The Viking Goes Hiking

One of our best friends came back from Turkey so we decided to have an overnight so we could all go together the next day for a climb to Grouse Mountain. 

I got off from work at ten and had some time to buy groceries for our breakfast. When I got to B's place I was famished and proceeded to raid his fridge, this is what I came up with:

The boy has all the essentials; onions, tomatoes and cheese!


We slept around 2 am and woke up a little late. Arvin made breakfast for us, he's really good at whipping up instant food *wink. Everytime I go to his place I get a plateful of fried and microwaved goodies!

We had oven baked hashbrowns, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon and toasted bread. We finished everything in sight (okay maybe I did)!

Afterwards we all took turns in the washroom, Maria and I did our make up even though we were going hiking.  We intended to meet our soulmates during that hiking trip, but although our eyeliners didn't wear off, we did not meet anyone and we just ended up sweating like pigs and panting like dogs. Not a very good way to be meeting Mr. Destiny.


It was intense, we barely researched, and halfway through I only had 1/5 left of my water. I was seriously considering turning back before the 1/4 mark but a fellow hiker told us we were just a few minutes away. 

                                         

All throughout the hike, Maria and I would stop every five minutes to rest. We were running low on water and the only thing that kept us on were the peanuts, m&ms ad sour patches we brought with us.

I realized that this activity also required a lot of mental strength. I had to motivate myself to finish the climb even though my legs were burning and my throat was dry. It helped a lot that my partner, Maria is a very light and happy person, and was in no hurry to reach the top.

Once you reach the peak, you feel very different. It's as if you can do anything after that.


It took us about 2 hours and 30 minutes to get to the top. The boys were already ahead of us by one hour and they spent the time lounging in the restaurant.

After we got united again, we explored the grounds and went to see a bird show. I haven't seen an eagle up close, they are truly glorious and majestic.

No not the guy... the bird!

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We then went to see the bears. If I were to meet a bear in the wild I would die of fright. I don't know how Goldilocks survived that ordeal. They are huge! And Canada has an abundance of bears, coyotes, cougars in the wild. I don't know how I'd survive if I met one. I've never had to consider meeting a bear when we'd go hiking in the Philippines! 

We took a ride on the chairlift, the view of downtown Vancouver was magnificent.

The ride was smooth and pretty short, not scary at all. Makes me wonder how it looks when it's winter, it must be so beautiful.

We realized we hadn't eaten for 11 hours so while waiting for a bus going downtown, we decided we'd have dinner at Stepho's. 

It was another hour of waiting in line but once we were seated, we never had the time to take photos.

 We took the wrong bus going back to B's place, it was almost midnight. I went home with Maria and slept over. We live five blocks away from each other so at six in the morning I sat up, washed my face and woke her up to say goodbye. I walked home, knocked on our door and plopped on our couch.

My body was sore all over. I was supposed to go to the Filipino Street Festival to snap some photos but I decided to skip it. In the afternoon my family called and told me to head on over to Max's Chicken for lunch. I ended up walking for a few more blocks again. Then I stuffed myself with crispy pata, kare-kare, chicken sisig, and halo-halo while promising to climb Grouse Grind every weekend (this hasn't happened yet).

And that is how you cap off an intense weekend workout.