BCMC Trail & the Summit of Grouse Mountain

The BCMC (British Columbia Mountaineering Club) Trail, is, supposedly, the less cruel sister of the famous and stupendously awful trail known internationally as the Grouse Grind. Both trails run from the base of Grouse Mountain (easily accessible by transit) to the summit, where all the fun stuff is. Today I went in with a plan of taking the 'kinder' BCMC to the top to save quite a few bucks on a gondola ticket (how most people get to Grouse Mountain's summit) and then I was going to go off and hike to Goat Mountain.

I didn't get to Goat Mountain today. The furthest I got, in fact, was Grouse's summit. Why? Well, the fact is, is that BCMC is really not much kinder at all than the Grind. In full, honest truth, the BCMC is still amazingly horrible. Is it gentler than the hell-case known as the Grind? Yes. But it's still pretty shitty. Now, I like trails. I am an obsessive hiker and I love hiking, yet when a trail is almost vertical for 2.5 kilometres in which I am constantly lifting my feet to hip-high and breathing like a stricken racehorse with my face all red, well, that's when I DON'T like a trail. I hike for fun, thank you. The BCMC isn't fun. Also, I was passed many times, which kind of damages my pride. (Of course, I had to come ultra prepared for that Goat Mountain jaunt that I never did with 2 litres of water, a fleece hoodie, sketchbook & sketch pouch and full survival emergency pack - that all comes to about 10 lbs of weight on my back, which feels more like 30 lb when you're doing something stupid like the BCMC Trail.) A good hike is one where you can enjoy the scenery. You CAN'T enjoy the scenery on the BCMC Trail, because it never gives you a chance to lift your head up from the ground as you toil up the dementedly steep mountainside. The BCMC trail and this crazy guy I hiked with for the last five minutes of it, all come together to tell me some facts about myself and about people on the Lower Mainland:

1. People here are fucking insane and have no idea of what a real hike is like. (Note, I know what a real hike is like because I like the long 25+ km ones!)

2. I'm out of shape, which isn't surprising, given that I barely ever get any excersize (noooooo!) and that I just ran through a bad episode with my IBS (which didn't bother me AT ALL today and it's been twinging all week - hiking IS medicine!) so I need to find a way to be more active, without doing something retarded like magically acquiring a dog from some place. (Actually I think being a professional dog walker would be an awesome career!)



So, how do I rate this trail?

On a scale from 1 to 10, I rate this one a 1. It's less disgusting than the Grind (which I rate a 0, as it should not have the right to call itself a trail) but it's still not very fun. The Grind is a hellish staircase to insanity. The BCMC is a trail which is considering becoming a hellish staircase to insanity.

Would I do it again? Potentially; yes, when I'm fitter. Why, when I hate this trail so much? Well, personally, I'd rather not pay the $45 lift ticket up the mountain to the summit just for a day walk there. Hiking should be FREE. The right to move around and experience freedom is so base in our souls that it is as required as water, another thing which should always be FREE.

Don't do this hike if you've never hiked before, if you're overweight or if you're extremely out of shape. Work up to it; you'll be thankful! (Also, if you're a new hiker this might poison you to hiking forever because it is truthfully terrible!)



Now, the hike up might have sucked (also meeting that weird guy who claims that he regularly runs from Park Royal to the top of Grouse and back who's going to Mt. Fuji next month was sort of a turn off to any more extensive hiking, especially when he happily said that Goat Mountain is a lot like the BCMC - uh. Yeah. Fuck no.) but the summit of Grouse Mountain is actually a really great destination! Most of the really crazy things like ziplining and paragliding are obviously activities which you have to pay an arm and a leg for, but there are plenty of free activities which are great for the whole family! Also, with stupendous views and fun educational nature stuff, it's an especially good place to expose young children to the great outdoors, without them getting too tired.



In winter Grouse Mountain is a ski resort and as I don't ski, I can't really attest to its ski-ness. However, in summer, the place is pretty cool; at the bottom of the mountain close to the parking lot you can see three male timber wolves from the film industry and at the top you can see....



...Grinder & Coola, the resort's ambassador captive grizzly bears, who were instrumental in the recent development of bear rehabilitation techniques (they're pretty much the reason that scientists can now take an orphan bear cub from the wild, rehab it and release it when it's old enough now)...



