“I’m going to work at our head office in Vancouver”, is what Jordan told me one afternoon on a run. “Some sweet trails out there”, I replied. Then he hit me with “hey you think you would want to come along Chris?” This little convo started the whole snowball effect of one of the best weekends ever. Jordan, Joe and myself flew from Toronto to Vancouver early Friday morning, stayed in Squamish B.C. for 3 days then Joe and I flew home late Sunday, leaving Jordan to continue on to work with ORGANIKA at their head office in Van. Oh and what did we do, the entire time we were in the fresh beautiful mountain air????…. RUN the mountains of course!!!
Day 1: From Georgetown to Squamish – all in a day!
Jordan picked us up in a cab at 5:15am in Georgetown, and we headed to Pearson Airport. We landed at 9am Van time and grabbed a rental (Kia Sorento). We ate brunch at an AMAZING restaurant called Heirloom Vegetarian then we headed NORTH. We got to our AirBnB unloaded our gear, got organized and suited up for our first adventure.
The Black Tusk – Check it out HERE
Mallory and I lived in Whistler years ago and we would always see the Black Tusk while we were skiing or snowboarding and it looked EPIC so it seemed like a great trail to run and explore. We drove to the trail head and set off at a firey pace. Very open and a runnable trail, we were so amped up it didn’t matter how steep or how long. We climbed for a little less then 2 hours before we came to SNOW. Then the snow became more and more snow, until we were running on about 4-6 feet of snow and trying to follow the trail by ground viewing peoples past footprints which were getting scarcer every minute. It was also extremely foggy and our visibility was limited and getting pretty rough. Add to this that my shoes (my lucky Asics) had holes in them from being so old and my toes were covered in a layer of ice. Luckily Joe had an extra pair of wool socks I could borrow so I didn’t have to battle frostbite. Once we trekked as high as we thought we could, while staying safe, we decided to call it a day after about 6000feet of elevation gain. I believe we made it higher than another crew that day. Our descent was insane! We literally ran downhill hard for a straight hour or more, which really does a number on your quads – Fun but Fierce! We ended the day by hitting up the local grocery store buying food (and beer) and chilled out and reminisced about the crazy day we had.
Check out our GARMIN run HERE!
Day 2: The day we met Gary!
In life every decision you make has outcomes that lead to how your day will unfold. This day started with me looking for coffee in our AirBnB. Jordan said he would run out and quickly grab coffee at Starbucks for us – we decided to all go as a group. We were almost at Starbucks when we saw the local coffee shop (Zephyr Cafe), where the cool hipster kids chill, so we changed plans and headed there. Great cafe which had vegan food, including breakfast muffins and excellent coffee. We were going to take our caffeine to go but decided we would chill and relax since it was only just past 7am. Then we noticed a few runners make their way in to grab a coffee. Jordan played with the idea and eventually went over to ask for recommendations on trails, as we were planning on trying to run the Squamish50 course, a great trail race held annually in the area, however we had no good map or idea of which trails it followed. The runners informed us that the Squamish50 race director was doing an orientation trail run that morning and it would leave from the local running store at 8am. We thought about it and decided to join the party. We raced home grabbed our gear preparing for a day in the mountains and drove to EscapeRoute the local running store. What did we find? 120 plus runners all geared up and cramming into a little running store listening to legendary, and one of our running hero’s, Gary Robbins talk about the orientation run that he was taking us on!!!! Needless to say this day was turning out perfect. We set off at 8:15am followed the pack and let the fates take over, and what an adventure. We spent 6 hours weaving through the mountains surrounding Squamish on trail that ranged from runnable, climbable to crawlable…. but in the end pure EPICNESS. #Galactic #SiezeOpportunity
Check out our GARMIN run HERE!
After our run we got to chat with Gary – he’s super cool and I’m very happy I got to meet him and go on his race course – we will be back to race the Squamish50. We then drove 
home cleaned up and hit the Howe Sound Brewery and had a delicious dinner of tempeh burgers and of course cold beer. We then went on a small trail hike around the harbour to stretch the legs as they were pretty tight. Finished the day with reflecting on the trail and chatting about the Western States win and course record set by Jim Walmsley that day.
Day 3: Taking it all in!
Since living in Whistler I’ve always wanted to climb the Chief. Its one of those touristy things that you never do when it’s in your backyard, however this was the perfect hike for our final day in B.C. We hit our favourite local coffee shop again, packed up our gear and set off on the pretty aggressive climb that is the chief.
The Chief – Check it out HERE
This was an interesting trail as it contained a lot of ladders and small metal holds where one would have to climb straight up for a good 20 feet or more which was a pretty chilling feeling. However the views from the peaks of this mountain, that looks down on all of Squamish, did not disappoint. It was amazing, especially since this was the first day the sky completely cleared, the sun was shining and we could see a full 360 panoramic view of the mountain range that looked down on the area. A side note for any young single guys – this is where you want to vacation. Everywhere you go you see groups of young, happy, fit women hiking having a blast outdoors and even a couple tanning at the top of these mountains;) We made our descent as the trail was getting a bit heavy with traffic due to it being a touristy spot, and we returned to the house to pack, clean and of course EAT!
Check out our GARMIN run HERE!
Once we were packed we closed up the house and headed back to Van. Jordan dropped off the rental and we bid him farewell and good luck with his work. Joe and I carried on and luckily we ran into Joe’s sister Jaymee at the airport as she was returning from a girls weekend in Vegas! We hung out for a few moments before we boarded our plane and flew home. We arrived home around 2am (and I had to work at the pool for 5:15am) however the trip had energized me and I was happy to be back. I know I will be missing those tall trees, long trails and high climbs soon but for now I’ll take a rest day. I guess we will need to start planning our next Running Trip! Big thanks to Jordan and Joe for the good times and memories, Jordan for setting this up, Joe for taking the majority of the pictures and a HUGE thank you to Mal for watching the kids while I took a vacation without you. I owe you one… actually many many ones, thank you.
#BeBetter #OutTrainThem #DoEpic
CH
Run Far Crew. 