Capilano Canyon and Sisters of Old Friends

The 140m suspension bridge.

A great horned owl.

The canopy and the beautiful trees.

The elevated walking path.

The Cliff Walk

Thanks John!

Kaireen, Al, John, Donna and myself.

 Saturday, August 5^th.

John picked me up at 9 and we drove to a different White Spot restaurant for breakfast. Then we continued to the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park, which is a privately owned facility with a stiff $70 entrance fee. It was incredibly busy, as this is a major tourist attraction in Vancouver, and it was Saturday morning of a long weekend on a beautiful day. I almost thought to abandon the trip, but John was okay with it, and it is something I wanted to see. His handicap sticker got us a good parking spot. I got in the long line to buy tickets, which took about a half hour and as the tickets were for a 1:30 entrance, we had a 90-minute wait! So, we sat around back on a couple of chairs and talked with each other and an American family. Finally, we crossed the road and entered. According to the map there were four things of interest to do: 1) cross the suspension bridge, 2) visit the raptor exhibit, 3) the cliff walk walkway and 4) the Tree Top Adventure, which is a raised walkway high up the trees. Although it was incredibly busy, it was immediately evident that this is a beautiful setting of old growth Douglas fir trees in a deep canyon made by the Capilano River. The river itself was very low as BC has had a very dry summer. We joined the queue to cross the river on the suspension bridge. It is 140 metres long and 70 metres above the river and had lots of tourists on it. As with all suspension bridges it wiggled as we walked which was a bit of a challenge for John and his walking stick. When we got across, we visited the bird exhibit which consisted of three people each with a bird, a Harris hawk, a great horned owl and an American kestrel, a very small raptor that I had seen previously in Florida. The Treetop Adventure consisted of seven footbridges suspended between very tall Douglas fir trees forming a walkway up to 30 metres above the forest floor. The Cliffwalk took us along the edge of the canyon’s rockface suspended above the canyon floor. After that we sat at the restaurant and had a lovely quinoa salad lunch and enjoyed sitting in the setting. All told we were there about three hours and despite the crowds it was a gorgeous environment. John drove me to my Airbnb to pick up my computer and then drove us to his sister’s house. John has two sisters, both older that him. I had never met either of them. Kaireen is the middle child and has lived in West Vancouver for about 40 years with her husband Al. We were joined by Doug Love’s sister, Donna who also lives here in East Vancouver. Doug and John were best friends in Toronto and were good friends of mine. So, it was great to meet them all and we had a really enjoyable evening swapping stories and histories over a delicious Chinese food meal in their backyard.