Travel Blog: Day 03 Vancouver

It's nice being back in the land of the internet and cell phone service. I just wish I had both on my phone. But now there is a lot to catch up on!

Day three of the trip we hit two spots in Vancouver: Lynn Canyon first, followed by Grouse Mountain.

After a bus to Lynn Canyon, we hiked up the mountain a little ways, over the river and through the woods to Twin Falls.

The same path the Hobbits were taken on their way to Isengard.

 After another bus ride, we went up Grouse Mountain by cable car. The fast version is: We saw a bird show, a lumberjack show, a wild deer and her two babies, two grizzlies the park was built around, hiked some more, went up a ski lift to a lookout point, and took the cable car back down at sunset. There was a little snow on the ground, but the weather was pretty nice, except for the gnats in certain places. But I got a lot of cool bird and bear pictures!


Have a lot more for later, when I am not being rushed to leave for another mountain/glacier hike in Alaska!

The long version, but made more interesting with pictures, staring with the bird show:


The lumberjack show was way more entertaining than I was expecting, mainly because it was surprisingly funny. More of a you-had-to-be-there thing rather than me going on about the details, especially when there is so much more to write about!

For instance, Grouse Mountain park was built around a rehabilitation idea for two grizzly bears. One of the orphaned cubs was found in a coastal area and the other was found inland. Usually in these situations, the bears are eventually killed because they will just grow to be unmanageable. Someone came up with an alternate, and Grinder and Coola were brought to Grouse Mountain, where a 3 acre deer gate backed-up by an electric fence would keep them safe from predators, give them enough room to grow, and allow humans to put food in without too much interaction with the bears. The plan was to monitor the bears from a safe distance so their contact with humans would be limited. When they would become old enough to take care of themselves, the fences would come down and the bears could be wild once again. Obviously, that didn't happen now that Grouse Mountain is a park full of humans. My guess is that Grinder and Coola already had too much human interaction and the plan was not yet approved by whoever in Canada needs to approve it, so they were just a test run. But it seems to be working out pretty well and maybe future rescued cubs will make it back to the wild rather than become a tourist attraction.

We did some other exploring on the mountain and found a deer and her two fawns. We also went higher up the mountain on a ski lift to a lookout, but it was covered in a cloud... and even more gnats. We left that area pretty quickly and had dinner on the mountain with a view of the sunset. Full of food, it was hard to make it back down the cable car without falling asleep, even with the awesome view of Vancouver at night.