From low to high

Wednesday, July 29th

Call us crazy, (we are Canucks afterall) for today we thought a good hike would be in order. No, no attention paid to the temperatures of the last few weeks; it’s what happens when one invites outdoor enthusiasts like Kevin and Michelle to join the holiday.
First stop – the Gorge of Galamus. Note: this must be said in your best “Monty Python Search for the Holy Grail” voice. Go on, go back and say it again, out loud. The place actually seemed like it should be in one of those films: it is a canyon leading down to a river, (people participate in canyoning down this river = helmeted swimming in wetsuits) and it also houses a small church situated in a grotto above the river. There is a hermitage, and it was a place of pilgrimage.
We went down to the river, came up, and basically never stopped climbing until we reached the peak of Mt. Bugarach, 1230 m. Are you impressed? Okay, we actually only climbed 600 m to the top. Still, we need to be given credit for the strenuous hour and a half climb it was in the midday heat. To put it in perspective, Mt. Finlayson in Goldstream Park is just over 400m. Just prior to ascending the peak, we came out to a flat, expanse of green. Can you say “Julie Andrews and the Sound of Music”? We were all singing “The hills are alive…” as we guzzled the last of our water.