...see a Harris Hawk named Natas at the Canadian Raptor Conservancy's 'Wings in Motion' show...



...see an ADORABLE squeaky female Great Horned Owl named Galaxy...



...see a really funny and fascinating turkey vulture lovingly named Frank as well as a red-tailed hawk, which the conservancy is valiantly petitioning to make Canada's national bird, since bald eagles (America's national bird) like to EAT iconic Canada geese...



...and Rocco, the bald eagle, who is apparently an escape artist. The show promises to also showcase falcon species soon!

Besides the wolves, grizzlies and the brilliant Wings in Motion show, Grouse also has a 'World Famous Lumberjack Show' (which I've seen before at the IPE, my home town's fair and which was much funnier there, but the show at Grouse is still excellent, especially if you've never seen it) and 'The Eye of the Wind' which is a massive wind turbine that Grouse decided to put up to make its resort more energy efficient. You can also take a lift to an observation deck at the top and see the view - I didn't. I wasn't sure if you had to pay money to do that and I'm a cheapskate. Plus, I don't very much like heights, though I definitely would have went if I hadn't been alone and if it was free!



All I got a picture of for the lumberjack show was the set up. I didn't take any photos of the actual show for some reason. Before that I enjoyed an interpretive talk on Coola and Grinder the grizzly bears, as well as the Wings in Motion show which I loved, because I got to learn some great new things! (Like, did you know that an adult grown male human can only exert with his fist about 78 lbs of pressure, while a Great Horned Owl can do about 7,000 lbs and that only three bird species in the world have a sense of smell, two of them vultures? Other birds can't smell at all! It's pretty amazing! Also, did you know that turkey vultures can apparently projectile vomit their rancid stomach contents - remember, they eat carrion; rotten meat - at a range of 6 feet as a threat display to scare off predators? Apparently the scent is worse than skunk, which, amusingly, is the favourite prey of Great Horned Owls (which can't smell.))



The Eye of the Wind. It's pretty impressive close up. I've seen wind turbines before in Alberta in fields, but I've never been able to walk right up to one before!



My favourite part wasn't the huge propellers though. It was the base of the shaft, which had really cute sillouettes of North American animals on it, including a wolf!



Also, if you're clinically insane you can zipline from Grouse Mountain to the next peak over...



...and if you're even more insane than that, you can go paragliding! Wee! $200 panic attack at 500 feet in the air! Exciting!



What was really great though, was the views. You can see nearly the entire Lower Mainland from up on Grouse!



But, that wasn't my favourite view...



...this was, and it made me cry, because it made me miss hiking in the Rocky Mountains with my parents and my brothers. I really miss my family. I wanted more of a view in this direction, which could only be seen behind the wind turbine and I wanted to go off hiking, under that glorious, glorious mountain...



...but enough of my sadness. Today, I wore my new gaiters, which I've only worn a few times before. They worked well and I didn't notice them on my legs as much today, except when I was overheating on the BCMC, where I got so hot that I had to pull them down around my ankles, which, y'know, kind of defeats the purpose of leg protection, as with them rolled down they couldn't protect my legs from my boots as I have a habit of scratching myself with the tread, making my legs all muddy. So, today I came back with muddy legs, despite my effort of wearing gaiters. (Which, by the way, make me fantasize a lot about eventing horses, since, y'know, eventing horses wear gaiters to protect their legs too... I have a pretty big obsession with horses.)



A picture of me! I took it, but hopefully it doesn't look too much like I did. I really hate 'myspace' photos. Y'can tell the BCMC wore me down a bit here. I really only had about 50% of my endurance left.



Pretty eh? Now, imagine the gigantic swarm of black flies which was also enjoying this vista, while supping on the many different international vintages of tourist's blood. Surprisingly they left me alone while I was sitting completely still life drawing that vista of the craggy mountain that I liked, but the second I stood up there was a horde upon me again! Little bastards... I can't WAIT to count how many bug bites they gave me tomorrow, though they might have just been landing on my skin endlessly to be annoying. I think they like the smell of hiker sweat.



