Choose your own Snowshoe Adventure at Lynn Peak

On Saturday January 14th, twelve VOCers in three cars headed up to Snowshoe the Lynn Peak trail in North Vancouver. There was initial confusion as to where our meeting point was, and one car group that thought they were behind ended up meeting us at the Lynn Peak trail head about a kilometer in, instead of the parking lot. Once we were all together, we continued on this trail sometime after 11am. This was my first time snowshoeing and it was actually great! I thought it would be awkward and uncomfortable to walk in them, but I had no problems at all. I wished I had put them on sooner, because the initial trail we started on (before we found the missing group) was very icy. There was a staircase completely covered in ice at the start of the trail we all descended on our bums.

Some people may have found their snowshoes uncomfortable, or just preferred not to wear them because there was a fair amount of putting on and taking off of snowshoes. The trail eventually got quite steep, and so the game of musical snowshoes seemed to end at that point and everyone that brought them had them on. About half of the group trekked on ahead quickly with Lianne McRadu, and I stayed behind to sweep with the less summit crazy group. Around 1:45pm we reached the main lookout which had an incredible view, including the frozen Rice Lake which had ice skaters on it. We started eating lunch but it was decided that if we were going to make the South Lynn Peak summit, we should continue and finish lunch up there.

We continued on the trail and as the faster group started getting ahead I could sense that the group I was with was content at the lookout point. Lianne assured us it wasn’t far, and they could go on ahead and yell back if it was worth the trek up. The summit was a little farther that anticipated, and as we turned to head back to the lookout, we could see Lianne running back to us. They reached the south summit but there was no nice view, so everyone was making their way back down. We finished our food at the lookout with some friendly dogs (one of which looked suspiciously like a dingo), took photos, and headed back down.

I was worried about having such a late turnaround time, not realizing the snowshoes would handle ice so well. Most people slid down the hilly sections feet first. Dakotah Fozzard led the way shrieking and laughing down each slope. I couldn’t seem to master this technique as my snowshoes kept catching on the ground. We hiked out the road back to the cars instead of the really icy trail. A stop was made at the general store for ice cream and hot chocolate! Thank you all for a successful and fun trip!