Western Canadian Rockies (WCR) – Day 12 – Vancouver

We are between the land tour of the Western Canadian Rockies and our continuation along the Alaskan inside passage. Today (Friday, June 21) was free and we spent the day at the salmon Capilano River Fish Hatchery, Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, and finally Grouse Mountain.

Our first stop is the salmon fish hatchery on the Capilano River. The view here is really nice with a waterfall almost out of sight

The salmon come up the river then the fish way and then trapped so the fish end up spawning in the system.

There are viewing stations where you can see the salmon as they move up into fish way.

We take a short hike along the path by the river and enjoy the moss covered forest.

Next, we go to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.  Here Carmen is in front of me as we cross the river on the suspension bridge as it rocked back and forth.  We have just started across the bridge and already it is swinging fairly noticably.  You can see Carmen has to hold on with both hands to steady herself while looking backwards.  The bridge swings about a foot or less because of the way people are walking on the bridge.  We made it across the bridge with no problem.

Looking down the river from the bridge give as good indication of the height of the bridge across the park

The park has a Treetop Adventure which is a series of suspended bridges up in the trees.  The walkway goes from tree to tree and circles around a good portion of the park.  You can see the bridge reaches a platform around each tree before heading off to another platform.

 

We walked around the treetops then made our way down along the boardwalk by the river.  Our stay at the park only lasted only a little more than an hour and wish we had more time here as this park was really nice.

 

At one place along the walk way, which they call Nature’s Edge”, we have a view of the river below and the suspension bridge above.  It clearly indicates the height of the bridge above the river.

 

After heading back across the suspension bridge, there is another walkway on the parking lot side of the gorge.  But, you lose your sense of time in the park and before we knew it, we were out of time.  We had just started on our way along the cliff walk, but people were just standing around, so we went back the way we came. 

 

As we returned to the bus to leave, I took a picture of the cliffwalk which bows out for a walk out over the canyon.  We did not have time to do this, maybe the next time we are in Vancouver.

 

Leaving Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, we continued to Grouse Mountain.  The weather seems to be improving and our hope is that it continues to clear.  As we get to the mountain, we see one of the gondolas heading up the mountain and it is disappearing into the fog.

 

As we climb in the gondola, we move into the clouds and hope that it is clearer at the top as we can see Vancouver in the distance.

Unfortunately, the clouds did not thin out.  After a little something to eat, we proceeded to the lumberjack show.  We watched the show in the fog as you can see from this photo.  Not sure how they hit the target, but they were closer then we were.

The mountain has a couple of grizzle bears on the property that they have behind an electric fence.  Again, because of the fog and cloud cover, it was very difficult to even see the bears, but I did get one fleeting glimpse of one of the bears as it was walking through the woods.

Here Carmen and I stand in front of the gondola before we take it back down the mountain.  We returned to the hotel and decided to get ready for our trip to the ship tomorrow.  We are looking forward to the trip up the Alaskan inside passage.  Until we are on the ship, and hoping we have internet access.  There is a good chance that any Internet access we have might be really slow.  If that is the case I will wait until I get home to finish the postings for the cruise.  Bob and Carmen.