Stawamus Chief

We've just returned from our first camping trip of the year. We drove up the Sea to Sky Highway away from Vancouver towards Squamish. We didn't bother hiking in to a remote site this time, and just camped near the comfort of our car. The campsite was nothing to write home about, but we still managed to be comfortable despite the inexplicable fire ban.
On Saturday we left camp and headed up "the Chief", a 700m granite hill (not quite a mountain) to the third summit. We took the relatively easy back route that was equiped with stairs and easy trails up gullies and along the base of cliffs. The difficult route along the face of the Chief is a major rock-climbing destination as it is a massive near vertical cliff right to the top.

This is a view of Howe Sound from part way up the hill.

Continuing up the trail there were many nice trees at the base of the cliffs, barely seen here.

Of course nothing we do is easy, as you can tell from the stairs in this picture.

Maggie always led the way, of course. She wasn't a complete nuissance.

We love the log bridges.
Pushing for the summit.

Our lunch time picnic spot. We stayed for a few hours resting and relaxing

A small tarn, just enough for Maggie to cool down in.

Resting on the way down.
Our stop at Shannon Falls on the way home, during the brief interlude between the seething busloads of tourists.

And that was our little trip away from the smoggy stinky awfulness of Vancouver.

Remi