June 2 – Cypress Falls and Whytecliff Park

A bit of both worlds today, with a couple of waterfalls and a beach. The forecast called for mostly cloudy so I figured that a waterfall was a good idea. The beach park was close by and by then it was mostly sunny.

Off to West Vancouver again. The traffic wasn’t too bad for a Saturday morning.

 

I was a bit worried at how crowded it would be but we had no problem getting parking at each place.

At Cypress Falls Park there is one waterfall fairly close to the parking lot. The second one is about 1.5 km from the lot, after some climbing.

Off we go.

There was s narrow unmarked side trail that took us first to an unofficial view which, of course, turned out to be the best one of the lower falls.

I took a photosphere from here on the way back. You can see how blown out the waterfall is when it is sunny.

The next view along the side trail looked more official but it was not very good.

The official one on the main trail was right at the crest of the falls so you also couldn’t see much.

There must have been a large rock at the crest because the water sprayed outwards a long way. I should have taken a video.

Another blown out photosphere taken on the way back.

Looking upstream from here, to a bridge.

And now with Jennie on the bridge.

And then from her back to me.

And upstream from the bridge with Jennie checking out the creek.

The bridge sort of fooled us into thinking the trail went that way. Foolishly I hadn’t brought a map but I did manage to, barely, get a data connection. A website showed that the bridge led to a dead-end trail to a large cedar tree.

Continuing along the original side we had to climb up and over a hill.

Down to some more views of the creek rushing by.

Trying to get the shot under that log.

We are not sure if this is a plant or a fungus.

This one seemed to have flowers.

A strange burned out very tall stump.

A flat spot among the giant trees.

I made a cardinal hiking sin trying to the next shot.

I was standing on the rock in the center of the picture below. Unfortunately it was wet and mossy. In short order my feet went out from under me. One hand took a bit of the impact but I mainly landed square on my butt. I also started sliding towards the edge but stopped in time. Of course my leg muscles tensed up as well so I was in a bit of pain.

After a minute of just not moving and some swearing, I tested getting up. Sore but not too bad so we continued on. I am still sore tonight. We will see what tomorrow brings.

My camera also smacked down quite hard on the rock but it seems OK. I has taken quite a beating over the years.

And on to the upper falls.

A ray of sunshine highlighting a pool.

And the closeup.

And the photosphere.

A good place for lunch and unfortunately mosquitoes. Just in this one place so we didn’t stay long.

The trail continues in a loop from here but we decided to backtrack along the creek to the car.

Since I wasn’t feeling to bad, it was still early, it was sunny and Whytecliff Park was so close we headed over to see how busy it was. There was lots of parking. 

There are some trails up on the forested section but we just went down to the beach at the bottom. Since it was now close to low tide we could walk out to the Islet as well.

The flower picture of the day as we walked down.

There were a lot of scuba divers plodding around. I guess that the bay is a safe practice area.

A photosphere from the beach.

You can easily see the places where everyone climbs up the islet.

It was a very rocky shoreline so there wasn’t much to look at there. Over to the islet we go.

A photosphere as we cross.

Jennie decided that she was going to go up as well. The first part was steep but not too bad.

It never looks as steep in the pictures when you look down.

It turns out that instead of having to continue straight up from here there was an easier way.

There were lots of large homes across the bay.

We found a nice spot to sit for a while.

The view from the very top.

Inwards.

And outwards.

And the photosphere.

After enjoying the view for a long while we made our way back down and to the car. The ride home was a bit uncomfortable for me.

The forecast for tomorrow is calling for rain so we will probably take the day off.