and another hike!

We've really been cramming in the hiking in the last month, once I realized summer was almost over and we were running out of time!
This Saturday we hiked to Elfin Lakes with Rocco's work peeps; an annual adventure that usually ends up being a pretty small group. This hike was wonderful. Long but not technically hard plus phenomenal views all along the hike and at the huts for lunch. It's a popular hike both in summer and winter so we didn't find the solace of solitude, but it was still beautiful. Here's the album:



But it's not all outdoors and mosquitoes around here! We had a Day Of Culture today, including a visit to the Vancouver Art Gallery to see the final day of Krazy and a show at the Vancouver Fringe Festival. Today we heard an hour-long monologue about mall culture by a brit named Jem Rolls. What a sweaty dude! Entertaining and challenging for sure. Friday we saw Die Roten Punkte, a brother-sister duo (allegedly) from Australia who ruthlessly mocked both The White Stripes and eurotrash punk culture (their name is The Red Dots in German). We're finishing the day off with delicious bottle of 2006 organic malbec by Jean Bousquet - delicious! - and big plates of homemade puttanesca. It's been a great weekend but I'm totally toast!

Oh well, time to look forward and book tickets to some of the Vancouver International Film Fest showings starting a little later in the month. That's after a conference trip for me, a cycle camping trip for both of us, a trip to Whistler with the department, and an assload of work for both of us. Holy crap!

The Lions!

This long weekend we hiked to the base of the West Lion. The Lions are two rocky spires that are visible from Vancouver on clear days and the hike has a reputation for being grueling and dangerous...but we took it on anyway! Ten of us hiked a point-to-point hike after some car shuttling, starting at Cypress downhill ski area and hiking up the Howe Sound Crest Trail, over Mount Unnecessary (it really is), to the base of the West Lion, then straight down to Lions Bay. 9 hours on trail, 1280m elevation change(!), and 24kms later, we were so pooped! Not too pooped to indulge in some tasty Indian food though. All in all, a very long, very difficult, and very rewarding day. Too bad the fog hid the views from us most of the day. At least we didn't get rained on!



Also, here's a link to a google map of the hike with some photos tagged by other random internet weirdos.