We are staying one more night in Squamish, hence we will have a look at things around Squamish. Our plan is to first go to the Sea to Sky gondola and Shannon falls.
We parked the car at the parking area of Shannon falls (N49.672126, W123.159953). This is pretty close to the Gondola area, but you are only allowed to park for one hour on the Gondola parking area. It is mabe 500 meter (1/3 mile) walk from the Shannon falls parking area to the gondola. We decide to first go up the gondola and then go the waterfall. While walking to the ground station we already get a view of the falls:
Once at the Gondola it is not very busy yet, but we still have to share a ride up, little bit of a pity. The view going up is already nice:
You actually can also walk up the mountain. But that is a rather long difficult climb!
On top of the mountain the view is even better:
There is also a suspension bridge there
but that is kinda pointless, as there is also a pretty short path to the other side… However, it is kind of nice to go on it.
There are number of paths on the mountain. We first went on the “panorama trail”. We came across some squirls.
At different paths along the route there are some view points, but the view all the way at the end of the trail is the best:
Once we got back at the start we also decided to go walk the “wonderland lake loop”. This is a little bit more chalanging than the first route. We saw a mushroom:
The path goes to a small lake with water lillies. All around the lake a wooden decking was made.
Once we were back to the start of the path we decided to go back down with the gondola. We spend around three hours on the mountain. The routes and trails are nice, but it was seriously busy up there. We like it more when we am out in nature and do not come across other people. It gives me more of a sense of seeing the true nature instead of something man made. Mt Revelstoke was a lot better in that respect. Once we were down on the ground again we walked over to Shannon falls, that we already saw this morning from a distance. It is rather a nice wafer fall:
At the foot of the falls you can also climb on some rocks to get a somewhat different view.
The next stop today is Alice lake (N49.780464, W123.123902). The lake itself is actually kind of boring. It has a small beach and there is a little stand there to rent different things to go on the water.
We then drove on to “The spit” (N49.686935, W123.178501). This is a spot where a lot of wind and kite surfers come because it is a spot that gets a lot of wind
Also here you get a good view of the Shannon falls (which we already saw twice today)
Close to “the spit” is also a small nature park (N49.695889, W123.180813), where you can spot bald eagles. We are eager to see them this holiday so we parked the car and had a small hike. In the end no bald eagles, but we did spot these small birds:
The final stop today was Eagle run viewing point (N49.752605, W123.141618). Also here you should be able to spot bald eagles. Squamish is know as the “eagle capital of the world”. But alas, in July there are no bold eagles. The only bird were these:
Hopefully we can spot the bald eagles later on in the holiday.
In the evening we went to eat pizza at Boston pizza. The last time we were at a Boston pizza it tasted pretty good, hence the reason to go again.
P.S. A few weeks after we got back we heard the news that there was a main haul rope failure of the Sea to sky gondola. A number of gondola’s crashed to the ground (see here and here). It turned out that the rope was deliberately cut in the night . Luckily not while we were in there!