BC Mountain #1 Completed

Ok ok, so maybe this isn't very impressive but I finally climbed a Canadian mountain. By mountain I say Burnaby Mountain. Sounds impressive but its not. 320m elevation total. That sounds tiny but to me it wasn't. I was originally planning to do another route that I showed on a previous post (now deleted, sorry). I will do that route another time as I seem to get some kind of sick pleasure from hiking steep hills and that route wasn't steep enough for me haha. So heres what my 'mountain' route looked like:

My starting point was at Craftsman Collision (a panel beater company) at the 3 way fork of St Johns Rd, Clarke Rd and Barnet Hwy. I then walked up Clarke Rd (a short but notoriously steep road that even cars have difficulty getting up). I then turned R) at Mt Royal Drive where the hill then plateau'ed which allowed my "warm up" to end and my legs could relax for 10 mins as I walked through a nice quiet suburb til I reached one of the tracks on the east side of the mountain. I originally planned to do a difficult level track called the "Gear Jammer" that goes directly west up the mountain in a zig zag fashion but signs said it was closed (maybe it's only open in the Summer months?) It is still technically early spring here and even though we've been having wonderfully sunny days, its still quite cold and wet at the top and as such a lot of rain water comes down this time of year. So anyway I was forced to pick a new route, perhaps that was for the best as I have not had a hill workout quite as much as this one. I ended up instead hiking around the North East face of the mountain and following the Trans-Canadian Trail a part of the way. That trail in its entirety spans from Vancouver Island all the way to the other side of the country in St John's (NewFoundland & Labrador).  The third trail that was off the Trans-Canadian was called 'Cardiac Hill'. Cardiac - HA! How true to its name. It looks short on the map but I believe of the four Burnaby Mt tracks that short hike took me the longest because it was nearly almost a vertical climb and I had to take a breather every 10m. I would have taken pictures of the track but I really had more important things on my mind - like breathing.

Heres a close up of the Burnaby Mountain track:

Heres a great shot of Port Moody (where I walked from) from on top of Burnaby Mountain:

Picture copyright: https://kevinlouie.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/burnaby-mountain/

Surely that photo proves that I was on top a mountain? Right? Hahaha.. We'll see.. Its a good start don't you think?

After this hike I burned 723 Calories! Whoa. It took me 1 hour 20 minutes total. Afterwards I had a healthy orange and peanut butter and banana sandwich to eat along with my bottle of water however I had the biggest craving for salt I had experienced in a long time! My husband picked me up at the SFU Campus and we agreed I have earned myself some small Burger King Fries (the best!) They're the closest thing I can find to taste and texture to New Zealand chips from a fish n chip shop.

Sigh - Happiness