An Adventure - The Stawamus Chief

 Hullo! We got up uber early one morning and headed off to the ferry line-up!

We are bringing Gramma's car over to Auntie Pam and Rose... but along the way... this bear has decided we are doing an Adventure (with a Capital A!)

OK... sooo it is a bit choppy out on the Salish Sea this morning and beary windy... we heard some people upchucking their cookies in the bathroom...

But it is a gloriously sunny day!

Although if Mama wasn't holding onto me... I might get tumbled all the way down the deck by the wind...

Onwards!

Alright... we are having a pit-stop in the Starbucks in Horseshoe Bay... bear blogging and stuff like that you know!

We then drove up Highway 99 towards Squamish. We were a bit early for an appointment so we thought we'd stop at Shannon Falls but... there was a line-up of cars to get into the parking lot!!! This is what it looks like...

We drove a bit further and stopped here to admire the flowers... 

Isn't this cool!!! Glacially scoured granite...

Cause we are just opposite the Stawamus Chief... a granite monolith that is over 2200 feet high! That's pretty impressive.

It's hard to get a good picture cause it's backlit...

I can climb my own mini-version!!!

If I had paws that could actually grip anything. Sigh.

The Stawamus Chief is a world-famous rock climbing location...

Seee... people come from all over to climb up here. The parking lot was packed.

Let's see if we can spot some climbers on that rock wall behind me...

Hah!!! I see two!!! Do you see them??

How about now???

That's crazy... This little bear is not going to be taking up rock climbing anytime soon!

We thought about doing the hike but it was getting a bit late and so we decided not to...

But if we ever come back here... we'll come early!! And then do a hike!

Onwards!!

A HIke but not a Climb

 Hullo!!! I am out on a little hike today and found this deliciously gorgeous clump of Fairy Slipper orchids.

Don't usually see them all clustered together like this... beary pretty!

Today, we are checking out the rock climbing area... I've been told we are going on a hike, but we are not climbing...

Uh-huh? Really? This looks like a climb to me!!! Not a rock climb... no... but still a climb!

And... we made it!!!

There were even some climbers who were just finishing and had rappelled down again!

They had left their stuff at the bottom of the cliff...

This little bear would NOT make a good rock climber... 

But if I did fall... I'd have a soft landing with all my stuffiness!

And on the way back, I found some lovely wild bleeding hearts... cool!

The Sunny Side

 Alrightee... here we are... we are at The Edge.... and somewhere, somehow there is a trail down there??!

Are you sure about this??

Ah yes... there it is... a beary sensible looking trail with steps and everything. Excellent.... let's go!

Some intriguing rock fall along here... and the trail has now become a goat track but... still quite doable.

What the...??? A ladder????

This trail has a ladder??? 

Why yes it does... luckily it's fastened quite securely and set in concrete... exciting stuff!

There are a bunch of strange signs painted on rocks along here and... we figured it out...

This is a rock climbing area!! See the cleats (or thingies) in the rock?

And more over there... this place is called The Sunny Side and is apparently a popular rock climbing area... 

But we are definitely not doing any rock climbing...

You can see all along here that the rocks have moved quite a bit. This is a horizontal abyss thingie...

And the Fawn Lily are blooming!!

They are so pretty....

Even their leaves are pretty....

OK... this is quite a scrambly hike... there are tonnes of boulders (house sized ones) that have come off that cliff at some point. Note to self... do not walk through this area during an earthquake...

It looks like we could climb down and squeak through where the boulder on the left is leaning on the boulder on the right but... we are not doing that today.

Finally made it to to the river!! Whew... but I don't know how swimmable it is... Right now the water is high but... even during the summer it looks a bit too rocky...

There are a lot of cave-like features here where boulders... hmph... is there a better word than "boulder", because we think of "boulder as only up to about a metre in size... but... no... boulder has no upper limit. OK then... house-sized boulder...

See... lots and lots of boulders here...

It would definitely be cool to come down here in the summer and see what it looks like...

There is apparently a deep pool downstream from here a few hundred feet but... there is no way we are going to be bouldering along here to get there...

For that... we need to go allllll the way back up and then find another trail....

These steps have ridiculous riser-heights... ooof... can you get up Cocoa???

We poked a bit farther along the rock climbing trail at the base of the cliff but it got into serious mountain goat terrain...

And goes into an area with over-hanging cliffs... might be neat to come here one day and see the rock climbers do their thing...

Some of the pitch names are... familiar... the Hundred Acre Wood!!! That's where Pooh and friends hang out!

Maybe we could have try a little pitch or two?? Maybe???