Another Plan B day today. Since it is a 3 day holiday weekend here, we decided to ditch going into town for museums and wanderings and instead head out to Squamish for some hiking. As previously mentioned, we had planned for a mid-week Squamish visit but were foiled by rain – so Saturday morning it is!

After doom scrolling the Historic Helene AVL flood, we hit the road early, avoiding holiday traffic and make the gorgeous drive up the Sea to Sky highway, oohing and ahhing at the scenery the entire way.

There are so many hikes up there to choose! We ended up doing a modified 4 lakes hike in Alice Lake park. Basically 1 1/2 lakes – circumnavigating all of Alice Lake and about 1/2 of Stump Lake. We luck out with a parking space – because of course, we are fairly early (but not even as early as normal for us!) and head out into the gorgeous moss covered forest that covers this part of the world. It is just magical. The trees, the greenery, the placid lake with the amazing reflections. An excellent, if not chilly hike through a small portion of this amazing park (that, btw, is a also a huge campground with very hardy souls in their tents and caravans cooking breakfast as we wander about!).

Making short work of our hike – my fingers are frozen! – we warm up back in the car (at the now full parking lot) – and make our way back toward Squamish, with a quick pit stop at the Dollarama for fleece gloves for me (yes, I have gloves, but I need heavier ones than my tech gear for the next few weeks) and then hit Squamish proper for lunch. Settling on the Copper Coil Still and Grill – an adorable little pub where they have meals for “Future Adults” (how cute is that?) and specialize in a mash up of Louisiana flavors and Pacific Northwest ingredients. Works for us! We dig into more excellent fried Cauliflower with remoulade sauce and a huge Brisket Po-Boy accompanied by Poutine – a Cajun version of course. Very filling and perfect for this chilly day.

After that yummy, but quite filling lunch, we wander through town, looking for all the murals that are all over the buildings here.  As it turns out, not all are that photogenic, or easy to compose a good shot around. We find a few, but only manage to snap a nice picture of the thunderbird headdress mural on the side of an apartment building.  The streets are really crowded too, and after a loop around the main business district, we decide to call it a day and head back to our sweet little North Vancouver hideaway.

The drive back down into Vancouver is just as stunning as going up, those immense mountains never far from view. 

Back at the apartment, we once again begin doom scrolling through more horrific scenes of destruction in our disaster-struck home town and texting and sending emails to friends – even though we know they won’t get them until they drive out for cell service.  We are treated to a gorgeous sunset out over the Lion’s Gate Bridge thought, and spend the rest of the evening organizing our packing and making use of the grill yet again with our Bacon and Cheddar Smoked sausages and sauerkraut. 

Last night here, and then tomorrow, we board the HAL Noordam, our ride for the next 29 days!