Why Even Hike at ALL!?

Today I went on a hike with my friends Reiner and Sharon.  We went up Mount Strachan, above Cypress Bowl. It took us almost exactly four hours to cover almost exactly 10 km. The route map and a pretty good description are here.  The only meaningful difference between what we did and that description is that we did it counterclockwise, the opposite of the direction suggested at the linked site.

I'm going to stick in pictures, because I was told that was a good thing to do when blogging, but they don't have much to do with anything in this post. Enjoy them, though; it was a great day with fantastic views.


Bridge out...made of two really  big steel beams. How on earth did they get bent?  How on earth did they even GET there?

We saw a LOT of people up there. Old and young, some carrying the very young, with and without dogs, using poles or not, labouring heavily or just walking, clearly seasoned hikers and clearly not seasoned hikers. If hiking has become a cool thing to do among some particular demographic, you'd never know it from the assortment of people we saw - that was about as democratic as it gets, I think....on the outside, at least. The only missing group seemed to be anybody at all between the ages of about 10 and 20.


The Lions from the south peak of Mt Strachan...very dramatic

In the spirit of overwhelming laziness that is a hallmark of this blog, I have not looked into where all the surly teens and pre-teens are on the hiking question. I haven't even asked the two in my own personal immediate orbit.


The Lions from the north peak.  It's not really much closer, I just used my high tech phone camera's precision zoom...better light, too.

The main reason I haven't looked deeply into that question is because I don't really care - as long as I can get MY hike on when I want, and as long as I make some trifling effort to sell it to my kids like showing the pictures and writing a mildly pro-hiking post, I'm good. After all, another hallmark of this blog, like all of them, is that it's all about me.

Bowen Island, Gibsons in the background, from top of Mt Strachan

 Here comes today's completely unverified-by-this-correspondent theory: I'm slowly coming around to the idea that the reason that the 10-20 group didn't seem to be hiking can be generalized to every active thing there is that they don't do. It's not the decline of western civilization nor the relentless march of super entertaining electronic toys, like the one I'm typing this on, not even risk-averse parents. It's way simpler than that.

Looking north up Howe Sound

I probably should just be saying it's not perceived as cool, but where's the fun in that? My theory is that it's because that age group hasn't really discovered endorphins. They have enough energy to do pretty much anything they feel like doing for pretty much as long as anyone could want to. Their bodies don't have to encourage them with periodic shots of mood enhancers to exert themselves in the search for food and prey, because exertion is a non-issue for them.


Looking east from Mt Strachan - big scary mountains

Looking WAY east, again with the super duper phone camera zoom.  I was told what this peak is but already forgot.  Long ways away, though.

 When I get to the top and experience that burst of smug triumphant self satisfaction, superiority over everyone who ISN'T up here seeing this, it's probably mostly just my body's drugs talking. Without the drugs, I'd probably just end up with the same question in the subject line and in the minds of all those surly teenagers - why even hike (or run, or cycle, or swim, or spin, or whatever) at ALL?! Dude, it's not even cool.

Bowen Island from Bowen lookout, and yes it really is that much closer than from the top of Mt Strachan (photo of Bowen above)

That was it. If a theory this weak, this easy to find out about or challenge or dispute, doesn't draw a remark, well, then, I just don't know.  I just don't know whether endorphins are involved in the processes of finding out, challenging, disputing, or remarking, because I'm starting to wonder whether endorphins aren't the reason anyone does anything.  Okay, not really on that last part.


 Spotted Saxifrage, between my thumb and forefinger. Oh all right, NO, I didn't know what it was called, Sharon had to tell me.  Three times, at least.  The last time in writing.