Lighthouse Point - West Vancouver

I was in Queen Elizabeth Park one evening taking some long-exposures of the city, as it’s a popular spot to get a great view of downtown with the mountains behind it.  Unsurprisingly, another photographer was there doing the same thing, so while we waited for our exposures, I tried being friendly and asking him what his favorite photo spots were around Vancouver.  He quickly said “Lighthouse Point, great trails and they lead out to some outstanding views.”  Welp, that sounds perfect.  Thanks for the tip!

We still get surprised at just how fast you can get into the bush here.  We drove to West Vancouver, and got an unavoidable tour of the high-end real-estate market, and after some windy, woven, confusing cul-de-sacs, we entered the park.  It’s quite large surprisingly, as it kind of sits on a small peninsula that leads right down to where the Burrard Inlet and the Georgia Strait meet.

There are a number of paths, but since the sun was going down, we just stuck to doing a couple, and you can make it down to the ocean in about 20mins.  Dense bush is everywhere, constantly teasing an upcoming view.  The smell is always so amazing in these damp forests.

Beautiful stuff once you get down to the water.  Definitely worth coming back down here again and doing the rest of the trails.  Thanks for the tip random photo-guy!

There’s so much to do so close to Vancouver, that we thought we would start to do some quick photo/text combo posts about some of our weekend adventures in and around the south coast of BC.  First up, that world-renowned Canadian winter wonderland, Whistler.

A few weekends ago Andrea and I traveled up to Whistler for a weekend out of the “city”.  I put that word in quotations, because really, 20mins outside of Vancouver and you’re already into the mountains, so it never takes much to get away from the hustle and bustle.  I had never been to Whistler during the “pique” winter season (see what I did there?), and Andrea had never been at all, so I suggested we head up, visit a long-time family friend who lives there, and enjoy some snow instead of rain. Plus, I’ll take any excuse to drive the Sea to Sky Highway, which is one of my favorite drives ever.

What a crazy amount of snow there is up there - a foot and a half for starters, and it continued to snow in a slow, magical way most of the weekend.   What I love about the south coast of BC is that you pick your exposure to snow, as it’s rare in the city, but plentiful just an hours drive away.  Elevation change certainly is to thank for that.  You can distinctly see where it transitions from rain to snow when you’re driving into the mountains.  So, I understand why everyone heads there on weekends.

Whistler Village is a funny place - part Disneyland family winter playground, part thematically designed strip mall, part drunk tank.  Just depends on the time of day really.  The people watching is at times entertaining, at times intimidating and pretentious.  My relationship with skiing is the same as it is with golf, which is to say I absolutely love every minute I’m doing said sport, but most of the time get annoyed with the often pretentious culture that surrounds it.  ”Apres-Ski”?  What the hell.  Just call it what it is - Happy Hour.  That sounds way better and everyone feels like they can join in, right?  Anyway, we did have a great time in the village (thanks Randy for the company, the directions around the maze, and the great dinner), which concluded with a few beers at a bar, in front of a fire, after all the Australians had cleared out.  (Not generalizing, it was Australia Day, so it they were celebrating admirably.)

Our big adventure was snowshoeing around Lost Lake, which was a ton of fun.  Andrea was right - modern snow shoes are a feat of engineering!  We certainly got our rental’s worth, doing most of the tracks around the area that afternoon.  Just some beautiful scenery, the smell of pine and moss, and for the most part, the only sound being the wind and the crunching snow beneath our feet.  Thanks again to Randy for the spare snow gear, as we often found ourselves collapsing into an inviting mound of the fluffy stuff.

Thus ends this post - my first time trying to merge photos and text - so hopefully it was a success.  Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more quick adventures!

Will

Short adventures, but good ones! Hike and snowshoeing photos coming this week, for serious. 
1) Whistler
2) Deep Cove (North Vancouver)
3) Stanley Park (downtown Vancouver)
4) Lighthouse Park (West Vancouver) 
Stay tuned!