Deek's Lake, 1100 m altitude. ................................. Giant cedar tree trunk, cut 100 years ago.
Guess how old she is? Ian, asked me when going down again from Deek's Lake after ascending 1100 m on a steep rough trail in a rain forest. Before I could react, see aNswered, “My mother is from the Austrian - Hongarian Empire and I was born in Budapest in 1926”. I looked at her, 1.53 m, 43 kg, and thought: “you do have an advantage”.
One of the highest mountain treks you can do close to Vancouver is Deek's Lake, in the North part of the Cypress Provincial Park [1].
The route starts about 30 km North of Vancouver along the highway to Whistler Mountain.
There are two options, the 6 hour trek up and down Deek's Lake at 1100 m or continue to Brunswick Lake (xx m) cross hat Pass (xx m) and go down to Lions Bay at the highway, a 10 h trip. We took the shorter 6 hour trip.
A trail starts just past Deeks Creek on the East side of the high, 200 m North of a parking lot. The start is not easy to find and it is small and rough. At one point there is a long rubber rope to scale a small, grade 3 canyon.
Past this point, you the trail splits in two, we took the shorter route.
Another option is to take the easier trail starting South of Betrand Creek.
After one hour we hit a lumber road and followed this for half hour. From here there is a trail up signposted on the lumber road and it takes 2 hours going up steadily to reach the lake with occasional viewpoints at the sea below.
View at the sea, more than half way up to Deek Lake.
On the way back we took the longer detour to have bettter views at the ocean. Sign posts are fairly clear. Here our 80 year old lady suddenly slipped and rolled over her back but luckily was not injured. Close to the coast and only a few hundred meter above the main highway we saw the typical naked trees that only grow near the sea in moist salty air.
Naked tree, near the coast.
Deeks Lake one page guide with directions.
