Cypress June 4

Carla and I decided I needed a walk so we went up Cypress the resort. It’s pretty quiet up there, not many tourists or skiers where we went. The lifts are closed and signs warn of bears. Covid signs still tell us not more than five people in the washrooms at one time. We decided that boots, ski poles, rain gear, and microspikes would be appropriate. We left home around 9am, beating the Lions Gate traffic. The walking up Collins was mostly uneventful though we did encounter a solitary split boarder and there was a snowplow machine apparently grooming the slopes, but I can’t imagine why because there were no skiers and summer is coming. If you were desperate to spend money they have put up something called the “Eagle Coaster” where you could ride up the chair lift and then come down on something resembling a bucket on a track, no skill required, something like watching hockey.

As usual at this time of year as the snow melts, all sorts of treasures come to the surface. Between the two of us we found two quarters (a $20 would have been nicer), one earring, a piece of chocolate which unfortunately Carla threw away, a piece of plastic that looked just like chocolate but which turned out to not be chocolate, two ear buds one of which had been sliced by a ski, three lighters, one of them still working, two marijuana cigarettes in a waterproof case, half a credit card, a season pass to the hill, and a full can of beer which I drank.

So how is the snow? Still abundant, but a bit lumpy. Definitely not bottomless powder but you don’t get that on a groomed hill anyway. I guess it’s still pretty ski-able. It’s a good destination, as it’s a short drive which is important with gas at around $2.30 a litre. If you don’t want to hike the ski runs you can do the dogshit trail on Hollyburn. But hurry, snow is melting.

To finish, I will include two Cypress stories from the distant past, one not happy and one happy. Probably nobody in VOC remembers the acronym NARSID. I don’t remember what it stands for but the first three letters are Non-Avalanche Related and the last one is Death. Two VOC’ers were skiing down the hill beside Collins. One went upside down into a water-filled tree well and drowned. If they had stayed together the drowned one would have been quickly pulled out with nothing worse than a headache and getting wet. Again, if we don’t even know about mistakes made by others, how can we learn to not make the same mistakes?

The second story was hiking with the family. Kevin, about 5 years old announced “Dad, I have to poop”. I replied, “We just need to go over to those trees where there is a bit of privacy”. But instead of privacy we found a large black bear. Not wishing to annoy the bear, I asked “Can you hold it until we get to the toilets at the parking lot?” He did. Anyway, we weren’t finished yet because Kevin found a twenty dollar bill in the toilet cubicle.

 

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