Audio Excerpt

A few minutes drive to the East will take you to Cypress Provincial Park. The park is actually divided into 2 sections, a 21 square kilometre Southern section you can get to by road and a 9 square kilometre Northern section only accessible by hiking trails. As a matter of fact, until the Lions Gate Bridge opened in 1939, the only way to get to the park at all was by ferry!  The Cypress Provincial Park hiking trail system includes parts of the Baden-Powell Trail in the North and the Howe Sound Crest Trail in the South.  On a nice clear day, the views are incredible… they also compliment the (heavy, panting breathing) ‘holy crap.. I can’t breathe..  I’ve never sweat so much in my life… need water…’  feeling you’ll get during the hike. Once you’ve regained your composure, a glance to the South will reveal the sprawling greater Vancouver area and if you look to the southeast, you’ll see…. Well why don’t we test your geography! What would you see? Would you see,

A - The Rocky Mountains, B - the Cascade Mountains, or C - the Queen Charlotte Mountains?

The answer is B! Your hard work will be rewarded with a stunning view of the snow capped Mount Baker, part of the Cascade Mountains! Cypress Provincial Park is also known for it’s Mountain Biking, which, well.. Suffice to say sounds a little bit too intense for this banana seat biker.  The Cypress Park trails are known as being steep and eroded with multiple near vertical rock faces, large jumps, big drops and something ominously called, The Brutus Gap.