Lynn Canyon Park Vancouver BC : Photo Essay

Right in Metro Vancouver, BC, Canada is a gem of a place.  Lynn Canyon Park. 

This isn’t my usual self-punishing 30-mile, 4000-foot up hike over rock and ice.  This isn’t some grand adventure. Instead, Lynn Canyon is the perfect stroll through a fairyland-like temperate rainforest of steep cliffs, a turquoise creek and crashing waterfalls. Mist fills the air and creeps throughout the forest of second-growth Western Red Cedar, Doug-fir, and Western Hemlock.  Everything is draped with moss.

I came to Lynn Park on the chilly, rainy afternoon of December 3, 2010.

At the end of the last ice-age when the glaciers retreated from the North-Shore mountains the bedrock cracked and the water running into the sea found its path.  Over 10,000 years, that water ate, centimeter by centimeter, into that crack eventually forming Lynn Canyon. The Tsleil-watuth called it Kwa-hul-cha and may have been there from the time it was just a crack.

The area was heavily logged over by the Euro-Canadians. The remains were made into a miniscule park in 1912. It wasn’t until 1991 that the District of North Vancouver expanded the park to 250 hectares.

Perhaps the most spectacular part of the park is the Lynn Canyon Suspension Bridge – an awesome 50 meters above the Creek.

Then go for a stroll.

The whole of the area is criss-crossed by muddy trails.  The Twin Falls trail is a 30-minute jaunt down into the forest across the Creek at Twin Falls Bridge, over two waterfalls, up the wooden stairs and back to the parking lot.  Next, cross back over the bridge and take the other turn to the Thirty-Foot Pool loop trail that takes you to a…um…well…thirty foot pool.  The thing is that it’s a gorgeous thirty-foot pool of green water. THEN, drop down the steep set of wooden stairs just before the bridge and then saunter up the creek-side trail.

Finish off with a stop by the sweet little ecology center for a visit with its friendly staff.  It’s a good place to learn about all the things you just saw.

Lynn Canyon.