A few weekends ago we hired a car and got back into the swing of driving on the wrong side of the road (the right of course). We were upgraded to a very posh Lexus and the driving was relatively easy (for Woody) to get to Mt Seymour, about 25 minutes out of Downtown Vancouver.
On the way from Downtown we drove through East Hastings Street, and that was a real culture shock. Where we are living is pretty up-market, clean and safe. This area has blocks and blocks of unfortunate homeless people and addicts out on the street who, I am told, are neglected by the state and city and have no where else to go. They line the street with items for sale, trolleys full of bottles for refunds, and bags with their possessions. It’s pretty tragic and was a shock to see.
Mt Seymour is 1100m above sea level. It was 22 degrees and sunny when we left Downtown Vancouver. We crossed a very high bridge at Highway 99 to get to North Vancouver and then to Mt Seymour.
At 400m above sea level it was getting pretty misty and atmospheric. At 600m we thought maybe we should turn back as we were not going to see a thing-certainly not any views. At 1000m we found ourselves surrounded by mist so thick you could only see a room's length in front of you-and we realized we had reached a big car park at the ski lifts.
There were about 8 or so people and quite a few cars, so we decided to do a short walk to First Lake- about 2km. Most of the walking tracks all seemed to commence at this point. We had packed our winter ski jackets and had walking shoes on, but not hiking shoes.
We spoke to a fellow who was dressed for the terrain (his name was Keith) and he had cameras and stuff too. He suggested the walk to the lower lake was best as another walker had said that snow had prevented him getting though another track without snow spikes for his shoes
Snow…what a novelty for us…I got quite excited at the prospect.
Keith was walking the same way so we started out together. However we did not want o intrude on his day so as he stopped to take photos we kept on wandering. At first we were in alpine level rain forest- it was beautiful and eerily quiet with the mist. A tiny grey squirrel popped up on a branch –they are native to the area and many have been chased off by the bigger invader, the black squirrel.
Then we hit the snow and it was awesome. Big swathes covered a lot of the ground up to 1m thick. We were contemplating turning back, but Keith joined us and offered to guide us through…and thank goodness he did. It was impossible to find the track markers and in many parts the ice fell through to big holes or water. You had to dig the toe of your shoe into each step on the snow so as not to slip.
But it was beautiful to walk through the forest on the snow and our hiking shoes were ok to manage the slippery ground.
The lake with the mist and surrounding fir trees was spectacular-Woody was cursing bringing the happy snap camera instead of his Canon. But we enjoyed it all the same.
As we walked further we did lose the track a bit and the path kept going up and up…and after 1 hour I was wondering where we were…thankfully there was some sign posting and we found the post to direct us back to the point at which we had started- the walk was about 1 hour and 45 minutes and we had been expecting a 40 minute stroll!!.
We were most thankful to Keith for being our guide-I don’t think we would have been brave enough to wing it on our own in such unfamiliar territory.
Keith said it was good to see the terrain through someone else's eyes, someone who had not seen snow.
He was a hobby photographer and we swapped web site addresses. His shots were quite lovely and he mentioned in his notes that he ran in to “a very nice Australian couple” (I assume he meant us).
On the way from Downtown we drove through East Hastings Street, and that was a real culture shock. Where we are living is pretty up-market, clean and safe. This area has blocks and blocks of unfortunate homeless people and addicts out on the street who, I am told, are neglected by the state and city and have no where else to go. They line the street with items for sale, trolleys full of bottles for refunds, and bags with their possessions. It’s pretty tragic and was a shock to see.
Mt Seymour is 1100m above sea level. It was 22 degrees and sunny when we left Downtown Vancouver. We crossed a very high bridge at Highway 99 to get to North Vancouver and then to Mt Seymour.
At 400m above sea level it was getting pretty misty and atmospheric. At 600m we thought maybe we should turn back as we were not going to see a thing-certainly not any views. At 1000m we found ourselves surrounded by mist so thick you could only see a room's length in front of you-and we realized we had reached a big car park at the ski lifts.
There were about 8 or so people and quite a few cars, so we decided to do a short walk to First Lake- about 2km. Most of the walking tracks all seemed to commence at this point. We had packed our winter ski jackets and had walking shoes on, but not hiking shoes.
We spoke to a fellow who was dressed for the terrain (his name was Keith) and he had cameras and stuff too. He suggested the walk to the lower lake was best as another walker had said that snow had prevented him getting though another track without snow spikes for his shoes
Snow…what a novelty for us…I got quite excited at the prospect.
Keith was walking the same way so we started out together. However we did not want o intrude on his day so as he stopped to take photos we kept on wandering. At first we were in alpine level rain forest- it was beautiful and eerily quiet with the mist. A tiny grey squirrel popped up on a branch –they are native to the area and many have been chased off by the bigger invader, the black squirrel.
Then we hit the snow and it was awesome. Big swathes covered a lot of the ground up to 1m thick. We were contemplating turning back, but Keith joined us and offered to guide us through…and thank goodness he did. It was impossible to find the track markers and in many parts the ice fell through to big holes or water. You had to dig the toe of your shoe into each step on the snow so as not to slip.
But it was beautiful to walk through the forest on the snow and our hiking shoes were ok to manage the slippery ground.
The lake with the mist and surrounding fir trees was spectacular-Woody was cursing bringing the happy snap camera instead of his Canon. But we enjoyed it all the same.
As we walked further we did lose the track a bit and the path kept going up and up…and after 1 hour I was wondering where we were…thankfully there was some sign posting and we found the post to direct us back to the point at which we had started- the walk was about 1 hour and 45 minutes and we had been expecting a 40 minute stroll!!.
We were most thankful to Keith for being our guide-I don’t think we would have been brave enough to wing it on our own in such unfamiliar territory.
Keith said it was good to see the terrain through someone else's eyes, someone who had not seen snow.
He was a hobby photographer and we swapped web site addresses. His shots were quite lovely and he mentioned in his notes that he ran in to “a very nice Australian couple” (I assume he meant us).
