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Burnaby, BC
Canada
248 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2009 : 10:30 PM
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What better way to celebrate Canada Day than to walk a small piece of the country, starting from your downstep...
During the many hours of staring at the North Shore mountains out my windows, sometime last summer the great ( ) idea of hiking across the city and up Grouse came to mind. With Canada Day being a mid-week holiday last year as well, it seemed like the perfect day for it. And thus a tradition appears to have begun.
Rather than do the same trip twice, out came the maps in preparation for this year's sequel. To my pleasant surprise, a nice direct route appeared - from the Second Narrows, up Riverside Drive, and on to the Baden Powell trail. So, after bribing a few friends with waffles, it was time to hit the pavement!
Ready to go... the summit is visible in the distance behind! 
Here's the plan: walk down 20-odd flights of stairs, meander across Burnaby from Edmonds over to the Second Narrows Bridge, then start the climb from the Seymour River to the summit of Pump Peak. View from the starting point, with a few dots approximating the route:
Hitting the streets of Burnaby:
After a cruise downhill through residential neighbourhoods, we picked up the trail through Deer Lake:
   
1. Butterfly testing out the touchscreen interface on the iPhone
2. Trail around the lake
3. Our destination in the background
4. Thousands of European Skippers feeding
The trail then continues west of Royal Oak, into a nice part of the park I usually don't visit, before eventually finishing not far from BCIT.
Soon begins the more urban part of the trek, across the highway at Willingdon, and past Brentwood Mall:
  
1. Willingdon overpass
2. Hwy 1
3. Still Creek, living up to its name
  
1. The new Central Valley Greenway trail
2. Brendwood Skytrain bubble
3. Back on quieter sidestreets north of Brentwood, with Seymour peaking over the top again 
From here, the route nicely connects into Confederation Park, not to mention conveniently hits the low part on the north Burnaby ridge.
Trains at Confederation Park:
  
Next, we were on the Trans-Canada trail, with a few peaks down at Burrard Inlet above the oil refineries:
   
1. Trans-Canada trail
2. Our destination again, looking slightly closer, but no lower!
3. Our ticket across the water comes into view
4. Can we stop at Playland?
The bridge is one of the most scenic parts of the trip, if you can ignore the sound and shake from the traffic!
  
  
About 3.5 hours later, and we're finally on the North Shore! Crossing the Seymour River it looked like barely a trickle was escaping past the dam, before we headed up alongside the river from the viewless, and parking-less Riverside Drive.
  
1. Base of the Seymour River
2. Riverside Drive
3. 2005 landslide above Riverside Dr in the background
Into the shade, we started up the maze of lower-Seymour trails. To make things easy, we followed the Baden Powell, then took the Mushroom spur up to the 2nd big switchback on the highway. From there we were forced to loose close to 100m elevation on the Old Buck Access trail, before starting up again on the Old Buck Trail itself, which then becomes the Perimeter Trail.
   
1. Too many options!
2. Mountain bike trails
3. The "Historic Mushroom"
4. Heading up...!
   
1. Getting to see the picnic area that I'd never stopped at in countless drives up and down the road.
2. Not a good place to grab a drink!
3. A view nice trees on the way up
4. Missing bridge
After a stop at the Deep Cove Lookout on the road to drop off a couple of participants, we were down to 2 for the final summit bid. The race was on now to get to the top and back, while the others shuttled the cars down & back up in a complicated plan involving a BBQ in Vancouver for later
View of Mt Baker & the new Golden Ears bridge:
As we neared Goldie Lake, we continued straight ahead on trail labelled "Dead End" on the BC Parks post, hoping that the old continuation of the Perimeter trail really did still exist.
Sure enough, the route was well flagged and still easy to follow, despite a few scratches on the legs from the underbrush. We started to reach snowline as well, which unfortunately also quickly came with more than its fair share of bugs.
  
  
1. Snow (and bugs!)
2. Bridge?
3. Trail?
4. Trail marker?
5. Ah, trail marker!
6. Must be getting close!
And finally, through the swarm of bugs, we arrived at the base of the Brockton Lift! Back on familiar turf finally (this trip was a great excuse to explore all the parts of Seymour I'd never visited!) we headed past Brockton Point, and onto the "old" trail directly up the face of Pump Peak. The scramble from here is always great fun, and a few minutes later we were at the friendly summit post that I can see from my balcony with a telescope!
After a quick view over the top, and a summit shot or two (must say that Pump Peak isn't normally the cause for such excitement!), it was time to head back down while our ride was still waiting for us!
  
