north vancouver

Let me paint a picture of total forgetfulness with moments of awesome – generally centered all around my hiking boots (as so much is these days).

My lovely, amazing, best ever Asolo boots of awesome – finally on my feet on the trail!

An early long-weekend Monday morning (yesterday), the hubby and I are heading out on a hike to enjoy the wonderful mountains Vancouver area has to offer and to get some training in for Mount Kilimanjaro with our friends Doug (and Hudson the Dog) and Scott (a fellow Kili climber).

We have our backpacks packed with water, snacks, med kit, rain gear, about 10-15lbs in books to give us an extra workout (we are training after all), poles, Buff, etc. We are all dressed in our technical hiking gear, and we are on our way to St. Mark’s Summit on Cypress Mountain; about an hour drive from our place. Sipping coffee on the way, chatting about our prep and packing for the big Africa trip and I get this awful sick to my stomach, tummy sinking feeling “Oh crap I forgot my boots”. We are minutes from our destination and I have flip flops or golf shoes in my car and that is it. My amazing, wonderful, so delightful Asolo boots are at home in our front entry whimpering at the insult of being left behind. Noooooo! Doh! Doh! Doh!

I could not be more frustrated. Seldom do I get company on my hikes, and today of all days I have the hubby and a couple friends and the bouncy, loving Hudson Dog coming out on a hike and I mess it all up by forgetting my darn boots. I am livid at myself. I am also oddly mad at my husband for not remembering MY boots. Insert all kinds of grumpy expletives; some horrible self-talk about my own stupidity; some superstitious bull-dooey about it must be a sign that I forgot them for some cosmic purpose; and finally some apologies to the hubby for blaming him for forgetting MY boots. We flip a totally ‘legal’ U-turn and we are on our way home to pick them up. A few text messages later, and our friends are going to head up the trail without us (rightfully so, we would be an hour and a half before being back to the mountain).

Once over my self-loathing crap, swallowing my pride and getting over my embarrassment it ended up being a totally awesome date day! Hubby and I got back to the trail by 10am, set our FitBits, and started our way up St Mark’s Summit at a great pace with some really great conversation. Perhaps this was the cosmic purpose crap I was cycling through on my grumpy go home and get my boots drive.

We liked the terrain right away – lots of areas with roots and rocks to step up and over to keep you entertained. Enough folks on the trail to keep the bears at bay (we hope) and little chance of rain (we also hope) – it was a great hike.

Terrain on St. Mark’s Summit Trail a little muddy but that makes it even more fun.

More of the St. Mark’s Summit trail terrain.

About hour into it or so, I spot these fuzzy ears and a fuzzy tail up ahead – ha ha you thought I was going to say a bear! It was Hudson the bouncy, loving Dog of Doug. We chatted with Doug and Scott for a while on the trail and committed to getting ourselves up and down quickly so we could have a cold one with them at the bottom. Glad we got to see them, and the heckling at my forgetfulness was mostly bearable (they were clearly taking it easy on me but I know this will definitely be brought up in future – what are friends for right?!)

Lance and I continued up the trail for another hour to the summit which sadly had clouded over by the time we got up there but you can imagine how great the view over Howe sound would have been!

The view from the top of St. Mark’s Summit – too cloudy for a great pic but you can imagine how great it would be!

Saint Mark’s Summit sign – found at the top 10,000 steps or 5.5km up to a 1370m elevation.

All in all, we made great time – the trail description advises 11km and 5hrs and we did it 3.5hours without being too rushed on the way up, but definitely picking up our pace on the way down in hopes of meeting up with our friends after. The packs felt good, the technical gear worked perfect and the boots (both Lance’s and mine) were amazing as usual. A good trial for our bodies and our hiking stuff for Kilimanjaro for sure.

Lessons learned … wear my boots on the drive to a hike then I can’t forget them, wear my boots on the plane to Tanzania so I have them for Mount Kilimanjaro, don’t take life too seriously it’s just boots and ‘not the end of the world’ as lovingly noted by my husband during our U-turn, be nicer to myself in my own head, and I absolutely love hiking with my husband and secretly enjoyed having him all to myself for the hike. Tee hee!

Us at the top – quick pic, snack, close encounter with a chipmunk and on our way back down.

Brande

PS 18 sleeps to departure (excited scream)

Happy, dirty boots and socks post Grind!

There are many different schools of thought about training for Mount Kilimanjaro.

Some say you should build up the core and legs, hike a lot of stairs and steep hills, and learn how to drink a lot of water. Some say there is no use in training when the middle aged and out of shape have a great success rate of getting to the summit. I say lets go for more training than less, it is good for the body anyway and hope for the best out of this body when it comes down to step by step up the mountain.

So here is what I loosely consider my training regime:

jog 3 mornings a week
stair / hill walk 3 times a week
long hike weekly
hard or crazy work out hike weekly
play some of my usual sports
eat way more veggies than usual, losing a few pounds is always a nice treat
work on core, legs and all around harden up the muscle-y bits

For this weeks hard or crazy work out hike I tackled the Grouse Grind in North Vancouver.

PLEASE NOTE to some this is not hard or crazy, they do it near daily and can get up the mountain side in under an hour or less and enjoy themselves … I am not that person, sadly but also proudly lol. For me the slog up the 2,830 stairs is grinding (pun intended) but the reward amazing.

So up I went this morning – I started at 8:00am and finished at 10:40am, took lots of 20-30 second breaks on the way up (yes, these were usually to let someone pass my turtle self) and generally enjoyed my pace and my time. I didn’t love the fog that socked me in at 1/2 way up or the rain that soaked my from about the same point – but I live on the lush, green coast of Canada what do you expect. I started my Keen Targhee boot training this morning to get them warmed up for Kilimanjaro and they were awesome! I also had my day pack stuffed with 25lbs which I swore at a few times on the way up 🙂

I enjoyed me a lovely yummy extra hot latte at the top – did a little reading for school while sipping away. Usually I would enjoy the amazing view but that fog I mentioned prevented seeing more than 10ft.

If interested in more Grouse Grind details: https://www.grousemountain.com/grousegrind (you may secretly hate the path and everyone on the way up, but wow you feel like a rock star when you get there)

76 sleeps till we leave for Kili!

(PS one of the things hikers on Kili hear over and over from their guides is Pole, Pole. This is Swahili for Slowly, Slowly so you don’t burn yourself out and get more time to acclimatize as your climb. Perhaps my turtle self was made for Pole, Pole! Yah!)

Brande