Hike Every Trail in Vancouver Challenge

Top of Grouse Grind - North Vancouver

I was never into sports, appalled by them even. I've never been good at any physical activities and was never interested. I'm still terribly horrified by objects flying towards me, I'd close my eyes. I lack essential patience for slower sports such as golf (including mini-golf). I'm paranoid of long distance running because I did that once when I was little and I puked :( I don't know how to swim. I guess the only thing I was capable of was cycling.  I wouldn't say I'm good at it though, I can't cycle with one hand. So that's that.

I have become a lot more athletic over the the recent two years, however. I'm not sure what exactly was the reason, it was a combination of things: my super athletic boyfriend tried pushing the credit to himself. Sure, I guess his sporty lifestyle was part of the influence. I also started going to the gym because I gained a lot of weight and I hired myself a personal trainer. Another major reason was because I've moved back to Vancouver. Vancouver is such a naturally beautiful and health-conscious city. If you don't find yourself something to do outdoors, you are wasting it. The last reason, is hiking.

Diamond Head Summit Trail - Honolulu, Hawaii

I love to hike, I'm good at it, I think it's my natural talent. My first hiking experience was the popular Grouse Grind. It was a company team building activity with co-workers. My time back then was 1 hr 30 min, and I almost died. The reason being I took it as a social activity, so I kept chatting with people. In retrospect, I don't even know why I talked so much because I was literally squeezing out words in between heavy breathes. I was miserable. So lesson learned, my second time, I shut up and listened to music, my time, 58 mins. Third time, 55. My drastic improvement and the fact that I became faster than some friends, made me so proud and fall in love with hiking. At least I'm good at something sports-related.

Another very important motivation is COCO.

I get to bring my dog to almost all the hikes I do and she loves the trails more than I do. Fortunately, there are so many dog-friendly trails in Vancouver. Some of them even allow unleashed dogs. Coco is such a good hiker too. For a 9-year-old bichon, her small fluffy body could energetically finish 6 hour hikes. It was such a bliss to see her running freely but full of purpose through the woods. For some of the trails, dog owners don't even need to prepare water as dogs can easily drink from fresh flowing streams.

For all these reasons, I've decided to challenge myself to hike every trail listed here.

I've recruited my best friend and we named it the #hikeeverytrail challenge. There are 101 trails altogether and we've done 18 so far.  It is somewhat difficult to fit so many hikes into our busy schedules, while also taking weather into consideration. But we are progressing steadily. Still a long way to go but we do have summer after summer :)

I will thus try to record each hike into this blog. It's gonna be a fun adventure for us all !