By: Ben Clark
A few small raindrops start to patter one by one on the hood of my rain jacket. I hope the rain will wash the blueberry stains from my jeans, but I doubt it. My legs burn from the climb, and Thierry appears behind me as he crests over the steep, rocky step just below the summit.
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It’s November, and I’m standing on top of Coliseum Mountain, one of 10 mountains taller than 1000 meters contained in Lynn Headwaters Regional Park. Lynn is the largest regional park in the Lower Mainland, and her rivers have been used by miners, loggers, hunters, farmers, and fishermen for over a century.
I’ve been hiking with my friends Thierry and Paul in and around the North Shore for about 2 years now, but evidence of a much older history is all around us. One can frequently find scraps of metal and ceramic left by loggers in the second half of the 19th century, and other explorers claim to have found man-made markings around the park that predate the logging camps by hundreds of years.
The area shows evidence of an even more interesting geological history also. Most of the rocks in the park are light colored granite that takes on a greenish tint lower in the valleys where the years have been hard on it. Dark, mysterious, porous rocks are frequently seen in the higher elevations, placed sporadically in what is otherwise an exclusively granitic mountain chain. I’ve been searching all over, and still haven’t been able to find small-scale evidence of glaciation, which seems to run contrary to the cirque-like shape of the valley’s northern reaches.
The North Shore (and the BC coast range in general) is known for being one of the most remote and inaccessible mountain ranges on the planet. In the year 1947, a plane crashed just North of Mt. Seymour on Mt. Elsay, one ridge East of Lynn Valley. The crash site wasn’t discovered until 47 years later in 1994, and its location is only 14 kilometers from Metro Vancouver, a city of millions. The delay in the aircraft’s discovery was largely attributed to the inaccessibility of the terrain.
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As I clamber up and over some of the steep, white, alpine rock outcroppings close to the summit of Coliseum Mountain, it becomes apparent that Thierry and I won’t make it back to the valley floor before the oncoming storm engulfs the mountain. I’m worried that once it starts raining today, it won’t stop until March.
We make our way down the muddy trail over the course of 4 wet, cold hours. Thierry and I talk about love, death, philosophy, and Thierry’s complicated relationship with his father. I don’t know it now, but when I ask Thierry 3 days later what he liked most about this adventure he’ll say he most enjoyed bonding over our conversation. The mountains are a place where we go to connect with a part of something bigger: taller mountains, older history, and occasionally the chance to feel strong when we succeed. We’ve left our tiny piece of history in the park, but it doesn’t end here.
I write this in hopes of inspiring others to contribute to the rich history of Vancouver’s North Shore Mountains. I hope we can continue to write an exciting story for them, and keep track of the tales already behind us. These mountains are some of Canada’s finest, and they’re right in our back yards, even accessible by public transit. Use the nice weather this spring to see what they have to offer, and give something back to the mountains by cherishing them.
Thierry and Paul on Mt.Seymour
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