The Chief’s Second and Third Peaks
The first weekend of summer was sunny. This was probably one of the first warm weekends of the year too; we’ve had a really wet and long winter.
Yuki and I got out for our first real hike of the season. This probably isn’t too much of a surprise, since the weather’s just recently become consistently sunny. For comparison, the Grouse Grind opened one and a half months later than usual, partly because of the long winter and partly because people kept jumping over the “trail closed” sign and that stopped the maintenance crews from preparing the trail for the summer.
We tried to get up early but didn’t quite get there till 11 so the parking lot was already full. We managed to squeeze ourselves in to a made-up spot.
The Chief is probably the second busiest hike in Metro Vancouver after the Grouse Grind. This is because it sounds relatively easy to most people, is accessible, and the views from the top are rewarding. Unfortunately, like the Grouse Grind, there are a lot of people on the trail that are unfit and unprepared.
The first time we did the Chief we went to the first of the three peaks, which is where most people go. This time we skipped the first peak to see the second and third. The hike is pretty similar, but slightly longer. There are still lots of fun parts where we got to scramble up the rocks and the views were still pretty good. We made good time, getting up in 1.5hrs.
The top was a good place to have a light lunch (leftovers from last night) and enjoy the view. We left when someone lit up some weed, to find somewhere else to be.
The third peak isn’t very far from the second peak so we headed continued hiking up the trail. Unfortunately we had run out of water, so we only stayed at the top for a short period of time.
The sparse trees provided some shade from the 30 degree weather, but there weren’t really any spectacular views from this peak, so we made our way down and out.
Moving the blog to Medium.com didn’t go completely smoothly and I’ve had to go back through the archives and re-upload most photos. It’s a nostalgic process and reminds me of how much we did in 2014 and 2015. 2016 wasn’t nearly as active, and 2017 is even less so. This will change later in the year, but as many people have told us recently, you have to enjoy life so I’m happy that we’ve gotten out for one hike and hope we’ll do more before the end of the year.
