Vancouver is a city that sees little sunlight throughout the
year, so during the few months of summer when sunlight is abundant there is
always a lot going on. A couple of weeks ago was the last night of the
international fireworks competition and it was also Vancouver’s gay pride
weekend. It was my last full weekend in Vancouver and my college roommate Tyler
came to visit for a few days. He got there late Friday night and we headed
straight to Kitsilano to meet some friends at a bar. After downing a pitcher of
a ginger-flavored beer called Ginga Ninja, the drunchies started to kick in and
we went to a place called Al Basha, which has the best shawarma in town. We
didn’t get up to anything too exciting after that because we were going on a
hike the next day.
After forgetting to set an alarm, I woke up to a bright and
early 9:30am wake up call from my friend Dakota, who was coming hiking with us.
We headed out towards Squamish with plans to summit a mountain called Sky
Pilot. Turns out Sky Pilot is a pretty gnarly climb and not doable in an
afternoon, so we changed our plans to hike another mountain, Brohm Ridge, instead.
The drive to the trailhead was up an unmaintained forest service road full of
potholes and giant rocks, though, and even in a jacked up jeep the mountain got
the best of us and we weren’t able to get to the top. We turned back but
weren’t ready to give up yet. We found another trail on the map that was easier
to get to and decided to go for that.
The trailhead for Petgill Lake was at sea level, so there
was no way we were going to make it up to glaciers that afternoon, but we still
made it quite a ways up to a nice lake with water warm enough to jump in.
The trail wound through second-growth forest filled with
wild blueberries and rocky cliffs. Rated moderately difficult for the area, it
was pretty steep and tiring.
Beyond the lake, there was a viewpoint overlooking the
islands in the Howe Sound.
* * * *
That night was the final night of the international
fireworks competition. We made it back to Vancouver just in time to watch
Thailand’s fireworks show from Sunset Beach downtown. The show was pretty
incredible and this was the closest I had been for any of the fireworks shows
yet. All of my photos were pretty shaky but here’s a cool one:
After the fireworks we met up with Evelyn for a few beers at
a bar and then called it a night. The next morning was the gay pride parade,
which was a fun and happy event. The parade was full of rainbows and banana
hammocks and included some pretty cool floats, like a giant inflatable airplane
and a sparkly unicorn. It was so crowded it was hard to see, though. My camera
decided not to work that day, so I don’t have any pictures to show from the parade.
Once the parade was over, we meandered towards sunset beach
and found a stage with live music and a ton of tents giving away free stuff like sunglasses and condoms. We went for a swim in the ocean there and laughed as the lifeguard constantly asked people to put their clothes back on.
* * * *
Tyler left that afternoon because he had to work the next
day, but that Monday was British Columbia Day so Ev and I had an additional day
without responsibilities. We went into the lab in the morning to take measurements
for Ev’s project and then headed to Cypress Mountain, which is just north
of Vancouver and is where the ski jumping was held in the last Olympics. Along
the way we stopped to admire the view of Mount Baker towering over the valley
in the distance.
 |
| Mt Baker being all snowy and epic behind Vancouver |
At the viewpoint we met some guys who were training to run from BC to
Nunavut. Nunavut is a northern territory on the complete opposite side of the
country from BC. These crazy motherfuckers were making a documentary about
their run, so if you ever see a movie about a dude who ran across Canada, look
out for Evelyn and me in the background.
At the top of Cypress Mountain we hiked to the Bowen
Lookout, which was a short and mostly flat walk to an epic viewpoint where we
could see over Bowen and Gambier Islands, among others.
We returned to Cypress for another hike the next weekend,
the story of which will be told in the next post.
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