Seeing that I live in one of the best places on earth I've been trying to ensure I'm running in new places. Living close to the wickly awesome North Shore means I sometimes forget to venture out to the other amazing places in the local area. Today Stefan and I met early and drove out to Coquitlam, he’d researched a new run for us on Mount Burke.
The mountain is a popular destination for hiking, mountain biking, horseback riding, and winter snowmobile trips. On the drive out Stefan also mentioned that it was the site of an old ski resort, this was evident from a couple of the signs we passed on the way up the mountain. I forgot my camera so no pictures until next time.
I loved the signage for the old ski resort so I did a bit of research and found out in the 1970s, the mountain was the site of a minor ski development, including a lodge at the top of the mountain (we saw the sign for the lodge), a rope tow and a ski village lower on the mountain. The ski area was abandoned when a fire burned down the lodge.
The run was great, super wet but overall very good terrain. We've received a ton of rain in the past few days so the rivers were raging and pretty difficult to cross. Today’s river crossing was definitely the most rugged river crossing I've been through to date; Stefan actually had to pull me across a couple of times.
On the way up we passed four lakes which will be spectacular in the summer. The route is pretty well marked but due to all the rain some of the paths were flooded so there were parts that were difficult to navigate.
Upon reaching the summit Stefan found this small container which I abruptly told him to put down (we didn't know what it was). He proceeded to make fun of me – and rightly so - asking me if I honestly believed that people were planting bombs in the middle of a deserted mountain top? I laughed and he opened it… relieved to find he was correct – no bombs! It contained a notebook from 2002 filled with notes from people who have reached the summit. I would have liked to read more of the entries but we were freezing cold so we quickly wrote our note, grabbed a gel and started our descend back to the car.
The way down was easier to navigate and we popped into some of the mountain biking trails. I'll definitely be coming back here to run and ride again. The trails are prefect for mountain bike training as they are less technical then the ones I normally ride on the North Shore.
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