Road Trip Day 9

Whistler, BC, Canada:
Another day of excruciating beauty began with crossing the Capilano Suspension Bridge, a wooden foot bridge that hangs 280 feet of the Capilano River in Northern Vancouver. From there I took the Skyride up Grouse Mountain. After hiking around the top for a while I asked if there was a trail to the bottom. The workers told me about "The Grind," a 1.8 mile hike that climbs 2800 feet. In my case descends.

I took many pictures of the trail as I descended through the clouds. Viability was only about 100 feet at times. It felt like something out of MYST or Riven. The sound of falling water was constant to my left, lost off in the fog. Everything was wet, and the moisture in the air quickly soaked my goatee and hair.

The trip was slightly soured by the loss of my lens cap and a slight hyper extension of my left knee. But this could not take the child-like awe at the scenery.

After making it down I headed up to Whistler. The road, hugging the rocks along the glacier carved bays, was lined with steep creeks and waterfalls. I had been going to ride a Zip Line across a river in Whistler but I got there too late.

On the trip back I enjoyed a USA forbidden Monte Cristo cigar, as smooth a dear hyde, it lasted the whole way.

A note or two on Vancouver. First: I have never been pestered by panhandlers anywhere as much as here. From very able bodied backpackers to the legless in a wheelchair (so much for the wonder of socialized medicine), I walked around for hours to listen too all their shite stories. One dame told me she needed just a few more dollars for the ferry back to Victoria. The next day she nearly sprang the same story on me. The look on her face was quite like "oh shit, he's heard this one."

The ort her thing is, how many fucking Starbucks does one square mile of city need? Certainly not the 15 - 20 there are. The are intersections with two of them on opposite corners.