After enjoying the view, I went back down the peak trail to the chalet, passing by the grizzlies, who were having a snack of apples soaked in honey. At the chalet I window perused the gift shop (and saw two wolf books I dearly wanted to buy), bought my down ticket, then attended the free interpretive documentary on Grinder and Coola, which told all about the experiment that they were involved in, that of seeing if, with as little human interaction as possible, a bear cub could be successfully be put back into the wild once it was old enough to go free. The result? Yes, but Grinder and Coola are to be forever captive, because they're too habituated, even with as little handling as they received as babies.



The views again, were really, really great!




There were also a plethora of great wood carvings! I especially liked this angry threat displaying grizzly. All the grizzly stuff about how deeply instinct based they are really gave me some great inspiration for writing Ki, my drakoon protagonist!



Though I can't see a drakoon standing up this high on its hindquarters and roaring like this. Drakoon have a lot of trouble rearing as-dragon actually. There's too many bits of their anatomy from their tails to their wings and everything in between unbalancing them.

After all that, I decided that I was hungry and that I wanted to go home. I went for a last stroll around to capture a few photos of the sunset and the tram coming in, then I got on and that was that. Now I'm waiting for my quiche to be done, so that I can eat! Grr!!



All in all, a very good day! Lots of thinking got done and that is awesome!




Photos: Rosanna P. Brost

Norvan Falls (Hike Review)

Norvan Falls - Lynn Headwaters Park - North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

HIKE RATING - 2 out of 10. The scenery was barely worth it. Do this hike for the hike, not for the view, because there's barely any of that.
DIFFICULTY - Moderate. Long return, but there's almost no up and no switch backs, so you can hike it really fast without having to stop and rest five thousand times. In fact, I didn't stop to rest at all, but then I'm a crazy person who usually leaves her party in the dust whenever she goes backpacking. I've been known to run the last five or so kilometres of a trail, in full pack carrying full gear and everything!
LENGTH - 14 km without transit, 16 km with.
TIME - Approximately 5 hours if you're going slow. I started at the trail head at 2:35 pm and was back at 6:15 pm, so I did it pretty fast.
TRAIL CONDITION - Fairly well maintained, well marked. Wear good hiking boots with gaiters if possible because of varying substrate and stream crossings.
DOG FRIENDLY! :D

TRANSIT DIRECTIONS - 210 Upper Lynn Valley from Phibbs Exchange.



Lynn Headwaters Park in North Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada has a trail system that to me looks kinda like a uterus. Today I hiked up that uterus of trails to Norvan Falls, which is situated right in the heart of the park. Since I took no photos, I thought the best way to remember this journey was to write about it, so here's my first ever journal about a hike - the longest solo hike that I have ever undertaken.

Yep, I went at it alone. That's not safe, but the fact is, other crazies with the gumption to keep up with me on the long hikes like this one seem to kind of be few and far between. If I was going to wait for a hiking partner to magically appear it would likely take forever, so I decided today that I'm just going to wing it and go alone.

Norvan Falls is situated North of North Vancouver in the before mentioned park and is easily accessed by transit... provided you're willing to tack on two extra kilometres of hiking to your journey. Car people can drive right up to the trail head on the Rice Lake Road, but for us vehicle-challenged folk, we have to walk there via the Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve, which isn't too bad, but if you're less experianced it might be an issue. Luckily, I'm very experianced.

Norvan Falls is rated intermediate, but I wouldn't rate it that. While it's a long hike for kids (I wouldn't recommend it) there are no parts of the hike that I would really deem tricky to navigate, save for maybe a few stream crossings which aren't really dangerous (or deep) at all. My idea of an intermediate hike is some crazy bastard of a hike that has switch backs, steep grades and tricky navigation points, like places where the trail literally disappears. I'm at the expert level for trails though and I'm a bit bias after spending my childhood hiking in the Rockies every summer, so let's just say that in comparison to those trails, Norvan Falls is a cakewalk for me.

