Capturing the Art of Nature
Dog Mountain
I have quite enjoyed the hikes on Mt. Seymour and the trail to the smaller Dog Mountain looked interesting. I was hoping for good views of the city as a bonus.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2008
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We set off under overcast skies with the promise of clearing as the day progressed. So I was hopeful that we would get some good views of Vancouver and the valley from the overlook on Dog Mountain. We arrived early in the Mt. Seymour parking lot and there were only a few cars there at the time, this allowed us to get a spot near to the trail head for our easy hike to Dog. As we were within a few hundred meters of the BCFMCA repeater tower, I didn’t bother with my cross-band radio system and opted to use that repeater directly.
We set off on the trail; the first few hundred yards were well groomed and maintained, this was far too civilized for my wants. But soon we were past the ‘nice’ section and onto a well traveled but not over done trail. As it had been raining earlier in the week, the path was quite muddy in many places which made things slippery. We traveled past some very rich areas of moss covered trees and rocks and despite the gray skies the strong greens were quite spectacular.
Soon we arrived at ‘First Lake’, a small pond in a lovely small alpine meadow setting. The recent rains had filled the pond fairly full and it looked quite lovely with the trees reflecting on its still surface. Though fairly small, the pond provides ample angles for finding attractive photo settings. The trail had some serious improvements around the lake to carry foot traffic over the muddy areas, though convenient it does tend to distract from the natural beauty of the region.
After a short rest at First Lake we set off for the Dog Mountain view point. Though the trail is marked easy with minimal elevation gain I found it deceptively tiring. This may have been in part to some mild bug I seem to have been fighting at the time. But the trail did tend to have a lot of ups and down and many places where one was scrambling over webs of roots making it difficult to get a sure footing. So while one didn’t have a work out from hill climbing the actual trail was quite a workout in its own right.
We finally got to the viewpoint destination on Dog Mountain. It was a nice rocky out crop with what I believe would be a fantastic view of Vancouver and the Fraser Valley. Unfortunately though the sky was clearing, the view down to the valley was still obscured by heavy clouds which were moving but by the time we left still blocking the view. There were a number of groups out here this morning – some small family groups and some big tour groups! It does seem to be a popular destination.
Ethan and I ate some of our lunch snacks on the rocks while we waited and hoped for a clearing. Meanwhile, Ethan had fun with the large Ravens that made a home up here. They were quite adept at snatching cheezies in mid-air. Throughout the hike I carried on a number of radio chats with club members back at home – not a surprise considering the location. After a nice visit at the view point we started back and stopped to admire a few sights we zipped past on the way up. By the time we got back to the car the trail had zapped us both of energy, much more then it should have so we definitely seemed to be struggling with a mild bug of some kind. After getting down off Seymour and well on the way home the skies finally cleared fully and I’m sure that those still on the mountain were delighted with those awesome sights that I will need to return to see.