Hiking

The Grouse Grind is still officially closed for the season, and for good reason. You'd think, with this beautiful spring weather that it's just an extra precaution, but they weren't kidding - there is a lot of snow pack three-quarters of the way up the trail. All cold and in the way. Very hostile. Being in running shoes and a tank top doesn't make things easier when you're scrambling up what you think must be the trail while trying to dodge flying snowballs the size of watermelons hurtling their way past you to splatter on tree trunks in a way that is eerily suggestive of what would happen to your head if you were to slip and go hurtling down the hill yourself.

But we made it to the top eventually, and were oggled by tourists in parkas at the lodge who took our picture, standing sweaty and barely clothed against the backdrop of the afternoon sky over "the peak of Vancouver." I'm not even sore today. I think this bodes well for a multi-day trek this summer on the West Coast Trail.