Mt. Strachan: From Failure to Success

Looking for an easy overnight hiking trip, we decided to head to Rainbow Lake. We started hiking at 2pm – lately, since Neil was born, we are having trouble getting out of the house early… What can I say, that kid likes to sleep late! 🙂 After taking an unintended but very nice detour to Rainbow Falls, and continuing on the main trail, it started raining hard, very hard. It has been a warm and dry spring and summer, and although the forecast showed a risk of thunderstorms and a possible rainfall of 1mm, the abrupt change in weather took us by surprise and suddenly it seemed like full on winter. Heavy rain for an hour, cold, and us cowering under a tree, Neil crying… After waiting it out, we decided that the stars clearly were not aligned for us that day, and headed home, a little bit defeated, but also happy to be out of the rain. As we got closer to Vancouver the weather gradually improved, culminating with blue sky and sun in Suncouver…

The next day, after yet another leisurely start at 2pm, we hiked up Mt. Strachan, the long way. The trail led us from the ski hill, through the forest, and up into meadows where we had a late lunch and break. At the summit, the views were astounding – it was before the recent forest fires, the air was clear and we could see almost forever: to Vancouver Island, the Olympic Peninsula and beyond. That’s one of the advantages of a hike that starts at a ski area – we had already ascended 1300m by car, even before starting the hike. A late start meant that by this time no other hikers were in sight, and the sun was lower in the sky, more friendly to us fair eyed people.

The descent route was very steep, via a gully known as “Christmas Gully”, for an unknown reason. Lots of loose rocks, and we had to be careful not to drop the rocks on each other, as well as on Neil who was a little bit fussy in the carrier on my chest, so I was busy trying to calm him, adding another dimension of difficulty, given that I was also holding onto two hiking poles. We eventually made it back down with no casualties. It was already 9pm, so naturally the conversation drifted to where and what we would eat. We thought it might be too late to go to our favourite Persian restaurant, Yaas Bazaar in North Vancouver, but when we arrived the place was packed, with a lineup…  Turns out it was one of the first days of Ramadan!