Squamish

tldr; pretty nice, eh?

After about a week in Vancouver, we headed north to sunny Squamish, nestled at the base of towering cliffs with bright turquoise water all around.

A couple of Choi’s friends, Dan and Jaymee welcomed us to stay at their beautiful home and showed us all sorts of fun adventures during our week in and around Squamish. Like most of Squamish’s residents, they love everything outdoors, especially climbing, hiking, and mountain biking. We climbed with them a couple of times, hiked and walked around several trails, biked along a nice paved path through town, and even played disc golf at an amazing course through a forest right behind their neighborhood. We also spent a lot of time playing games and petting their sweet dog Bailey and their neighbor’s golden retriever Koast, who they watched over the weekend.

While we mostly boulder, Dan and Jaymee spend most of their time rope climbing, both sport and trad. We’re a little too spooked to try trad climbing so we just sport climbed with them while we were there. Dan was kind enough to lead the routes and set up top ropes for us so that we could ease back in to climbing on Squamish’s tall cliff walls after not climbing much the last few months.

We climbed at two really beautiful and really unique places during our week. The first afternoon we arrived, we headed out to a nearby crag where Dan drove us up a very steep and rocky trail that our van never could have conquered right to the base of the walls. It was amazing to have such a quick and easy approach to our climbs!

The other climbing spot we checked out had a very different approach. We trekked up and down through a winding forest trail, eventually coming out to a scrambly descent where we clung onto ropes as we eased our way down the cliffside to the base of the climbs.

Both of these climbing spots had amazing, grippy, but not too harsh rock to climb and incredible views of Squamish’s bright turquoise lakes and rivers and towering cliffs like The Chief.

The Chief is an imposing granite monolith towering 700M above Squamish. We could see it from Dan and Jaymee’s house and almost everywhere else in the city too. One of our last days in Squamish, Choi and I headed off to hike one of its three impressive peaks. We opted for peak two, the tallest of the three peaks. The hike wasn’t too long but was incredibly steep, starting out with lots of ladder-like wooden steps, a brief reprieve of a slightly inclined walk through the forest, and finally the adventure of chains and a ladder to scramble up to the top. The views were well worth it. We took some time at the top to soak up the sun going down over Squamish and the river below us.

Another great little hike we checked out was through the Squamish Estuary. We did this walk one evening with Dan, Jaymee, and their dog Bailey. We loved the wandering path with amazing views of The Chief (of course) and glimpses of the Sound, where tons of people were kite-surfing, skimming across the water.

We also spent one afternoon playing disc golf with Dan, Jaymee, Bailey, and their neighbor’s dog, Koast. Choi and I have seen disc golf all over on our trip, but it seems to be especially popular in the Pacific Northwest. We were excited to finally give it a go! The course was amazing with so much thought put into every detail. It took us on a great walk through a forest with little gnomes and other garden statues peaking out from the starting points at each hole. The dogs loved it, bounding off through the bushes after our frisbees after each throw.

On our weekend in Squamish, we decided to head outside of the city a bit to check out Whistler, which we’d heard lots about. On our way up to Whistler, we stopped off at a forest where we went on a great little hike across a small suspension bridge and through the woods to a lake. We got to dip our feet in the cold water and see cute pikas running around on the rocks. We also stopped off at a viewpoint for a waterfall along our drive!

Once we got to Whistler, we explored the city on our bikes, biking around the ski-town like downtown, through paths in the forest, to a park, and to a beach where tons of people lounged outside, playing spike ball and volleyball, or splashing in the lake. Unfortunately, just as we were finishing our bike ride and pulling up to the van, Choi took a too-tight turn and skidded off his bike onto the gravelly parking lot. His hand lost a lot of skin so it was a good thing we’d already gotten our climbing in for the week! I’ll spare you an unsolicited photo of his shredded skin but if you want to see, shoot him a text. He’d be more than happy to oblige.

Squamish, we love your amazingly friendly people and pups, your incredible climbing and hiking, and The Chief.