 
1. The other side of the mountain...
2. View back down to the city
3. Our starting point in the distance!
4. I made it!
5. Mark still looking relaxed
One final shot from the summit, with some more of those little red dots highlighting the route:
Trip time was 9.5 hours to the summit, with a total of 36km covered by the time we got back down to the parking lot.
We then celebrated with our home-made Canada Day cake, before returning home for a beautiful volcanic-ash-assisted sunset, and one final view back to Mt Seymour!!
 
  
Not quite a self-propelled trip like Grouse last year (which conveniently has a return via Skyride, bus, seabus & skytrain), but still a great one-way walk with a pickup! |
Edited by - sansell on 07/03/2009 09:05 AM
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 Fast hikin, carrot chompin, always grinnin, gear scatterin recipient of the Theta Lake manouver
Burnaby
2041 Posts |
Posted - 07/02/2009 : 11:21 PM
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| Excellent one-way-self-propelled trip and even better TR. Thanks for sharing an unusual idea! |
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bandana wearin', pole huckin', view lovin', dog herdin', 4x4 navigatin', lake huntin', butt-slidin' bridge crosser, who enjoys postholing with an overnighter pack
Surrey, BC
Canada
4649 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 06:57 AM
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That is awesome!!!!!! Way to get 'er done!!! I give this T/R two thumbs up  |
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Montreal, QC
Canada
716 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 07:15 AM
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That's quite the trek. 36km is a lot on a hot day when most of it is on pavement.
How was the trail where the bridges were out? Easy to scramble down/up? |
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Burnaby, BC
Canada
248 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 07:49 AM
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| The missing bridges were no big deal - it's just a small creek in this dry weather. It was amusing to see the back of the "Trail Closed" sign as we came out on the other side ;-) |
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double-double seeking, snow-chasing, short-cutting, vertical feet collector
4523 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 08:00 AM
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| Good work guys!!! |
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n van, bc
Canada
830 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 08:28 AM
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| I hate walking on pavement for so long! Your tendons start hurting... And then going up to Mount Seymour after! Very nice, and an amazing self-propelled venture. Next you have to try Burnaby to Garibaldi.... |
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Vancouver, BC
Canada
111 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 10:36 AM
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Nice TR! Fun to read through.
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Peak bagging, bushwhacking, zamboni driving, snowshoeing, self portrait artist, and speed demon who loves to hang out on Mt. Seymour
4000 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 12:00 PM
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That's an interesting way to do it . |
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vancouver
218 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 12:10 PM
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| good job & good way to remember canada day with friends |
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Delta, BC
Canada
172 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 2:15 PM
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Very cool idea! Kind of a long flat, with a Diedre-esque "sting in the tail". As opposed to the short steeps - this is a good contrast to the Mt. Grant interval training by pianoexcellence!
Does anything I just said make sense? |
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Ladner, BC
Canada
1176 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 3:53 PM
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WTG!
mmm cake looks good too |
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Fungi Filmin', Wine Drinkin', 'Shroom Eatin', Early Risin', Deer Whisperin', Curry Cookin', Macro Maniac
Chilliwack + Osoyoos
3618 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 4:45 PM
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Well done you guys !!!
Thanks for posting... |
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Surrey, BC
Canada
949 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 5:06 PM
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| I don't know if I could mentally prepare myself to walk that far on the flat pavement, good job on coming up with something different and doing it! |
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Burnaby, BC
Canada
248 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 5:48 PM
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Who started this rumour that Burnaby was flat, anyway?  It's a good 125m vertical on my bike ride home from work! 
Also managed to avoid pavement for a good 5km of the route, with both Deer Lake & the TCT. Here's the elevation plot across the city, including the initial vertical drop down the stairwell. Some of the smaller bumps might be gusts of wind tricking the barometer on the GPS of course, but those count too!
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North Vancouver
Canada
745 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 6:58 PM
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| Now that's using your imagination. I like the shot from pump peak showing where you came from. What are you going to do July 1, 2010?? |
Edited by - NS Explorer on 07/03/2009 6:58 PM |
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Delta, BC
Canada
172 Posts |
Posted - 07/03/2009 : 10:04 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by sansell
Here's the elevation plot across the city, including the initial vertical drop down the stairwell. Some of the smaller bumps might be gusts of wind tricking the barometer on the GPS of course, but those count too!
I think the most amazing thing is that you managed to walk close to a kilometer before descending the stairs! Now that's a big apartment!!! |
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Mt Seymour.. on foot from Burnaby [Canada Day '09]
