North Shore Triple Crown

I think Adam was the first one to tell me about the wonderful/stupid idea to do the Knee Knacker start from West Vancouver over Black Mountain, but instead of following the Baden Powell, to then summit Grouse, drop down and do a final summit on Seymour before finishing in Deep Cove (we did two peaks in January). It wasn't until last week that I created the route in Strava to try and get a handle on the approximate undertaking that it would be.

Today, I did it.

It's a doozy, and it pretty much beat me up.

Granted I took some tough trails on Seymour that I knew would be shorter, but a bit more difficult (technical) than some of the main established trails. A full trail list is below.

Eagle Bluffs pano

Top of Black Mountain. From here down to the lodge currently is 50% snow

Pano from Black Mountain

Garibaldi, Tantalus Range, Sedgwick

Top of Grouse; two down (up?), off to Seymour

Looking over to the three peaks of Seymour from the top of Grouse; how far away is that!?

A couple awesome cedars on CBC trail (also pictured on Gary's page if you can't tell what a monster this is)

Snow slog starts about 1/4 mile out of the upper parking lot on Seymour; very soft, slushy, taxing

Looking east, on the way to Pump Peak; Coquitlam, Golden Ears, Robie Reid?

Finally...

East again, from Pump

That feels better

TRAILS

• Knee Knacker start over Black Mountain, Baden Powell down to the dam and up Nancy Greene to Grouse.
• BCMC up, up to Grouse Peak, Mountain Highway and Baden Powell to Lynn Headwaters, Headwaters Connector, Twin Bridges over to Seymour.
• Powerline to TNT (awesome, very wildernessy and no people), somehow got off TNT and onto Lola's (very cool, but slow), CBC, Seymour Road and trail to Pump Peak, return to Seymour Road.
• Old Buck off of the road, Three Chop (fun and technical) and spur MTB descent to Indian River Drive, Baden Powell to Deep Cove.

If you want to run this, wait a few weeks until the snow conditions on Seymour are better. Still glad I got out to do it, though. Driving home, it was the first time in awhile that I got emotional about a run...

May totals: 266.1 miles, 44,225' gain