The falls themselves weren't worth it. I know, a lot of people on on this website probably haven't even ever seen a true waterfall, but I've seen quite a few in my time and after seeing those (many of which did not require a hike or if they did, one that was not nearly so long) Norvan Falls is kind of boring. I almost didn't even go up to see them when I got to the end of the trail because I have a habit of leaving bits of trail for myself for later, but I made myself go anyway. The falls gush out in a ten foot wide torrent that's only about thirty or fourty feet high from the muddy cliffs of Norvan Creek. There's greenery all around and it is pretty, but the problem is is that the forest is prettier than the waterfall and because of the cliffs you can hardly see the damn thing anyway. For me, the highlights of the trip were the trail head to Coliseum Mountain (the sign said 'allow 7 hours return to this point' and it looked so much more promisingly tempting than the waterfall - anything named after the coliseum has to be pretty awesome but I doubt I'll ever do that hike, considering that there's no camping allowed in Lynn Headwaters Park and I don't really fancy doing an eleven hour day of hiking unless there's shit tons of scenery for me to drool at), the scary ass suspension bridge over Norvan Creek that was only about a foot wide and was constructed of metal grating and wires and the Third Debris Chute, which was the trail's halfway point and which under normal circumstances (aka in the Rockies - yes I'm spoiled hiking wise) would have been incredibly boring. The 'chute' was basically just a wide open rocky area next to Lynn Creek from which had something that looked suspiciously like a closed off bear trap in it and a very good view of the mountains - which are something to look at!

If I was going to camp anywhere on the route, it would have been at the chute. Nice flat ground, close to water (but not too close) and not too far away from Norvan Falls, so it would be a good point to start from if I was going to hike to Coliseum Mountain.

To sum it up:

Norvan Falls is worth it for the hike, because there's very little grade to it and the hike up (if you take the Cedar Mills Trail) is interesting. For most of it, you follow Lynn Creek with occasional fleeting views of the majestic and dangerous snowy coast mountains over North Vancouver as you pass through lush new growth forest, occasionally over boardwalks. Growing alongside there is prolific growth of skunk cabbage, brush and small ferns. There's even a little bit of history in the form of rusted out axles and whatnot from the old Cedar Mill. Once you get to the Third Debris Chute, which looks a lot like an esker or a moraine, but is in a funnel shape. Something watery, possibly human made caused that a long, long time ago.

After the chute, the trail turns away from Lynn Creek up onto the flank of the valley and the forest growth gets older, the trees bigger. The thick, often mossy trees are mostly douglas fir and cedar with a thick canopy, so it's very shady along the trail, the sides of it lined with yet more ferns. Part of the trail is made up of corduroy, which is a type of road once used in logging, where lengths of tree are laid down side by side in a road. In the old days, loggers used to use corduroy roads to drag their logs down to the mills with teams of heavy horse and horses like percherons are still used in logging today. North Vancouver has a strong history of logging (the reason why there are few very large trees here today) but I'm not sure if the corduroy along the Norvan Falls trail has anything to do with that. Probably not, though it's a little weird for a trail. Wood happens to be slippery and thus not a very safe substrate to walk on. Still, the corduroy is interesting and as one continues north towards the falls, you have to make several stream crossings which are not at all hard (the water is extremely shallow so it isn't a threat and easily crossed without one getting wet) and the quiet, deserted forest is incredibly peaceful, a far cry from nearby Vancouver, which is the largest city in western Canada and the third largest in Canada altogether.

When you reach the trail head to Coliseum Mountain, there's only about a hundred more feet to go before you see the scary suspension bridge over the creek (I traversed it twice, there and back, scaring the bajeezus out of myself for no reason at all - I hate suspension bridges and this one was particularly precarious though definitely well built and firm, it's bridge deck was only a foot across and because it was made of steel grating, you can see straight through it to the rapids thirty feet below. I don't know WHY I crossed it, considering that the only reason to is to go off down another trail, but for some reason I did, though with my expedition pack I wasn't brave enough to go down the steep narrow little metal staircase on the other side.) The creek's quite fast and if you follow it up for about two hundred feet, one can reach Norvan Falls. Or, you can go across the suspension bridge a couple of times, snigger at it a bit, then turn back the way you came without seeing the pathetic set of falls which really don't feel worth the seven kilometres from the trail head to get there.

I think I need to start a hiking blog.

My times for Norvan Falls 2:35 pm - 6:15 pm - approximately 4 1/4 hours. 16 km. (Via Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve to Lynn Headwaters via section of Rice Lake.)