Squamish

worth visiting just for the Walmart…even though I don’t like Walmart. But as a poor dweller of Whistler, you have to afford food somehow. Didn’t see much else of Squamish except for Walmart. If there’s anything else cool to do there in the winter, let me know for sure! Oh, actually, the Shady Tree Pub/Lodge is a rustic joint that has awesome burgers and onion rings =)

Live there, perhaps?

I went there with two german friends. it was awesome.

Don’t make Squamish a destination, but it’s fun to stop in when you’re going/coming from somewhere else.

It was a long car ride to get there from Whistler. And it just felt like a bunch of sprawling land and chain stores. Have never tried the hiking or outdoor stuff there yet, so maybe it’s not truly fair of me to judge it as not worth visiting. Sorry.

Squamish has so much to offer the outdoors enthusiast. In my 3 summers in Squamish I’ve climbed halfway up the Chief, mountain biked in the highlands, whitewater rafted the cheakamus, elaho, and squamish rivers, and done some of the most fantastic backcountry hiking trips using Squamish as a base.

I spent a weekend there with a group of 12 people from Seattle, 2 experienced outdoor boulderers, and most of the rest of us (including me) very new outdoor climbers.

We camped at Stawamus Chief Provincial Park, and spent almost all of Saturday and Sunday on problems within 10 minutes walk from our campsite. Most of these were on boulders deep in the woods, festooned with moss and tree roots where not scraped bare and smudged with chalk. Since it rained heavily the night before we arrived, it took a bit of wandering along the well marked trails to find a dry area, but there are dozens of areas and hundreds of routes, so we still had our pick, and so did the many other groups.

The experience was amazing and humbling. V0 and V1 are easy for me in the gym, but at Squamish they ranged from challenging to frustrating to impossible. At the same time, we watched more experienced climbers flow up problems that looked like a series of damp spots on the rock for their “warmup”. The necessity of multiple spotters and crash pads for the dubious landings (for us mere mortals), and of course the great group of people I was with, made for a very collaborative and social atmosphere.

The icing on the cake was stopping for all you can eat sushi in Richmond on the way up, and at Vij’s in Vancouver for excellent Indian food on the way back.

Went rafting on the river here in the middle of winter to see the bald eagles feast on the salmon run. simply. amazing.

Some people I randomly met are going on a climbing trip next weekend.. I want to go if I have time.

http://www.squamishclimbing.com/