Vancouver is an ace city as it is surrounded by mountains but also on the coast with rivers and beaches. It has a bit of everything. We headed up Mount Seymour to see the views but unfortunately low cloud hugged the mountain so there were no views to see. We took a look at the ski hill and were impresed by the amount of night skiing.
Next we drove to downtown to meet a guy to look at Fred. He’d booked a mechanic to do a check over. After a lot of chat and hanging about the mechanic finally did the checks and in principal we agreed a sale. The guy just needed to wait on the funds to arrive from the USA (eek, that makes me nervous).
We drove 30 minutes to North Vancouver where we went to visit Lucy and Dale who we met on the road in Bend, Oregon (they were waiting for a new transmission system). They live and work at the foot of the mountains in North Vancouver through the winters using their evenings to snowboard, and then travel during the summer – perfect!!! Lucy cooked a lovely veggie dinner. We have a lot in common and had a great night swapping travel stories and hearing about each others trips for the last few months. We stayed on their driveway and had a lovely shower the next morning.
Upon good recommendation, we headed to Lynn Canyon and took a walk along the river to the suspension bridge and waterfalls.
Next we went up Cypress Mountain and had a look at their ski hills (also well set up for night skiing). We walked the 4km loop through the forest and swamp lands to Bowen Lookout. It has amazing views as you look out over the west coast towards Bowen Island.
We could see the ferries busy plying the waters and could imagine on a sunny, clear day how stunning the views must be. A few little birds and a chipmunk kept us company while admiring the view.
As we headed back through the ski hill we spotted a black bear up the mountain and stood and watched him for a while. They look so cute and cuddly but we resisted the temptation to go any closer and just watched from afar.
We returned to Lucy and Dale’s and excitedly made use of their oven for pizza (obviously Pete’s choice) and garlic bread. Another lovely evening of travel chat followed.
The next day we rented mountain bikes in Squamish. I had a top of the range Juliana (the Roubion) which had only been out 3 times and had a price tag of $10,000 and Pete had a Rocky Mountain Instinct. Just a bit different from Wilma! I loved the eagle gear for our climbing at Garabaldi trails.
First we did the Half Nelson which we loved but had changed quite a lot since our memories here three years ago. Then we tried Fred (an apt name) and Tinder which are steep and very technical trails (Pete loved the challenge, me not so much)
Then Pete rode Your Mom while I took Pseudo Tsuga.
We just got to the car park in time to catch a $10 uplift right to the top of the mountain – perfect. The van was like Our Fred on steroids!
From there we took a new trail called The Meadow of the Grizzlies which was steep and fun but very wet. Then a quick dash up the fireroad to squeeze in Half Nelson once more before we had to return the bikes. What a fun day!
We finished it off in style with a visit to Cliffside Cider where we sampled a flight and some yummy cider cocktails. And topped it off at the Howe Sound Brewery for a beer flight. Perfect!
