This morning I left my cousin’s home in Richmond, B.C., Canada and headed north.  It’s about 60 or 80 miles thru Stanley Park, across the Lion’s Gate Bridge, past the Horseshoe Bay Ferry terminals and beautiful Howe Sound to the picturesque little touristy village of Squamish, at the top of Howe Sound and just a few miles south of Whistler, site of the 2010 Winter Olympics.  When approaching Squamish, you’ll see the huge granite monolith of Stawamus Chief.  The spike of Mt. Garibaldi is just visible at center left……………….

I understand this to be a major challenge for technical rock climbers, and I believe it prob’ly is.  Not for me, tho’.  Too old for that foolish-ness.  There’s construction - lots of it - on the winding, twisting, bumpy Sea to Sky Highway preparing for the Olympics;  traffic is very heavy, and I didn’t dare pull off to get pictures of the extremely beautiful Howe Sound region.  Here’s a link to the SPOT locater’s signal……… http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=49.6909,-123.1637&ie=UTF8&z=12&om=1     I’d never have gotten back into the traffic flow.  I did pull off to go to the view points for Shannon Falls, just outside Squamish City Limits.  Very picturesque…………….

While going up the trail to Shannon Falls, I saw a sign and trail leading to Stawamus Chief.  Sign said it’s 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) in distance and 550 meters (1800 feet) in elevation gain.   (it turned out there’s 3 or 4 alternatives as you get higher)  I didn’t know there was a trail up the back, so, of course, up I went.  My toughest climbs - Gray’s Peak, Lake Peak, etc., have had elevation gains of about 1,000 ft per mile.  I mis-translated the metric to feet/miles conversion at 1st, so went on just as happy as if I had brains.  About 1/2 way up, I was starting to puff a bit, so re-translated in my head.  This works out a little over 1,000 ft per mile, but I did it, and the ol’ legs held up just fine, thank you very much.  Here’s a look at the Chief from across the way, in Squamish.  I climbed, in 1 3/4 hours, to the diagonal notch about a third of the way in from the right, above the dock in the water………………

Ran into a couple of small problems, tho’.  At one point near the top, the trail consists of chains bolted into the solid rock, and you pull yourself up.  It’s not all that bad, and kinda fun.  You can safely bet that this portion is Very Steep, and the chain was welcome…………….

Then, major problem #1 reared it’s ugly head.  The trail petered out on a nearly vertical cliff.  You can see the end of it to the right of the bottom of that tree.  It just…….ends.  That’s part of Squamish in the background.  No way was I going out there.  I learned my lesson well at Cabezon Peak....................

Larry Bourne
Santa Fe, NM
www.gogittum.com
www.gogittum.com/blog

Posted: June 17th, 2009 under 08 Vacation, 08-8-7 Squamish.
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