in over the next two years. I am very grateful to him. Read this post to see how Monkey Valley got its name.

You can take the Coquihalla highway #5 (which no longer has a toll!), which climbs through majestic mountain passes and emerges on the rolling grasslands near Merritt. Another option is to take the Crowsnest highway #3 to Princeton, winding through Manning Park and along the Similkameen River.

A map and detailed directions will be provided when you register for a program.

The nearest Greyhound bus depot is in Merritt, an hour’s drive from the retreat centre. As there is no bus service from Merritt to the retreat centre, carpooling is encouraged. If you have room in your vehicle to bring someone, or need a ride, please contact the retreat centre and we will connect you with each other.

The nearest airport is in Kelowna, BC. From there it’s about a 1.5-hour drive to Monkey Valley.

There is plenty of space for camping, and there is also sleeping space in the 5,000 square-foot barn. (Bring your own camping gear.) The top floor of the barn is a 1,200 square-foot open room with a wood stove for heat. This room can be used as a meeting space during inclement weather, and the wood floors are ideal for yoga.

The facilities at Monkey Valley include outhouses and heated showers. There is also an old-fashioned claw-foot bathtub overlooking green meadows and the valley below.

The food at the retreat centre is delicious, healthy, nutritionally complete vegetarian fare, including eggs and dairy. Ingredients are organic when available. Please let us know if you have special dietary needs when you register. There are several campfire pits for marshmallow toasting and night-time gatherings.

Mountain evenings can get chilly here, even in the summertime. If you are camping, bring an insulated pad to sleep on (such as a thermarest) and a sleeping bag rated to -10° C. It is unlikely to be that cold, but this rating will keep you toasty at night!

For more pictures of the log cabin interior, see this virtual tour.

The Monkey Valley Retreat Centre is a place where you can reconnect with nature, both outer and inner. The retreat centre offers programs to support this process of reconnection, such as vision fast retreats and medicine wheel teachings. It is also available for rental to individuals, families, and groups of up to 50 people.

Monkey Valley is located in the wilderness of beautiful British Columbia. The centre includes 160 acres of wild forested land, with a varied terrain of hills and meadows, and a silvery creek meandering through the valley. In the summertime you can hike or reflect quietly amid the abundance of birds, wild flowers, and woodland creatures. In winter the land is snow-clad, providing beautiful, pristine cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.

Hidden in the northern foothills of the Cascade mountain range, between Merritt and Princeton, close to Missezula Lake and the Kentucky-Alleyne Provincial Park, the elevation at the retreat centre is about 3,300 feet (1,100 metres). Aspen, lodgepole pine, fir, and ponderosa pine grace the hillsides.

There are no monkeys at the retreat centre, but guests have glimpsed moose, deer, beaver, coyotes, foxes, yellow-bellied marmots, grouse, red-tailed hawks, great horned owls, and many other birds and small woodland creatures.

I’m Karen, steward of the land and director of the retreat centre. I fell in love with this land before I even saw it, when a realtor showed me pictures and described the wildness of it. When I first saw it I knew I wanted to create a retreat centre here, so that others could come enjoy the amazing untamed beauty of this place.

My partner at the time, Hugh, helped me install solar power and hot water. It took us two years to do this, and during this time we travelled back and forth from Vancouver with my cat, Monkey.

One evening Monkey went missing. We had to get back to the city the next day, and couldn’t find Monkey anywhere. Sadly, we left without him. To our great surprise, when we returned two weeks later, Monkey emerged from under the porch, looking sleek and well-fed.

This might seem like no big deal, but for the first seven years of his life Monkey was strictly an indoor cat. To survive by catching his own food for two weeks (and to avoid being killed by coyotes or great horned owls) was an amazing feat for a city-slicker cat. This was a remarkable demonstration of how we are hard-coded to be part of the natural world, even though we may grow up in cities and know little of nature’s ways. We named Monkey Valley in his honour.