| Vancouver
Mountains 
The
summits arising from the North Shore of Burrard
Inlet are not part of a single, continuous ridge,
they are separated from each other by four major
valleys: Cypress Creek, the Capilano River, Lynn
Valley and the Seymour River. Indian Arm of the
Burrard Inlet separates Mount Seymour from the
slopes above Coquitlam. To the east is the Golden
Ears group which dominates the Fraser Valley
above Pitt Meadows and Maple Ridge.
Spanning
20 kilometers from the summit plateau of Black
Mountain to Mount Seymour, from west to east the
main summits are:
• Black
Mountain (1,217 metres)
• Mount
Hollyburn (1,324 metres)
• Mount
Strachan (1,454 metres)
• West
Lion (1,646 metres)
• East
Lion (1,599 metres)
• Mount
Capilano (1,685 metres)
• Crown
Mountain (1,503 metres)
• Grouse
Mountain (1,211 metres)
• The
Camel (1,495 metres)
• Cathedral
Mountain (1,723 metres)
• Mount
Fromme (1,177 metres)
• Mount
Burwell (1,530 metres)
• The
Needles (1,250 metres)
• Lynn
Peaks (1,000 metres)
• Mount
Seymour (1,450 metres)
At
about 20 million years of age the Coast Range is
one of North America's youngest mountain ranges.
The North Shore mountains are not particularly
high, although pockets of snow can exist
year-round on north-facing slopes, there are no
glaciers or icefields at this elevation. In fact,
only the summits of the West and East Lion, Crown
Mountain and the Camel are above the treeline.
Early
settlers were attracted to the challenge of
climbing these mountains. Because of its steep
granite face the East Lion was thought to be
impossible to scale. The first to undertake the
feat were John Latta and his two brothers in
1903. Hearing that climbers often used ropes for
mountaineering ascents, the brothers packed one
along, although they had no idea of how they
would use it. The technique they used was to
grasp the small shrubs and bushes growing out of
the cracks in the rock. After accomplishing the
East Lion the brothers also climbed the West Lion
on their way out!
In 1908
Basil Darling climbed one of the most remote of
the North Shore mountains, Cathedral Mountain.
Coast Range mountaineering historian Bruce
Fairley notes, "Darling was undoubtedly one
of the outstanding mountaineers in all of North
America in his time. He made many notable
ascents, including the north buttress of the West
Lion, and first ascents of Sky Pilot, Golden
Ears, Cathedral and other peaks in the Vancouver
area. Darling also made early winter attempts on
the Lions, ascending the frozen Capilano River in
the wee hours by lantern light."
Skiing
Around Vancouver: A History
The
history of skiing on the North Shore mountains
goes back to the early 1900s when the only way to
the top of the mountain was under your own power
and the first four decades of skiing had more in
common with backcountry wilderness skiing than
the recreation that exists today.
The
first skis to touch snow on Grouse Mountain were
probably those of Swedish immigrant Rudolph
Verne, who later opened a sporting goods store to
promote the new form of recreation to Vancouver
residents. His account of a 1911 trip to Grouse
first appeared in Polly Pogue's Hiker
and Skier magazine in 1933
as part of a four-part series on the history of
skiing in the Dominion of Canada.
The
early outdoor enthusiasts had to take a ferry
from Stanley Park, then follow a crude trail from
the end of the Lonsdale Street streetcar line up
the side of the mountain. The first expeditions
took three days; two days to reach the summit and
another day to get back down.
As
early as 1911 Grouse Mountain's commercial
recreational potential was recognized with the
idea to run an incline-railway from Capilano
Lodge upstream and around the mountain to the
summit. World War I put an end to the idea but
skiing and cabin building soon followed after the
construction of a toll road known as Skyline
Drive in 1924. A year later a full-service chalet
opened offering accommodation, meals and dogsled
rides.
In
1949 Joseph Wepsela constructed the first double
chairlift in North America. The lift started at
Skyline Drive and went up to the Ski Village, the
base of the present-day Cut chairlift. Two years
later a second chairlift was completed.
The
Vancouver Sun
started to offer free skiing lessons in 1952 and
later that year Grouse hosted the Canadian
Amateur Ski Championships. By this time hundreds
of cabins, some privately owned and others owned
by ski clubs, had been built.
Although
Grouse was a good ski hill, the immigrant
Scandinavian loggers who had brought the sport
over from Europe felt that Hollyburn Ridge was
better. By the early 1920s, the logging to the
lower slopes of Hollyburn was finished. The
Naismith Mill on the mountain's lower slopes was
no longer in use, and in 1925 Rudolph Verne and
his Norwegian friends occupied the logger's
bunkhouses and established a ski camp. The
Naismith mill site proved to be impractical
because of its low elevation, and Verne and
company hauled the bunkhouse by horse cart to
First Lake, 500 metres higher.
Mount
Seymour was slower to develop than Grouse or
Hollyburn. First climbed in 1908 by a B.C.
Mountaineering Club party, the mountain saw no
winter activity until 1929 when two members of
the rival Alpine Club, Mr. and Mrs. R.J. Shaich,
made the first ski expedition to Seymour. The
club built a cabin for its members and
immediately began to make use of the area.
Although not as quick to gain popularity as
Grouse and Hollyburn, James Sinclair did a survey
of the North Shore mountains for the provincial
government, identifying Mount Seymour as having
"the highest amount of recreation
potential." In 1937 it was dedicated as a
provincial park.
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