Mt. Seymour: A Few Favourites

Mt. Seymour is probably my favourite hike on the North Shore. When we parked the car, I realized I probably share this sentiment with many others, but despite the full parking lot we didn’t see that many people on the trail (where did they go?!). The thing about this trail is that it provides excellent “bang for the buck” – one ends up on a mountain top, but most of the elevation gain is done by car, and it takes only a short while to arrive at the First Pump and the glorious views of the snowy and volcanic Garibaldi Massif, Judge Howay, and Mt. Baker (sometimes). This also provided an opportunity to partake in the sport “count the tankers”, of which there are usually more than ten, and unfortunately there will probably be many more in the future.

After a foggy week in Vancouver, the mist was visibly weakening, but it was was still cold. On the previous weekend we had escaped the fog to The Chief in Squamish, and we felt like another easy trip to a peak where we could lounge in the sun. After picking up Pascale and Ignacio, on the drive up, we were suddenly engulfed in clouds, and for a moment feared that our hike was doomed to be a hike of the foggy kind, but shortly after we sighed in relief when we emerged into full sun and blue sky, my favourite weather.

At the top of the First Pump we met a group of VOC’ers, including the walking legend Roland Burton, around 70 years old, an inspiration and my favourite older VOC’er. Roland showed off his new orange homemade fleece toque – apparently while we were off in Central America the VOC received a huge free pile of neon orange fleece, nowadays dispersed amongst the “Keepers of the Orange Fleece”, as they are known. Anyway, we had a snack in the wind and continued along to the Second Pump and the true summit where we had lunch, again in the wind.

Looking down, we could see Vancouver way below us, surrounded by an endless flat blue ocean, definitely my favourite city in the world…