Bowen Lookout Trail with Chase

This summer, Chase and I tried to go on some hikes together! I must admit this is a bit more of me wanting to get him into hiking, and enjoy nature and worship God as we explore. We’ve done a few - the Lynn Canyon, Lighthouse Park, some in Richmond and also our trips to Sunshine Coast and Tofino, and then this one, the Bowen Lookout Trail at the top of Cypress Mountain.

I’ve always loved to hike, and in fact one of my bucket list items I’d like to do is to do the Everest Base Camp trek one day. The past few years, I’ve gone with my sisters, but now that we all have kids, it’s definitely been harder to do these hikes. I’d love to find a new hiking buddy haha. Anyway, I wanted to go to the Gold Creek Falls but I failed to get a day-use pass which is so crazy how busy it gets at Golden Ears Park. We went to Cypress Mountain instead. It’s nice that it’s free parking!

There’s also a few things you can do at Cypress Mountain, like the Eagle Coaster and Axe throwing, but make sure you book early for the Eagle Coaster as it was fully booked by the time we wanted to ride it, and the axe throwing was only for 8 years old and up.

This trail was fairly easy at the beginning, and then it got a bit tougher with a few switchbacks going up and it’s rather loose gravel. It took us about 45 minutes to get to the top, we spent about 10 minutes at the top, and then another 30 minutes to get back down. The view was stunning, you can certainly see Bowen Island. The Old Growth section was also really cool, we enjoyed seeing all the signs and reading them.

Because of all the signs, we noticed a lot of the different kinds of mushrooms and shapes of the trees that were growing around us, and it was so cute to see Chase get all excited for the various things we saw along the trail. He also decided to do some “shortcuts” on the switchbacks, counting of rings on trees, reading maps… so much fun. We had a lot of conversation about how majestic God’s creation was and he just couldn’t believe how God just made all these just by saying it, and it came to be.

Finally, we made to the lookout. It was such a lovely sight, We also noticed a few birds hanging around us so closely, and we just had to admire them. I only had a prime 35mm lens, so literally they were just a meter or two away from us when I took this photo!

After we headed back down, we took a little break and had some soft serve ice cream (which were horrible btw), we decided to splurge and go up the ski lifts for more views. It was a clear, stunning day and we could see so far. We were able to see up north and all the mountains around us, and then south to Vancouver and Burnaby and beyond, and then to the west, Bowen Island and Vancouver island. Chase said he had never been that high up before inasmuch as he can remember, and was amazed at all that we could see. I on the other hand was scared that he would slip through the ski lift haha.

After we got back down, we were hungry and had food at the Raven Grill which was quite terrible and incredibly slow, but I really didn’t expect much for food up at the lodges. Truthfully I had been hoping we went elsewhere for food, but it was kinda part of the experience and I didn’t pack us a lunch either like I usually do. Next time! :)

xoxo, Karla