Geoff's Beginner Friendly Day Trip to Coliseum Mountain
Contents
Synopsis
Meeting time 8am in the park
Coliseum Mountain is a modest bump on the North Shore visible from much of Vancouver. The trail begins with an easy 6km hike starting in Lynn Headwaters Regional Park and continues up a moderately steep, marked trail to the summit. Snow shoes will probably be necessary to ensure everyone's sanity, but don't distress, the club has them for rent! With good weather we should have a great view of Vancouver and other north shore mountains. If the group is feeling strong and the conditions are good then we may continue on to the summit of Mt. Burwell (a neighboring peak) or even Cathedral.
Lynn Headwaters Regional Park describes the route as being 10h return to the summit of Colliseum, but they are very conservative with their times and it is usually much less. We will make sure we fill the day though!
Check out this map
Skills Required
No technical skills are required. In fact no hiking experience is required either! Beginners are more than welcome.
- Should like the outdoors (or be prepared to tolerate it)
- Fitness or willingness to suffer
This trip is Beginner Friendly. This means that beginners to hiking/snowshoeing are more than welcome and others will help and wait for them. This does not mean the trip is necessarily easy or safe. Check out the VOC definition of Beginner Friendly here.
Gear Required
This is only a day trip so no overnight gear is required, however survival gear is always good to have in case we did have to stay the night (ie: space blanket, headlamp, garbage bag, toque, etc...)
Some important stuff I'll list below
- Sturdy, waterproof hiking boots (stiff)
- Raingear (always assume it's going to pour)
- Warm gear (it is winter after all)
- Food and water
- Layered hiking clothes
- Toque/gloves
- Headlamp
- Sunglasses
- Poles
- Snowshoes
- A day pack to put it all in
Snowshoes are available for rent from the club. Gear hours are:
Monday: Katherine 12:30-1:30; Please return your gear now.
Tuesday: Skyler 12:00-13:30 Also available 17:00-18:00 if you email him.
Wednesday: Caitlin 17:30-18:30 Note no gear during the 12:30-13:30 Exec meeting.
Thursday: Jacob 13:00-14:00 ish
Friday: Todd 12:30-13:30
More gear info is here
Trip Details
The buss can get you to the gate as early as 7:43am. You can walk the km into the park in about 15 minutes (or less) which means we may be able to start at 8:00. Check the message board to let us know if you can do this.
Meeting Time at 8am in the Park
Pre-Trip Meeting
There will be a pre-trip meeting at 6pm Wednesday, Dec 1 in the Clubroom. This is during gear hours, so gear can be rented at this time. Attending pre-trip meetings is important, but if you can't attend then make sure you let Geoff know that you're coming, and arrange for your own transportation.
Sign-up
Max tentatively set at 15. Higher if a couple other experienced VOCers come along.
Sign up below with your name, a clever nickname, and your experience level
- Geoff "Frostbite" Martin (lots of experience hiking and mountaineering, lack of common sense)
- Jasmin "will be there" Lightbody (Reasonable hiking experience, not much time in the snow)
- Michael "The Snowmann" Uhlmann (Done lots of hiking also in snow)
- Steph "Woupdy" Grothe (Heaps of hiking, also in snow and w/ snowshoes)
- Clemens "Hypothermia" Adolphs (Same as Steph)
- Gwyn "Jack Frost" Thomas (lots of hiking, some in the snow, excited to try out my new snowshoes and boots)
- Sahriar "SARS" Kabir (some hiking experience, but not much time in the snow)
- Yewon "Y" Kim (did her first snowshoeing last week, but able to survive in any hikes)
- Conrad "Brrrrrr" Koziol (no avy sense, but can put one foot in front of the other reliably)
- Mel "Mellow" T (proven higher survivability rate on snowshoes than on teleskis, mostly forgotten Avy sense) [would consider overnighting at Coliseum]
- Faroe "must be back by 6" DesRoches (fair bit of hiking, rediscovering snowshoeing, winter and that white stuff)
- Maite "I should be studying" (some hiking experience)
- Ryan "I'm an excellent boot-skiier" Goldsbury (hiking and snowshoeing experience)
- Daniel "jaja" Schweizer (reasonable hiking experience, haven't done much snowshoeing)
- Ahad "Barely Made It" Shafiq (some hiking experience, have gone up hills before)
- Skyler "Do it the hard way" Des Roches (experienced -hence number 16 on the list, no common sense, don't know how to snowshoe)
- Shane "Dust off my Snowshoes" Duan (Decent amount of hiking&snowshoeing experience, sometimes go too far)
- Todd "for some reason has been up this mountain four times" Mackenzie (experienced)
- Murray "spews horrendous puns" Down (experienced and I'm down)
Vehicle List
Sign up here if you have a vehicle, with the number of seats available and where you are leaving from.
Mel T - Coquitlam via Burnaby, 4 legal seats
- Clemens
- Steph
Ryan G - Sasamat and 13th
- Rishi Sharma
- Michael Uhlmann
- Conrad Koziol
- Todd?
Sahriar Kabir - Oak and 70th
- Harsumeet
- Shane
- Gwyn
- Faroe
Other Travel Options
The bus!
If your coming from the UBC/Kits/Point Grey/Dunbar area you have to make it downtown (can take the 17, the 99 and the 22, or the 25 and the 22 among others) then across the Burrard Inlet to North Van (the sea bus) then to Lynn Headwaters (the #210). It is also possible to take the 210 from downtown. If bussing is necessary we can organize groups to go together.
