After returning from my week away with the boys I had a pretty chilled one in Kelowna. A couple of days resting at home - lots of washing, emails, reading books etc! And a coupes more days downtown
I also went for a big walk in the local nature park Knox Mountain:
Which had the remnants of an old homestead, now underground all except for the headstone reading 1910!
The bridge you see in the background is one we cross daily to get to town from Nicole's place, which is off a ways to the right, much further than the image goes, but curving around the lake to be almost in line with where I'm taking the photo from, but on the other side..... If you can imagine that!
Here's her place!
By Friday it was time for me to go. An amazing Adventurous couple of months in the forest, lakes and mountains was what I'd wanted for years, but had quickly turned into me needing to get to the sea - so far inland for so long! So off I headed, after numerous travel dramas that don't need to be drawn out here, to Vancouver!
Where great street art prides, giant slugs collide and an architectural library resides ...
I stayed a bit out of town with a couchsurfing host Amanda (she saved the day when my plans changed very last minute, so I was happy to take the daily commute into town!). After an overnight bus, a few hours sitting outside a local coffee shop in the early hours of the morning waiting for it to open, an extended chat to a stoned homeless dude, I eventually got a cab to her place. Got settled in and then caught a couple buses and a train to get in to town.
For my first day in. Vancouver it was a bit wet, but ok to wander the streets, so I spent most of my time on Commercial drive, a strip not quite downtown that it pretty cool, with lots of good cafes, restuarants and culture. From there to an outdoor store to spend a few hours choosing the right pack (I was now carrying so much stuff that I needed a second backpack - which is fine because I needed a new one for climbing anyway!) then it caught a film and went back home for a damn good sleep!
The next day I went back to Vancouver but with Amanda and one of her friends Caroline. We grabbed a cuppa, and then went to sushi for lunch, collecting another friend on the way. The sushi was pretty extreme. Normal sushi I could say has maybe 3-5 ingredients other than the rice and nori. These had about 10! So we completely gorged and all felt bad afterwards!
Next, after dropping the other person off, we headed downtown to play tourist. First the girls showed me the library, which is the beautiful building seen able and below. Then we walked through town and along the shore, making our way to Granville Island, an almost disconnected piece of land that hosts a fresh produce market, a brewery, good restaurants and a children's park. We checked out the markets then went for a beer! We shared the plate below!
Then back to the 'mainland' for a stroll along the beach and to see a few famous statues...
And then up Davis street - the 'gay until proven otherwise' street. Decorated nicely in support of equal rights!
We had dinner back at a little pub in our hometown and rested again for the night.
Next day I headed back downtown - this time for breakfast and then off to walk the sea wall - a path that circumnavigated the whole of Stanley Park and then some. It is about 9km long. I took some detours into the park also to checkout the beaver dam (no beavers) though! At red this I dashed off to. Another part of town to meet Caroline for an indoor climbing session! She gave me a ride home.
There is a man who daily works on these rock piles. Appearing to defeat gravity, they are placed perfectly, and when tide comes in, they appear to be sitting on nothing. Great outdoor art!
Unfortunately I had had a whole week of not climbing, so my recently formed super callouses were peeling big time :( this is not the last, nor the worst I saw of this during this trip!!
After a week of trying, I had finally got in contact with one of Maureen and Larry's friends Tracey. I met her at their party and told her I'd hit her up for accomodation when I'm in Vancouver! I caught some buses to meet her at her mums place where her sister Cheryl had joined also to do some chores. Cheryl was who I stayed with on my first night in Canada! She lives quite a bit further out of the city.
The ladies whizzed around in the rain, testing out the new scooter they'd just got for their mum!
She had a beautiful garden, kept by an Australian gardener apparently!
I stayed the night at Tracey's in North Vancouver, and got along with her, her husband Chris and adopted son Mostafa so much, that it planned to return to stay for longer next week.
But for now! Time to get to Squamish!
I got a rideshare up, which was an adventure of its own, but I got there fine. Squamish is only about an hour north of Vancouver, and the drive up is spectacular, with the Howe Sound and all it's islands on your left the whole way and snowy peaks in the far distance.
