First 3/4 — Father’s Day

Glenn was run­ning the 24 hr relay and rais­ing funds tor kids, a very worthy reason to miss the train­ing run. A few other were off bag­ging peaks …

Despite being nearly the longest day of the year, the weather gods had not yet wel­comed in summer. We are still waiting.

The group met at Lynn Canyon and arranged for shut­tles back to the start at Nelson Creek. A good sized crew showed up, 45 or so? includ­ing mis­cel­la­neous pets*. We headed up from the Nelson Creek park­ing lot around 8 am. There were no bag­pipes to send us off.

This is the first train­ing run of the year to head up and over Black Moun­tain, and for some its their first time on this steeper part of the course. This can be a good test, or a wake up call. The route starts on the trail to Whyte Lake, with its new bridge, fancy board­walks and solid cedar out­house (worth check­ing out). The lower woods were peace­ful with birds singing and not a vuvuzela to be heard any­where. From here the route rejoins the BP trail for the steep climb up to Eagle Bluffs.

One of the best parts of these runs is the chance to catch up with friends. Doug and I started at the back of the pack, talked a lot and the faster run­ners soon left us far behind. As we left the old road sys­tems and headed into the woods we looked but there was no sign of the crazy grouse that haunted the lower trail a couple of years ago. We gained alti­tude and the weather became misty and much cooler and the boul­der field was slip­pery. For some run­ners this is their first chance to expe­ri­ence the awe­some views from Eagle Bluffs … but not today.

Above Eagle Bluff the snow on the trail was melt­ing very quickly, there was far less than 2 weeks ago. I’d be sur­prised if there is much left by mid July. The melt was leav­ing behind smaller patches of snow in var­i­ous states of decay and large stretches of mud. Karen and her camera were strate­gi­cally located beside one large mud bath, taking photos of those caught unaware. We saw only a few others out hiking in this alpine area.

The trail from Black down to Cypress Bowl was as steep, ill designed and as tough on the thighs as ever. The new lodge area was very quiet. On the tra­verse over to Holly­burn, we saw very fresh bear poop, and a fellow hiking through the mud in his Top Siders. At the sign post at the junc­tion of the Mt Holly­burn trail there was less than a meter of snow. We ran a short dis­tance on snow on the cross coun­try trails and left that snow behind before we got to the warm­ing hut. The trail was in good shape (watch your head!) all the way down the Holly­burn shute and the rest of the way to Cleve­land Dam. Doug and I had Father’s Day noon cur­fews, so we called it a day at the Dam. The rest con­tin­ued on to Lynn Canyon.

Until next week …

Ken Legge

*editor’s note: Knee Knacker dis­cour­ages pets on the Sunday train­ing runs.