Shock and awe

We have landed!

With a whirlwind at the airports and a snowy welcome at Vancouver airport, we made it safe and sound to Downtown Vancouver.

Early on Tuesday morning we picked up our astoundingly crap rental car and began our journey north, up Highway 99 also known as the Sea to Sky corridor.
WOW. The views were absolutely stunning! Turn after turn we were welcomed with more mountains and shores of the pacific ocean all sprinkled with snow. It has to be one of the most beautiful drives we ever been on and it only lasted 40 minutes.

We may have gotten a little lost around downtown Squamish  when trying to locate our hotel -should you ever visit it is tiny and made up of about 12 blocks so getting lost is a skill.
Everyone here is so friendly and more than happy to sit and chat about the area and the things to do.

It also appears there are more Europeans here than Canadians due to one impending rock face that we have stunning views of from our window- The Chief. Lewis is in heaven as Squamish has some of the best climbing in the world and The Chief is, well the Chief. To me it looks rather daunting but Lewis just ogles it in wonder and I have no doubt that if we don't live here that we will be back in summer so he can scale it.

Over the past week we have managed to explore the area quite well and even made our first trip into Walmart as I was hairdryer-less. Walmart is like Macro I think, mostly in the way that the layout of it makes no sense whatsoever. More interestingly however was our walk that was meant to take an hour and instead took us over three. One guess what happened and it wasn't that we got lost.

Smoke Bluffs Park, a little north of our hotel, consists of a spider web of paths that interlink 'amazing crags'. The funnest thing for me was the creative naming of the climbs which quickly became a game to spot the funniest or the weirdest, it makes you wonder what the climbers state of mind was once they completed their projects. Some were clearly more a love-hate relationship.


Lewis absolutely loved how informative the park was and welcoming to climbers as it has maps highlighting where all the climbs were and at the base of each crag was a printed and laminated route map of all the climbs that you could do on that slab of rock. My climbing jargon is atrocious but I think it makes sense...?!
I also love how smoking is banned in the parks and all 'healthy' outdoor recreational areas. Farewell tobacco puffers!!

So far love Squamish, the people and all the things we can do. As Lewis beautifully put, 'there is a sport for every day of the week!!' (eeked his pants).

Now off to Whistler to ski....