wacky chief'n

Last weekend was a fun weekend. On Saturday, our friend Scuba Steve (he got the name because he was in our scuba class) took us to Chilliwack Lake, which is just over the border on the Canadian side of the North Cascades. It's a nice place:

two anonymous sexy people laying on a log

On the way there we were hungry so we bought some party mix, which is a concoction of pretzels and cheese puffs and a whole bunch of other stuff all covered in cheese, and basically just partied on this log with the party mix for a couple of hours. The water was pretty cold but swimmable for a little while so we swam around too. The sandy lake bottom was covered in fallen trees, kind of like a sunken forest which was really cool to explore. We found a log (tree?) that was trying to float but the roots were still stuck in the ground, so only the tip of the log was floating on top of the water. When you stand on it, it sinks a little bit and then bounces back up, kind of like an underwater trampoline. I don't have many photos because I was too busy partying on the log, but I have a bunch more from our adventure the next day.

That night was the first night of Vancouver's celebration of light, which is an international fireworks competition. It goes for three nights and a different country does a fireworks show each night, timed to music. We were too lazy to go very far so we watched England's fireworks from a park near our house, which was pretty far away but still had a decent view. They played the James Bond song and a bunch of others. Couldn't get any great pics, but here's one:

The next day we woke up pretty late and drove up the sea-to-sky highway to Squamish to hike the chief. Stawamus chief is the second-biggest granite chief in the world (read: really big mountain-sized rock) and base to peak is nearly 2,300 feet high.

not a bad drive.     photocred: evelyn

view from the base, scroll down and you'll see the same view from the peak

It actually has three peaks, but we only climbed the highest two since the other one seemed overpopulated and not as cool as the others. The hike wasn't too long but it was very steep.

so steep, in fact, that everyone is recommended to bring shrooms for the journey

We took the trail straight to the highest peak, which began as a bunch of stairs and then branched off of the main trail and went up a rocky canyon. The canyon was steep and hard to climb but it was really fun as it involved a lot of strategic scrambling (I might have just made up that term) and trying to find the best way around the obstacles that lay ahead.

photo cred to Evelyn

 We passed by a lot of cliffs that looked really fun to climb but we didn't have any ropes with us so we didn't try.

 Parts of the trail reminded me of Joshua Tree; with rocks to climb all over the mountain, kind of like a giant adult playground.

There were also wild blueberries all over the place which made for a great mid-hike snack

When we finally reached the peak, pretty exhausted, we had an ok view:

Squamish and the surrounding mountains       photocred: Evelyn

the Howe Sound and sea-to-sky highway winding around the coast

From there, we hiked down a ways and then back up a bit to the second peak, which was a little bit lower but had a better view of the water:

scroll up and you'll see the same view from the base.     photocred: Evelyn

the edge of a ~2000 foot cliff.    photocred: Evelyn

Chippy the Chipmunk

We ate some trail mix and played with the chipmunks and then hiked back down. We went a different route down which was cool because it had some chain climbs and ladders at the steep parts. Some people were struggling with the chain climbs but I found it a lot easier and more fun to jump from rock to rock. When we got to the base we went to the Howe Sound brewery in Squamish, for the classic post-hike beer and poutine. Excellent.