Trip to BC

This past summer, my family and I went on a trip to British Columbia for a week in mid-August. I’ve been there before, but I was like 8 years old at the time so I have minimal recollection of what happened and what things looked like.

Main highlights of the trip: Panorama Ridge, UBC, and East Hastings St LOL.

Panorama Ridge

Quite possibly the most beautiful, breath-taking place I’ve been so far in my life. Typically my family goes on nature-y vacations involving a lot of hiking so I’ve seen a few crazy views before, but this hike definitely took the top of my list. Maybe it’s recency bias but regardless it was absolutely stunning.

The main attraction at the top of the trail is Garibaldi Lake – a massive lake coloured in the prettiest sky blue you’ll ever see, with snowy mountain peaks behind it. But if you do a 180 degree turn from the lake, you’ll find scenery equally as stunning (hence the name “Panorama Ridge”) – a gorgeous valley with light-blue streams flowing through, surrounded by mountains. And to top it all off, the Black Tusk stands just to the left of the valley. I personally thought the Black Tusk was even more beautiful than the lake. It’s a tusk-shaped mountain peak that gives off an extremely powerful, grand, yet elegant aura. Even the name is epic. I could talk forever about how beautiful it was, but words, nor pictures, do it justice. If you ever have the time, please do yourself a favour and visit this place.

Nearing a 30km hike, it was exhausting, especially at the very end. Terrain was getting extremely rocky and steep, and even though I’d like to think of myself as a decently fit guy, my legs were starting to cramp up and I was definitely starting to feel light-headed.

A notable highlight of this trail: sliding down from the top of the mountain on snow. Since we were so high up, there was still snow at the top. A lot of people were just sliding down on their asses to go back down instead of walking down the steep rocky terrain. Was literally hilarious LOL. The snow was so steep and definitely was very dangerous, but the sun was setting soon and we had to get down fast – desperate times call for desperate (but also fun) measures.

We also hiked Joffre Lakes and Stawamus Chief in the following days, but I’m too lazy to write about it and the views from Panormama Ridge are simply a cut above these ones. Still very worth hiking though. Also my brother and I took a dip in Joffre Lakes. The water straight up comes from glaciers that you can see in the distance while hiking so you can imagine how cold it was.

UBC

Why am I going to UofT??? I don’t know where UBC gets all their money from. They literally have like 5000000 museums on campus, FREE for students to access, and they’re cool too! The buildings at UBC are so nice and new, especially the Student Nest – basically UofT Student Commons but 10 times better. They have an entire food court in the basement and dine-in restaurants as well. They also have a huge rooftop patio.

East Hastings St

Downtown Vancouver wasn’t too exciting to be honest. Maybe it’s because we didn’t visit a lot of the places you had to pay for…? One thing that stuck with me though is East Hastings St. Literally just an entire street of homeless people. It was incredible, I’ve never seen anything like it.