A Walk in the Woods

We’re in Vancouver and since our cruise does not leave until tomorrow, we have a full day to enjoy this amazing place. If you recall, one of the themes of this trip is walking with elevation. For the past two days we have been city walkers, but now it was time to get back into nature.

After a fair amount of pre-trip research, I found the Baden-Powell trail, winding just above the highest neighborhoods in North Vancouver. Named after the founder of the Boy Scouts, this 48 kilometer trail runs through the North Shore Mountains. My goal was to walk half of it, from Lynn Canyon all the way to Deep Cove. It’s widely known as one of Vancouver’s best walks.

I’m feeling better this morning, a little tired, but that’s to be expected. We’ve been pretty active and it was day three of the three day (one day for each hour) jet lag recovery. We didn’t get as great of a head start as hoped, not leaving the hotel until after 10am. To get to our trail start, we take a bus down the hill to the 20 minute ferry that crosses over to North Vancouver. It is another 30 minute bus ride to get to Lynn Canyon.

What a beautiful place! We buy some fresh raspberries and cross the suspension bridge that is the beginning of our trail. Then we walk. Down to the river and back up again, more than once.  I’m surprised that it is such a huge effort to walk up the hill. Now I know why they call this trail the Knee-Knacker. Oy. Must be jet lag and the rest of the stomach upset, I thought. On the trail, we met with a few people, some with dogs, some running (!) but mostly we had the place to ourselves.

After 3 hours, we decided to call it quits and tracked back down to the road, where we caught a bus that took us back downtown. We were tired, but happy, and wanted to be sure we made it back to the Sheraton before the lounge (with our free dinner) was closed.

Something was funny, though. Although I felt good all day (although a bit more easily tired than usual), after dinner my stomach was acting up again. Bad gas, too. Oh well, I’ve certainly have felt worse on other trips, and usually all it takes is a good night’s sleep to make things right. Besides, tomorrow is the beginning of our cruise and for the next two days there will be no walking, except back and forth to the dining room. Yeah, I’ll eat carefully and see if I can’t beat this thing. After a couple of days rest, we’ll both be ready for a nice walk in Ketchikan, our first port. Or so I thought…

A quick note to readers: Folks, if some of this is TMI, you’d better stop reading now. Further posts contain descriptions of health issues with the goal of raising awareness of what can happen when you least expect it and creating a cautionary tale – you can learn from this stuff! I will, however, try to make my descriptions as non-graphic as I can!