And the road trip begins

Wednesday 11th September

We got up early, got ready and packed up our suitcases as we were checking out of our Vancouver accommodation. We checked out and then walked 10 minutes to pick up our hire car for the rest of our trip. We got our car and Harry opted to drive first, we just had to get through the first  5-10 minutes of driving and then we would be out of Vancouver city.

Once we were out of the city, we followed the Sea-to-Sky highway for an hour to Squamish where we had found a nice looking place for some brunch. The scenery on the way was stunning views of the sea and mountains. Being in a moving car I couldn’t take any photos that did It justice so we just took it all in. we also spotted a couple of ‘caution bear’ signs so kept our eyes peeled!

The cafe we stopped at was such a friendly place and amazing food. We shared a savoury and a sweet dish.

We then wandered round the back of the cafe to take a look at the river.

I’m pretty sure I spotted an eagle flying in the distance – we were in eagle territory!

With fuller tummies than intented, we then drove 15 minutes to the car park for our planned hike – we were going to be hiking the Stawamus chief. As we drive closer to it I saw how big and high it was!

We parked up and began our hike. The Stawamus chief is a 3 peak hike and you can pick and choose which peaks you hike (1, 2 or 3). We opted for peak 2 as we had heard it had the best views and was the most fun/challenging climb and thought we could do peak 1 after if we felt up to it/had time.

The walk began through the campsite – crazy people camping in bear territory! And then came the ascent, which started off mainly as man built wooden stairs – they were a real workout…

As we got further up, the stairs turned more into rock steps and it continued to be a steep hike all the way up…

We then got to the ‘boulder’ which we had read about being the decision point for which peak you’re going to hike. We opted for peak 2 (hearing it had the best views) followed by peak 1 if time.

We then got to the most challenging part of the hike which we had read about online. It was definitely a challenge but fun! It used chains to climb tricky parts of the rock and ladders (don’t worry parents and grandparents… we are writing this having survived)!

The very final part of the hike up was then just attempting to get up bare rock.

Having completed all the above, we approached the top, excited for the view. It was stunning…

NOT… Unfortunately the cloud had completely covered the view by the time we got to the top. Typical!

We waited at the top for a bit to see if the cloud cleared. It did a little…

It was also quite cold just sitting at the top waiting, but we knew from Harry’s detailed weather app that the cloud was due to clear in about an hour. So to keep us warm we decided to hike to peak 1 (which you can see in front of us in the picture above).

So we climbed back down the rocks and chains and ladders, back to the ‘boulder’ and up a slightly quicker and less challenging climb to the top of peak 1.

The view from this one was much better – the lower cloud had cleared at least.

Once we had taken in the view we then hiked back down and those stairs seemed to go on forever! Our legs were shaking by the bottom.

According to my watch, the hike had been 7.5km, 769m elevation, 7894 steps and took us just under 3 hours.

Driving out of the carpark and looking back up at the chief, I was impressed with our achievement…

Having built up an appetite again (even after that big brunch), we then drove down the road to Locavore Bar & Grill. We had done some research online for a good place for a Canadian Sockeye Salmon burger and this was a recommended place so we had high hopes. And oh wow did it live up to them and more! The colour of the salmon was almost pinky red and it tasted so fresh – absolutely delicious and well earned!

We then got back in the car to continue an hour drive on the sea to sky highway to Whistler. When we arrived we checked into our new Airbnb, which was lovely!

We walked to the shop in Whistler village centre to get some bits for breakfast tomorrow morning and then wandered around the village having a little look in some of the shops – there was a real buzz in the bars and restaurants (apres ski vibes). We then headed back to our place for an early night before a big day tomorrow.