I Conquered The Chief!

A friend of ours from office invited us for a hiking trip to Stawamus Chief in Squamish, British Columbia, not knowing what was in store for us! According to him, the hiking trip would take around 4 hours. Ok, that's not so bad. But that was under the assumption that the hike wouldn't be that hard!!

I was under the impression that the hike will just have sloping paths, zigzagging its way around the mountain, but I was mistaken. The first part of the climb reminded me so much of the Grouse Grind! It was like walking up endlessly in a staircase with no end in sight, add to the fact that you're climbing and stepping on rocks and roots instead! Total madness. Took us around 1 hour something just to go to our first stop, the rock, which isn't even halfway up!

But swaying away from the topic for a moment - I didn't expect my legs to hold on that well. Seems like my gym time is paying off!

Anyway, back to the chief. After reaching the end of the "Staircase", we reach this point where you need to grab on to a set of chains just so you can climb up! Scary portion of the climb, but very exciting. Unfortunately, I don't have hiking boots so I had to stick with my running shoes, which wasn't a good idea. Climbing through slippery rocks was very scary and my running shoes aren't providing me with the grip necessary to climb up there. I was scared like shit at one point, because I was holding on to dear life and my feet kept on slipping while I attempt to cross this huge boulder. I have no idea how I got to the other side, but what I do know is that I got a little bit of scratch mark in my legs after that portion.

Of course, anything you work hard for, always pays off after. Thus, reaching peak #2 was amazing! Unfortunately, it was foggy so we didn't see much of a view from up there, but we were given a different perspective with all the fog up there. It actually feels a bit more scary with all the fog around you, and you cannot even see the end of the cliff (just like my picture from up there)!

So all in all, it took us 6 hours to climb up, go to peak 1, 2 and 3, then climb down back to the parking lot. I find that going down is as hard as going up. Going down is terrible on the knees and ankles. Our friend Ronald, could hardly go down anymore. His knees were killing him. As for me, when I woke up this morning, I was expecting my legs to be sore, but it's not (I ran 10km last Friday night, so the soreness was still there). But I'm surprised that my shoulders and my back are pretty sore! Argh! I will need to rest for the next few days for sure or else I might aggravate the pain in my back. No gym

But then again, this is one activity I won't forget for a long time. I probably won't do this activity again next week, but perhaps, I'll do it again when I'm back in Canada some time in the future.