It was one of those days where when Kirk got home I already had my socks in my hand and was saying “I need to walk this frustration off, let’s go!”
It took 11.5 km to get rid of the irritation and get home hungry and tired. But it was a good walk.
Does 11.5 km, half of it uphill through the forest, half of that on a muddy goat trail, count as a walk?
Probably not.
So a hike again, I suppose.
We started out walking through the neighbourhood to get over to Mosquito Creek, and on the way we stopped to laugh at the cutest little boy and his fascination with an excavator parked on the street; his incredibly patient mother watching him pick up rocks, one at a time, and deposit them into the bucket.
Across the schoolyard, through Fairmont Park, and then into the forest along Mosquito Creek.
It never ceases to amaze me that we have such fabulous greenbelts that run the length of the many creeks and rivers that cut down the North Shore. The Mosquito Creek Trail runs pretty much straight up and eventually connects with the Baden Powell Trail, which is a fairly rugged 48 km trail that runs from Deep Cove to Horseshoe Bay. In between, the trail winds through the heavily forested North Shore Mountains; it connects with many other local trails, like the Mosquito Creek Trail … but we only hiked a short section of the Baden Powell as a means to get up onto the power line at the edge of the deep forest above North and West Vancouver.
Some of the upper portions of the Mosquito Creek Trail, before meeting the Baden Powell Trail, was a rather muddy goat trail that involved a lot of clambering over roots, boulders, and fallen trees. There is even a section that one has to drag themselves almost straight up using a few knotted ropes that someone kindly tied to a few trees.
But…that’s the sort of trail I seem to gravitate towards when I need to burn off some steam. On the upside, it was peaceful and largely empty of other hikers.
Once on the power line trail, it’s a fairly straight line across the top of North Vancouver and over to the base of Grouse Mountain, where we ducked down another trail that winds it’s way down behind and between a residential neighbourhood but remains deep in a densely forested greenbelt that follows the upper McKay Creek back down the mountain and within a block of our house.
On the way down, one of the only other trail users we encountered was a big black slug. Prior to taking this photo and looking fo the Latin name of this slow moving forest resident (Arion ater), I was not aware that they are an invasive species in BC, originating from Europe.
I learn or see something new on every one of our walks 🙂
Not a bad ‘before-dinner-walk’
[osm_map_v3 map_center=”autolat,autolon” zoom=”autozoom” width=”100%” height=”450″ file_list=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/Track-Jun-24-2020-at-4-27-PM.gpx” file_color_list=”#ff2600″ file_title=”Track-Jun-24-2020-at-4-27-PM.gpx”]