Scrambling Tricouni

I've done a lot of hiking before, but this weekend I took in my first ever 'scramble' at a mountain called Tricouni Peak, just past Squamish. "Scramble" has a nice fuzzy, feel-good sound to it, doesn't it? Like something furry lil animals do as they play in a meadow or go up a tree. Well, it was nothing like that. More like seeing how many near-death experiences you can cram into one day. Seriously, this 'hike' would have made mountain goats cry.

After an evening of quick-and-hard drinking at the Molson factory (thank you, Molson, for all the free beer!), I got my sorry, dehydrated ass out of bed at 7AM to get in gear. At 8AM, Kate, my ride, called to talk me out of the hike. Unsuccessfully.

Our gang - Gavin, Natasha, Kate, Christina, moi - departed from Squamish in Gavin's trusty Honda Civic (aka 'the Warrior') at 9AM. An hour long drive, weaving through a road-bike race and up a sketchy, cliff-skirting logging road, the Civic began to bottom out with ever-growing frequency. For the good of the Warrior (which runs on the fumes of gas Gavin put in her last year, when he last filled up), we got out and walked the rest of the delightfully unscenic way to the trail head. After this hour-long trek, I had already developed a nice, mature blister and we hadn't even started.

At this point, please allow me to side-track and talk about our preparation for this trip. Gavin and Kate, who conspired this adventure, told me to pack light. Don't bring hiking boots, they said, just light footwear. Okay, I'll bring my trail-runners. A bit of food, for lunch and snacks. Check. It'll be about 3-4 hours, so bring 1-2 liters of water. Screw that, I'm bringing 3. The latter point was my only saving grace, as I neglected one key thing when taking their advice: these people are machines. Machines. Let's take Gavin for example. Affectionately nick-named 'Gavitron', he is a 19 year-old robot, who does not sleep, eat or drink water. He also runs 60-90 km ultra-marathons for fun! And despite all this, he's always smiling.

Oh yeah. These machines-posing-as-people are really poor at reading. In the guidebook, while "planning", they read it was a 3-4 hour trip. No, no. It was actually a 3-4 hours ascent. Plus the logging road, we were looking at an 8-9 hour round trip.

So, needless to say, I was poorly prepared. The first half-hour of the hike solidified this reality, as I trekked along the trail that consisted primarily of slippery, wet logs and mud. Lots of mud. Each time a leg lost it's hold on a root and plunged a foot deep into the sludge, it was a reminder that my runner's were made of well-ventilated mesh and perfectly designed to retain every drop I walked through. Gavitron commented on the dirt that encrusted me halfway up my calves, "I like how you've taken the time to colour-coordinate your socks with your shoes".

At the first lake, at which point the scenery was starting to make this all worth-while, we lunched and I restrained myself from eating every morsel I was carrying. Admittedly, I would have been happy to have quit right here and lounge by the lake, ignorant of what I was missing for the rest of the trip. Fortunately, I was following machines that were not programmed with the word 'quit', so we plowed on.

The remainder of the 3+ hour hike up was a mix of green alpine meadows and gigantic rock-fields. The surroundings became increasingly beautiful, and the trail became increasingly dangerous. The rock fields consisted of tiny stones up to boulders the size of cars. We fanned out to avoid killing each other with the debris we constantly sent rolling down behind us. As we got higher, we were able to take short-cuts across last winter's snowfall, which made for easier climbing. Many times rock or snow gave way below me and I narrowly avoided plummeting down the mountain-side.

When we reached the final tower that made up the summit, it was rock-climbing time! I'm a modestly skilled climber, and this was surely no harder than a 5.7 grade (for non-climbers, about the difficulty of climbing an old ladder), but too have no assurance from a rope made me a little bit nervous, to say the least. This was definitely the part of the trip that classified it as a "scramble". After 10 minutes of this exhilarating ascent, we finally reached the summit!

Here, over 8,000 above sea-level and over an hour by car to civilization, I got cell-phone reception.... Huh? ... Yes. Voicemail chimed in that I had messages awaiting me, and I dug it out of my pack to discover I had four bars of signal-strength! Of course, I had to make use of this. So I took a picture of myself and sent it to Bryanna (who was off at a wedding for the weekend), right then and there.

By now, it was well past 5 o'clock, and to make it back to the car before sundown we hustled our sore bodies back down as fast they would allow. To speed things up, we made use of Mother Nature's slide: we slid down the snowy patches, riding on our bums as far as they would take us. Despite getting snow directly up our shorts, it was great fun, and our thighs welcomed the relief from the never-ending rock staircase.

We made it back to the first lake just as dusk left it in shadow, but that didn't stop Christina, Gavin and Kate from jumping in for a 10 second swim. With the sun fading, I was content to simply play photographer for this and stayed on dry land.

The rest of the way back I was lolly-gagging behind the rest of the group. Being the mushy sap that I am, I kept stopping to pick alpine flowers for Bry. So as the gang trotted forward, I kept pausing and running to catch up from time to time. Until, that is, a friendly reminder occurred as to why you always hike in groups.

Christina, leading the pack, turned a corner to be greeted with ... a large ... black ... bear! For a split second she hesitated, thinking 'Aww, what a cute doggie' before the cogs turned another notch and the fight-or-flight response kicked in. "It's a bear!!!", she cried repeatedly, while driving us back down the trail we had come. With eyes like saucers, we ran, looking back every few seconds to see the trees shaking as this large beast came waddling after us. That's right. It followed us. The more noise we made, the more it seemed to be intrigued. We came to a widening of the trail and Gavin reminded us "don't give it something to run after guys, just be calm", so we stopped and tried to make ourselves big and non-threatening. The bear's head appeared above the foliage, and my heart went into my throat.

My thoughts raced: What's wrong? Why won't it leave? Does it smell the leftovers of my tuna sandwich? Shit. Shit. Shit. Is this how I'm going to die? Maybe I can climb a tree. No, don't be silly, this bear can climb way faster than you. But I can run. Sure, I can't run faster than it, but I can sure run faster than most of these guys. Natasha and Kate are small. The mosquitos seem to really like them, so maybe the bear will too!

But my cowardly desertion of the women-folk was not required, as the bear decided to move on just then. We got the hell out of there bloody fast, checking over our shoulders constantly to see if we were being stalked.

By the time we got back to the car it was almost 10PM. It wasn't until nearly midnight, when we made it to Wendy's for dinner. Damn, were those ever the best fries of my life!

Well after reading all that, surely you'd like to see THE PICTURES!. This is what makes these adventures all worth while ...

Oh, and all the flowers I picked wilted before I ever made it back to the car, even. That'll teach me.

(Sunday, I did laundry and hid from the outside world.)