Spent the night with 2 beautiful women :)

It was Tuesday night, the eve of Canada day, a group of us have gathered at St David's Church in West Vancouver. I was scarfing down the dinner of champions, a Jr Chicken from McGressyDs. We argued over who would be driving up to Rubble Creek for our moonlight mountain run, Sammy & David won that fight. The rest of us, piled into the cars for the drive up to the trail-head. Getting to the trail was as simple as taking the Sea-to-Sky all the way to the Rubble Creek turn off. 

The route was straight forward, an out and back to Helm Pass for the fun group and out to Helm campground and back via Garibaldi lake for the fast group. 

Fun Group's Route

Group Shot

We all started at the same time, about 9:30ish but within a couple minutes the fast group making good ground on, leaving me with 2 beautiful women, Kyndra & Claire, I was the luckiest guy on the trail. We were the fun group, although I'm sure the fast group might argue that. 

The climb up to the alpine was awesome, even though we were in the forest and the sun already set, the dim light from the horizon still filtered though the trees and we didn't even need our headlamps until almost an hour in. I saw some trash on the ground and noted the location for the return trip to collect my trash point. 

View Point on the Way Up

My Companions for the Night

We were were at the Taylor Meadows camp area, probably around an hour and a half mark and we did make good time on the climb. But with more climbing ahead, we had a quick pit stop here and continued on the way. The views were magnificent and I wish I carried my tripod to take better pictures, oh well live and learn.

As we made our way to Helm's Pass, there was small snow patches (yeah) and even some streams with water running, much better than the north shore. At Helm's Pass we decided to carry forward for a bit since the area was so nice to be in. The temperature was cool but not cold. In the distance there was a red light from what could of been a microwave tower but can't be sure. 

The Glow in the Background in from Lower Mainland, Talk About Light Pollution

A Lake and Snow

The Moon and Snow

As we slowly trekked forward, a light was noticed in the distance. It must of been the others. We didn't think anything of it but within a 10mins or so there were more lights that were heading towards us and we decided to turn back at this point. 

That Blurry Light is the Fast Group

Within a couple of minutes of heading back the lights were closing in on us and looked like they were gaining on us fast. There was one headlamp well ahead of everyone else that we assumed was Sammy. We decided not to find out and beat them back to the car. It was an ambitious goal for us, I somehow got put in to point position and set the pace. We made such good time to the Garibaldi Lake turn off that I though we took some shortcut. 

Here we had to make the cirtial decision of going down to the lake and head back or just head back. We figured the others were hot on our tail and decided not to add the lake, mostly due to the fact we would have to climb back up after the lake. 

We continued along the way, switching between jogging and walking but still making really good time. I felt I was starting to fall apart just as we headed into the forest but lucky for me, Kyndra and I got into a conversation about finances and the run down was very quick. Poor Claire had to put up with us at this point. I did struggle for the last few kms again but it wasn't too bad. As soon as we saw the end of the trail we all were excited and realized not one of us had any keys to any of the cars. Lucky for us, I was prepared with some Mezcal. 

We relaxed and waited for the others to show up. It took us about 4.75hrs to complete somewhere between 23k - 24k with about 1200m of elevation gain. At least all three of us collected trash points for this run and with my time and distance I should be well ahead of my competition, Sean. :P

When the others arrived about 20mins or so after us, we all sat down in the parking lot and told our stories and had some much needed beer. During this time I asked Sammy about doing a 200miler, his response is priceless, "Don't do it" but can I really take him seriously, he's already completed one 200miler and about to compete in another at the beginning of August, Bigfoot 200, and yes that is the bigger badder brother of the race I am doing in October, Bigfoot 120.

As we headed back to the lower mainland, I saw the moon setting while the sun was rising. Too bad it wasn't the end of my day but just the beginning of Canada Day and I still had plans for the morning but that is for another day.