Stawamus Chief

Hello friends.  Time is flying I'll tell you what, and it's hard to believe the ride is already less than two months away.  I have kept up training pretty well, and have moved all cardiovascular exercise (except for climbing, of course) over to the bike.  The weather is getting better fast, and the higher mountains are calling my name. I'm itching to carve out some time from school and do something big.  Maybe another shot at Mt. Baker, which you may remember I was laughed off of a couple of months ago by foul winter weather and poor-at-best ski technique.   For now I am contenting myself with shorter conditioning hikes closer to the city.  This week I was on Hollyburn Mountain at the Cypress Bowl ski area just outside of the city.  Cypress is one of three ski resorts whose floodlights illuminate the clouds over Vancouver all winter, you can drive to the chairlifts from downtown in less than a half an hour.  I went up with the UBC outdoor club to help teach a class on basic mountaineering skills.  The resort closed for summer several weeks ago, but there is plenty of snow higher up so it seemed a perfectly convenient place to teach rope-work and crampon technique.  The clouds didn't clear once that day so I didn't bother with any photos.  You'll have to take my word for it.  

The big wall on the Stawamus Chief, Squamish B.C.
Almost 2,000 feet of vertical granite, not for the faint of heart. 

Last weekend my girlfriend Bailey had her sister in town for a visit, so the three of us and my co-worker Evan headed up to Squamish to hike the Stawamus Chief.  The Chief is a 2,000 foot fin of granite that rises precipitously from sea level at the head of Howe Sound.  It is considered to be a place of spiritual signifigance by the indigenous Sḵwxwú7mesh people, and is named after one of their villages.  It is a popular rock-climbing destination, offering everything from small practice crags to epic big wall ascents on a near Yosemite scale.  It also has a short and steep hiking trail, climbing over 2,000 feet in about a mile.  A great afternoon of conditioning to be sure, but being so close to Vancouver it is infamously swamped with tourists and locals alike on most nice days of the summer.  Bailey and I had never done it, so we figured we would brave the crowds at least once to see what all the fuss was about. 

Mastering the stairs on the Chief Peaks hiking trail.  

It didn't take long to realize what we had signed up for.  After pulling into a packed parking lot we made our way to the trailhead and joined the train of people headed up steep staircases into the woods.  In any other city the busy trails would have made it hard to get in a good workout, but thankfully we live in Vancouver and the line of spandex clad tushes moved pretty fast.  This hike is very short and equally painful.  The trail is well maintained and a lot of it is covered by stairs, but they're steep and relentless.  It was basically an afternoon on the stair-stepper with nicer views.  

Traffic jam on one of the bolted chain sections near the top of the Chief. 

Nearing the top the trees clear out and you wind up hiking over granite slabs to the summit.  This was fairly pleasant except for the traffic jams at one way chain sections and ladders.  Beautiful views can be hampered slightly by the sounds of irate hikers arguing over right of way.  Bottlenecks aside, we made it to the top and were greeted with sunshine and sandwiches.  

The view from the top.
The B.C. Coast Mountains rise out of the Pacific Ocean at Howe Sound, Squamish B.C.

Hikers on top of First Peak (2,100') on the Stawamus Chief.  

Victory pose.

Atwell Peak (8,700') in the clouds, framed by cliffs on the Chief.  

We spent a glorious couple of hours on top, soaking in the sunshine and taking ridiculous photographs of each other.  Afterwards we found a more round about trail through the woods to get ourselves back down, avoiding most of the crowds and having a grand old time.  I don't regret my hike on the Chief, but I won't be doing it again soon.  Intense crowds, while something we all need to get used to on the more popular trails, can definitely take away from the experience of being outdoors.  More than this, it is an increased stress on the delicate ecosystems that we must disturb to get our fix.  I guess this is just another reason to go further and higher.  

Pleasant trails down.  

That's it for this one folks, short and sweet just like the Chief.  I'll be taking a few laps around Stanley Park tomorrow morning on the road bike, and I'm sure I'll tell you all about it.  I'm not exactly sure what else is in store for the next month except to say that plans are forming, and I cannot seem to dislodge the word Rainier from my mind.  The PMC 2013 fundraising total is over $8,000,000.00 so far.  This is an incredible number but still far short of the $38M goal so please please donate if you can!  I also wanted to let you know about an article I read recently on the Dana-Farber blog about how 75% of all pediatric cancer patients today will be cured of their disease!  This kind of great news is a direct result and proportionally related to the generosity of benefactors like you.  Thanks for reading, stay posted!