Today was hiking day, so I packed my Nike Free in a backpack because I didn't want to ruin my new shoes already.
The first location was Lynn Canyon Park, taking a bus, then a ferry across to North Vancouver and then another bus from the depot. While downtown is pretty flat, North Vancouver is incredibly hilly, the steepest hill I did not think the bus was even going to reach the top of.
The first thing you encounter at the park is the suspension bridge. It was fun to walk across, and a little bit less fun when a whole lot of people jumped on during the return trip later on, but it seemed a little strange that the highlight of the park is positioned right at the very start. Continued walking through some of the surrounding forest area and up many steps before getting as far as Rice Lake, then turning back.
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| The entrance to Lynn Canyon Park. |
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| And next we have the main feature of our park, the suspension bridge! |
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| The river below. |
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| A rock collection. |
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| This is not Rice Lake. |
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| This is Rice Lake. |
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| The last downhill for a while. |
Took the next bus back to the depot, and then a bus in the opposite direction to Grouse Mountain. The reason for coming here was simply to do the Grouse Grind. I had read a bunch of reviews where people talk about how difficult it is, but I thought they were just complainers or unfit people.
I probably should have paid more attention to those warnings, because it was more difficult than I can really explain. To try and describe it, you're walking up a rough mountain track of steps for about 50 minutes with no break. There are no flats, there are just steps, more steps, and sometimes really steep steps just for a change of pace. I think what made it worse was I started the adventure in pants and a jumper, carrying a backpack with shoes, water bottle and camera. I should also mention that I ate a couple of bread rolls and a donut just before starting off, which is probably not discussed in any good hiking books.
I got rid of the jumper about a quarter of the way up, but then I still had to carry it in the backpack as well. Hiking in pants is just no fun at all. Jason went a bit ahead about one third of the way up as I was pausing to take a few photos and slowly dying of dehydration. By about two thirds of the way up I was totally dehydrated, about to be sick and fall over at the same time. I finally made it to the top but it was not easy. Even though it ended so miserably, I'd still do it again any day, it is a great challenge.
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| Not shown: The other 95% of the mountain. |
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| Making some progress. |
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| Other sad people. |
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| Just about made it. |
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| Just made it. |
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| Stupid cloud cover. |
At the top of the mountain there was some grizzly bears enclosure but I could not see any sign of them, pretty disappointing. There was also a small skyride to the very peak of the mountain but you need some full "adventure" ticket to ride on that. Instead we just got the main cable car down to the bottom. It was pretty weird passing through a layer of cloud or fog or whatever, it was like in that Stephen King film The Mist where everything outside the windows was just white.
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| The next peak after visiting the lodge. |
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| The trip back down. |
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| Visibility slightly improved. |
Back to downtown Vancouver and then out to Metropolis At Metrotown, one of the biggest shopping centres I've ever seen, but it had a very chaotic layout so it was nearly impossible to devise a plan to pass everything.
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