Hiking up Mount Gardner, Bowen Island

On August 4th, I hiked up Mt Gardner for the first time in my life. My sisters had both done so before, but for some reason I'd never been up to the highest point on Bowen Island! A few photos from our adventure:

Salal berries - very tasty!




Banana slug - probably not so tasty:











The view from the top:




There are two wooden platforms at the summit. I think they're for small helicopters to land for servicing the radio tower up there. Many people have etched their names in the wood over the years, but this one stood out because we grew up with the Bensons, but they moved from Bowen to France back in 2002.




Lisa can touch the mountains on the North Shore (on the BC mainland)




Jos:




Heading down a different route than the one we came up, we had to use this chain for a particularly steep section:






There are heaps and heaps of snakes on Bowen Island. As a child I was deathly afraid of them but I grew out of that a long time ago. The last stretch coming down the mountain was a gravel road, and I was far ahead of the girls when I came across this guy, so I stopped and got down on my knees to take photos. I didn't quite get the head in focus unfortunately:






The girls arrived and it soon took off:




When we reached the bottom, our dad was waiting for us with the car to drive us back to the cabin:




All in all, a really nice few hours spent in the outdoors!