I arrived at my campground, set up and walked into town. On my way, I got my first up close view of the world famous chief!!! The campsite is just under this to the right (out of shot). This is the most popular climbing destination in Canada. A 400m granite prominence, with the easiest access possible and thousands of world class routes and boulders in the forest undergrowth below. Yay!
In town I took some time out at a coffee shop (the walk in took longer than expected) and then did my grocery shopping for the next few days. Walk home and rest for the night in the beautiful campground.
Next day, I was yet to find any climbing buddies (very intimidating being surrounded by great climbers, nerve racking to ask if you can join, because they often say no!), so decided to take the new sea to sky gondola up the mountain behind the chief, and instead do some hiking up there. I also packed my climbing gear on the off chance something presents itself along the way...
So off I hike through the forest and to the gondola. The gondola is pretty amazing and rises about 850m from sea level. As I hop on I see two guys in the carriage in front of me with what looks like climbing gear... Hmm.. So I jump off at the top and interrupt their conversation to see if they are going climbing. Which they are! Cool - I didn't even know there were places to climb up here. It sounded like their climb would be pretty pressed for time (if you don't return in time for the last gondola it would be an extra 5 or so hours hiking down steep hill in the dark!) but they were happy to have me come along and see. They said that the hike they were doing on the climb was awesome, so it'll be worth joining them for that even if we don't have time to all climb.
Lucky for me meeting friendly dudes - the were local kayaking guides, going for a climb on their day off. Good company for the walk.
When I say walk, I mean the first hour, which was pleasant. And then the next leg, which we assumed to be only 30-45 minutes ended up taking me about 3 hours!!! It was an absolute trudge uphill through the dense forest, undergrowth, loose dirt, more loose dirty, steep streams and even a mini rock face (with a fixed rope attached). When I got up the guys were already there, as were another two girls who were hiking, but the guys had not predicted that kind of approach, so it looked like not only not enough time for me to climb, but not enough time for them to even reach the summit themselves!
I lay in the sun on the rock, had some food and enjoyed poking around the area, then we soon realised that the route the guys were climbing wasn't even the one they were supposed to be doing. They were on the wrong route! Soon I decided to leave, as did the girls just before me. I knew they guys would catch up and we could walk back together. They caught me sooner than I realised, due to forfeiting the climbs early on - shame - such an epic ascent up the mountain, not even to finish the sweet climb at the top! (Which would have been really fun, pretty easy and an amazing view if we did it!). But enemies, next time they'll come prepared.... And much earlier in the day!
Here's some shots of the views on the way up and at the top of the hike (which is the base of the climb)
This is the rock the guys are trying to climb
On the way back down, we stopped to see the view of the sound from a swinging bridge at the top of the gondola. Nice!
And then to the famous Mag's 99 Mexican restuarant, which sits on the freeway, close to the climbing park. I had seen this the day previous and was convinced it must be the dirtiest of dirty chicken shops! But I couldn't have been more wrong - this is actually notorious, especially amongst all the local adventurers - as a local piece of gold. Only open for a year or two, the Mexican come chicken shop is truly something special!!
One of the entrances to the bouldering areas underneath the chief - like a magical land to explore with mossy trees, soft woodchip floors and stunning boulders. I played in here for quite some time the next day! After which I ended up at a local crag called the 'Smoke Bluffs'. Here I met some Austrian climbers who I climbed with for the rest of the day, and the next day also.
The campsite:
The second day when I was with the Austrians, we met a few Americans bouldering and joined them for the day which was really really relaxing and nice. Just hanging in the shade! Many of them had dogs, including this cutie :)
Howe sound
This is not me!! I'm too scared to go that night without a rope! On my final day in Squamish, the Austrians had left, but I stuck with a couple from Bellingham (North of Seattle, almost on the border) and we did some rope climbing as well as a little more bouldering. Which I am terrible at! But Samantha was really good! At the end I also grabbed a lift back to North Vancouver with them which was really helpful. So a lovely week in Squamish despite some haggling to find climbing friends! Sorry there's not more climbing pictures!
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