Towards the end of summer Natalie went back to Taiwan for a few weeks and I was left alone. I took it as an opportunity to find something about Vancouver to claim for myself. 

I wanted to find the fun of the No Fun City. 

On the way back from the airport I decided on just what that fun would be. 

As the rattling early morning train cleared Downtown Vancouver and headed for Burnaby I noticed the snow-capped peaks of the North Shore Mountains gone, melted down some months earlier by the summer sun. 

I had seen them throughout the year on my many SkyTrain journeys into Vancouver from Burnaby. At one long stretch of the track the mountains of the North Shore would appear unobstructed, a jagged wall of rock and snow filling the window. 

I wanted them and if I was going to climb them it had to be now, it was September and I was running out of time before the snow returned and closed off many of the best hikes. 

| 

I scanned the big yellow sign at the entrance gate. The warnings written in big bold red letters were designed to be taken seriously, put in place to create doubt in the minds of those who maybe shouldn’t be attempting one of the more grueling hikes in the world, first timers who should get a bit of practice on some of the easier trails first. 

I was a first timer. I gave no respect to the philosophy of easing myself into it. I firmly believed I should start on a hard one, everything will be easier after that I thought. 

A little over a minute of climbing the first steps and I was out of breath, my heart aware of the dangers ahead. The adrenaline surged through me, my heart rate shot up, I was close to panic. 

I questioned myself, ‘Are you sure you want to do this Brad?’ 

I was sure, but it was nice to know my body was looking out for me, after all I was about to put it through a month of hardcore hiking. 

My breathing returned to normal and my heart calmed down, eventually finding its pace. 

My body accepted. 

Alright then. Go ahead. You crazy fuck. 

The Grouse Grind was built to punish. 

Designed to make you climb her as you would a twisting staircase, a demonic, body destroying twisting staircase. I had read that heart attacks weren’t uncommon, it earnt the apt nickname nature’s stairmaster for a reason. 

After hours of struggling up I saw a hole in the canopy with light breaking through, it was nearly over. 

I reached the top as a helicopter lifted from the ground, rotors roaring into the sky, action, delirium, pain, perfect. I made it to the finish line. Earth, BradEarth conqueror of grinds. 

I went back the next day to climb it again. 

I fell in love with the routine and found myself approaching that rare state of happiness. 

Each day looked like this …

             Get up, get dressed and walk to Metropolis at Metrotown 

                       Buy two bottles of powerade and a box of protein bars at Real Canadian Superstore 

   Take the SkyTrain to Waterfront 

      Take the SeaBus to North Vancouver 

                               Take the bus to the foot of Lynn, Grouse or Fromme 

                              Start hiking 

Happiness is a rare thing. Happiness isn’t something that lasts long, I’ve never thought of it as a state of being that can last long. Happiness is transitional, for that month though moments of happiness were building up and maybe, maybe I didn’t hate this Vancouver place as much as I thought I did. 

‘Is Vancouver really starting to grow on me?’ I often thought while walking out of another successful hike. 

In the following weeks I made it up Mount Fromme three times, Lynn Peak three times, hiked to NorVan Falls twice, walked the length of the SkyTrain’s Canada and Expo Lines and nearly died from my first really stupid mistake in the backcountry. 

The day of that really stupid mistake should have been just another one of my feeder days, a day to take it easier on the trails while preparing for the next big one. I was hiking to NorVan Falls again to get myself ready for the much harder Coliseum Mountain. 

After an uneventful hike to the waterfall I decided to go a step further. I continued into the forest for another kilometer to reach the fork that split the trail. In one direction was Lynn Lake and the other Hanes Valley. 

I got to the signpost and planned out the rest of my hiking season, ‘I’ll do Lynn Lake after Coliseum and leave Hanes Valley for last.’ I concluded. 

I was looking forward to conquering every trail the park had to offer, the upcoming hikes were the hardest trails only meant for the most experienced of hikers and I was confident I was getting to that level. 

I took a piss, smoked a cigarette, then turned around to go home. 

‘OH FUCK!’ 

It was less a thought and more 

my entire body at once screaming the same thing.  

‘OH FUCK!’ my body screamed. 

Ahead of me was something foreign. It looked nothing like the trail I had just come from, the forest had deceived me. As if the trees had come together to cover the path. 

