Lies and promises on a British Properties trail

They said it wasn't steep, but here I am, puffing away after following John up a trail in the forest above the British Properties in West Vancouver. Photo by John Denniston.

They said it wasn't snowy, but yup, snow has already landed here if you go up far enough. Photo by John Denniston.

The beauty of the greenery and a bridge over a rushing creek made up for the day's exertion. Photo by John Denniston.

“It’s not a very steep climb,” said John en route to a Sunday-afternoon walk in the woods above West Vancouver’s British Properties. “It’s quite short and then you turn off to a flatter side-trail.” That was the first lie. The second was from a young couple just finishing their walk as we were starting out: “Oh, it’s lovely,” said the woman, “there’s no snow at all.”

She was right that it was lovely. The deciduous leaves were turning gold, softening the predominant evergreens. Rays of sun slanted through the trees. Sculptural mushrooms climbed all the way up a mossy trunk. The air was the freshness of forest things, and though it was cold, it was perfect for walking.

But the trail was up, up, up, and it wasn’t short and it didn’t level off. To athletes and serious hikers, it would have been scarcely worth noticing, which is likely why John misremembered it. “It is a bit steep,” he admitted as I puffed along behind. “And it’s farther than I remembered.” The turnoff was just around the next bend, he kept promising, then the next, then the next.

By the time we reached it, we were in icy snow. The side-trail stretched whitely into the distance, delightfully descending, but John wasn’t sure exactly where it would take us. A wrong guess meant climbing back up, up, up again, this time over slippery snow.

By then, the endorphins had kicked in, and the pleasure of being in the autumn woods had more than made up for the unreliability of my trail guides. I bore them no ill-will, but just to be on the safe side, we turned in our tracks and went back the way we came.

Mushrooms like sculptures amid the moss climb up a tree trunk along the trail. Photo by John Denniston.

Rays of sunshine through the trees brighten the trail path. Photo by John Denniston.

Another angle of the bridge over a creek. This was taken on a lower, flatter trail closer to the residential area of the British Properties. Photo by John Denniston.