lucy-on-coop

May Long Weekend The second to last monday of May is a Canadian public holiday to celebrate Queen Victoria's birthday. This weekend was particuraly nice, with highs in the 70s and super sunny. We decided to do three day trips around Vancouver instead of planning to go to campsites and competing with crowds.   Saturday: Lighthouse Park Climbing Saturday we packed up our climbing gear (shoes, harnesses, helmets, anchor supplies, and a rope rented from the VOC) and headed to Lighthouse Park. Lighthouse park is a residential park located in West Vancouver. The drive from our house was ~45 minutes. We hiked into Juniper Point and scouted out the climbing options. We were able to set up a top rope on a cliff right on the ocean. It was such a cool feeling to be climbing over the water :). We climbed a couple of routes and then took a break to dip in the ocean (super cold!) and eat some lunch. In the afternoon, went to the other side of the rock and got some more climbing in. The we...

Squamish Climbing Weekend!  We went on the VOC (Varsity Outdoor Club’s- see last blog post) trip to Squamish to learn about outdoor climbing! The trip is called Son of Rock and is an annual instructional climbing outing to Squamish for all levels of climbers. Squamish is home to amazing rock climbing and is known as the “the adventure capital of Canada”.    The small town (population ~ 20,000) is about an hour north of Vancouver and on the way to Whistler. The area where most of the climbing groups spent the day was at Smoke Bluffs, a municipal park created in cooperation between the town and local climbers. The park is a very well set up for climbing with multiple sites and easy trials to rock faces. There is also a guide book available with the ratings of each site as well as additional information for climbers such as best time to climb, anchor available, top access, etc.   My boyfriend and I signed up for Rock 1 (beginner) but they offer up to Rock 5 (advan...

Hello! This week I thought I could explain to you a little bit about the UBC outing club, or as they call it the Varsity outdoor club (VOC).  I recently became a member and I am really excited about what the club has to offer for this summer!  I have been a member of Northeastern's outing club (NUHOC) since freshman year and assumed the VOC would be very similar in size and scale. However, I soon found out that the VOC is like NUHOC on steroids. The club is also student run, but members run trips almost every weekend, year round. At Northeastern, I feel fairly advanced in my outdoor knowledge of skiing, backpacking, hiking, etc but at UBC, I am definitely a noob.  A majority of the trips are far beyond my skill level and involve multi-day ice climbs, week-long kayaking trips, and intense backcountry ski trips. The fee for membership is $40 ( much more than NUHOC's $10 fee) and it gives you access to gear rentals, anywhere from camping gear to white-water kayaks. The clu...