‘I’m only a kilometre further than NorVan Falls,’ I thought, ‘I can’t be lost.’ 

I was lost. I spent the next hour looking for a way back to safety but it was no use. 

I stopped the panic from hitting and focused on the only thing I needed to, survival. This was my first big mistake in the great outdoors, it was time to prove myself. 

I knew what I needed to do. I had to get down to the river and head downstream until I could find an opening back onto the trail. 

The forest was so thick and treacherous that finding a way through it, even heading in the right direction, had the likelihood of pushing me further off course. 

I could feel the bears laughing at me. Bastards, bear bastards, licking their bear bastard lips. 

I found an opening on the side of a cliff and studied a dying tree jutting out over the bank. I touched the decaying wood. I would need to make a jump once I got to the end of the bend and land upright on a slippery looking boulder below. 

I took the risk and placed my running shoe on the bent tree. I studied the moss-stone bank below and lifted my other foot and committed, as I clung to the dying tree my hands slipped and I fell backwards. 

I landed with a thud, thankfully I didn’t hear a crack. 

I was okay. 

An eight kilometer zig zag from slippery rock to slippery rock with stretches of walking through the raging river awaited. I smoked a few cigarettes and got on with it. 

I had no idea how close I was to safety, it had been hours of a constant physical puzzle, moving from one rock in the river to the next. 

The light sky was fast becoming an inky blue and I was still on the river. 

The river looked the same for its entire length, there were no markers or signs of civilization along its banks. 

I stopped the zig zag game and made it onto a large boulder by the river bank as the last hope of light died around me. 

I had a lighter, a bottle of Powerade and a few snacks. My clothes were soaked through and the temperature had dropped to a few degrees. 

I looked around for firewood but it was all too moss covered and moist to make a fire. I knew that would be my single most important task and something that I would work on until either I had a raging fire or I was unable to move from the hypothermia. 

I smoked a cigarette, then smoked another. 

I wasn’t panicked or scared. I wasn’t even cold, I knew it was cold but my brain decided it was best not to let me feel it, the cold was just a fact like the darkness and my water soaked clothing, facts that could be kept at a safe distance for a bit. 

I accepted the fate of the night ahead, ‘Maybe I’ll live, maybe I’ll die here.’ 

The nicotine further relaxed me as I looked up at a stunning field of diamonds above. A clear mind taking it all in. 

Fuck this, I’m going home!’

The thought came out of nowhere, a moment before I was still resigned to my fate. 

The inner voice was too powerful to ignore though and without hesitation I threw my backpack around my shoulders, edged to the next rock, scrambled along a fallen tree and turned the corner. 

In front of me was an opening, an opening I knew. I was safe. 

I was amazed. 

If I stayed on that rock I could have died just a few meters from the safety of rejoining the trail. 

Maybe it was something in the stars. Maybe it was just luck. 

I made my way towards the park’s entrance on the dark trail, illuminated only by the stars. 

I refused the help of two runners further up the trail. I survived the beating of the river, the cold and the dark, I was too proud to be carried to safety just before the finish line. 

It was strange but I never really thought I was going to die, even though I was in a situation in which death was very much walking beside me, mirroring my moves, waiting with a squinted eye and sly smile for me to slip one more time on a rock and sink to the bottom of the raging constant. 

I’m glad and quite proud to say I never gave death the satisfaction of fear and panic, of contemplating with much seriousness the possible ending on that river. I just kept going, suffering from one boulder to the next. 

I went back to Lynn Headwaters a few times after this horror of a day but it was getting colder and the harder trails would soon be sealed off again until next summer. 

My hikes soon degenerated into hour-long walks at night around Burnaby. I knew I wouldn’t get back to the mountains of the North Shore until a future summer but I couldn’t accept the reality. The lifestyle had proven too fulfilling to just stop despite the worsening weather of the Pacific Northwest. 

I did stop, eventually, knowing my defiant rain soaked walks weren’t training or preparation, just defiance for defiance sake. 

This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Tom Billings. Tom was a British hiker who disappeared on the North Shore. I would see the missing person flyers posted at the park entrance on each of my hikes in the Lynn Headwaters Regional Park. I always kept an eye out for him. Sadly his remains were found as I returned to England in 2016.