So I got my ass handed to me by “The Chief” and it was not pretty….but I am jumping ahead.

We arrived from the Alaskan ferry to Prince Rupert, Canada at 2 AM (who ever does the ferry schedules is just evil fyi). We had planned to book another ferry on the Canadian ferry system to Vancouver Island the following day, but when we found out it would cost $1700 (more than our entire Alaskan ferry bill) we decided to drive to Vancouver instead. And we were so glad we did. It is about a three day drive to Vancouver and the road was just beautiful. The first day the scenery looked a lot like the area around Banff and Jasper, the second day was through lush farm valleys and the third was spent on the the Sea to Sky highway 99 which was just spectacular. This is where I met the chief.

Sunrise over our free camp spot on day two of the drive

Sam crawled over me at 5am and said he had to get up because the sky was pink, I thought he was crazy but he saw a spectacular sunrise.

A stop along the highway to Vancouver

So who is the chief? The Stawamus Chief is the second largest granite rock face (next to Half Dome) in North America, and Sam and I decided (with little knowledge of the hike), to hike all three peaks.

We camped for the night in Squamish and woke up early the following day. We headed out to the trail head and started following signs to the third and highest peak first, with the plan that we would work our way down to peak one.

I am not sure what I was expecting, it seemed obvious we would have massive elevation gain. I was just not expecting the first hour to be straight up mostly stairs and rocks. I was already feeling the burn.

First hour hiking straight up….

Sweet, it keeps getting steeper….

The view from the top of the highest peak was amazing, this peak faced Garibaldi Provincial Park and had great views of the mountains facing North.

We started hiking to peak two, and it was during this part of the hike I realized that we would lose elevation and have to hike back up every peak F*@%!

Peak two was when the hike got a little nuts. All of a sudden I felt like I was in a wilderness survival course. I was rappelling down chains, climbing ladders into crevices and scrambling up rock face that was slippery and steep.

Rappelling down chains

Ladders into crevices

Sliding down rock so steep I was scared to stand up

Hiking along narrow rocks

This was at the top of peak 2 looking down onto the final peak we were going to hike, peak 1

This is what peak 2 looks like from peak 1. Check out that little person on the very top point, that is where I am sitting in the picture below.

Looking down to the final peak asking myself if I really needed to hike it =)

After all the fun of peak two I was fairly exhausted and doing the final ascent of peak one was brutal for me. I am in better shape then when when we started this trip, but I am no athlete. I had to stop many times to get my breath (it gave me some gratification to see young 20 year olds doing the same thing).

Bent over in two trying to motivate for the final push (oh, and trying to breath…)

Final scramble to the top of peak one

We made it to the top!

So that was how The Chief kicked my ass. My legs were wobbly for a few days but looking back it was an amazing hike and it was probably better I did not know what I was getting into or I might have not hiked all three peaks. It ended up being a great adventure.

Oh, and I had no idea Sam was taking all the pictures of me hiking. He always hikes behind me and when we were going through the pictures I was just laughing. There are some where I looked ready to puke (since I am writing this post, those beauties did not make the cut). Glad he documented the hike, it was a unique one.