Tag Archives: Buntzen Lake

Diez Vistas, 4 Jun 2016

Day hike, ,

Bob H. on Diez Vistas:
“Three of us went for a moderate to fast-paced hike to one of the most popular hiking trails in the Lower Mainland.

The weather was warm, but it was nice and cool under the forest canopy. Diez Vistas is Spanish for ten views.

Most people doing this trail complain that there are only 3 or 4 views (how sad, right?!). Anyways, I promised my fellow hikers 10 views and I actually gave them 11.

Five of the original views are obstructed by trees now, but there are 5 more views that were never ‘official’ vistas, including 3 on the east loop, which most people don’t know about. The 11th vista is actually on the Lakeview Trail, which we took a shortcut to. We finished the hike in 4 hours.

For more info on this hike, check out this blog: http://www.buntzenlake.ca/diez-vistas/”

Original Vista No. 1 view

Swan Falls, 24 May 2015

Day hike, ,

Bob H. at Swan Falls:
“The original forecast for today was sunny with a high of 19; however, it was overcast all day, but very comfortable temperature-wise. Our group of 4, set off at 8:45 am and made our way to the south end of Buntzen Lake, over the floating bridge. At the Pumphouse, we choose Lakeview Trail, which is a highly underused trail. After Lakeview Trail, we headed north on the Old Buntzen Lake Trail past McCombe Lake, the old intake station, the Buntzen Dam and the massive aqueduct. After a short walk on the service road, we reached the Swan Falls trailhead and ascended to the falls, which is a 200 m elevation gain. Today’s cumulative elevation gain of 937 m is due to the many ups and downs on the route, so it’s not really indicative of a strenuous hike. In fact, the hike is quite easy, except for the 200 m elevation gain on the Swan Falls trail, but that is only for a short time. There are nice views from Lakeview trail and from Swan Falls. The Swan Falls area is a great place to relax on the smooth rocks, while listening to the water fall.”

Group photo

Eagle Ridge, 2 May 2015

Day hike, ,

Bob H. on Eagle Ridge:
“Another gruelling hike today. We started at 8:30 am and ascended the Halvor Lunden trail from the Buntzen Lake parking lot. The temperature was 9 degrees when our group of 4 started. We made it to Polytrichum Lookout in about 1 hour, to the lakes district 1 hour after than and then Lindsay Lake just before the 3 hour mark. We took a short detour to see The Pulpit viewpoint and to have a snack. Unfortunately, all we saw was white cloud! So, after our cold break (5 degrees here!), we continued back to the Lindsay Lake junction and up to Mt. Beautiful. We saw some snow today, the most being around Tangled Summit. We made it to Mt. Beautiful (1260 m) at 1:30 pm and had a relaxing 30 minute break in the sun!! Yes, thankfully the sun came out for us and we had amazing views of Coquitlam Lake and the mountains to the north and east. After our break at Mt. Beautiful, we continued on and we reached the Swan Falls/Dilly Dally Junction a short time later. We headed west, down the Swan Falls trail. After an hour of slow downhill trekking we reached the actual Swan Falls at 350 m elevation and we had another 30 minute break in the sun.”

Swan Falls

Lindsay Lake, 15 Feb 2015

Day hike, ,

Andrew W. at Lindsay Lake:
“Spring has sprung early and trails normally covered by a huge dump of snow are bare and ready for hiking. A small group of two hiked to Lindsay Lake (near Buntzen Lake) for the ~13 km and 1 km of vertical. A tiny bit of snow at higher elevations in the shade but the view of Vancouver was spectacular! No bugs due to the early season conditions was just the icing on the cake for this great local hike!”

The Pulpit Viewpoint

Diez Vistas 18/07/12

Day hike, ,

Carolyn S. on Diez Vistas:
“Five of us (Kim, Jenny, Melonie, Linda and I) set out to Buntzen Lake and the Diez Vistas in Port Moody on July 18. It being a Wednesday and cloudy we had the place nearly to ourselves. It was great to have Kim along as he had done this hike many times before and could direct us. Despite the clouds we had some decent views of Burrard Inlet, Deep Cove and the beginning of Indian Arm. We got in a dip at the north end beach as the sun broke through the clouds. We hiked at a leisurely pace and were back at the parking lot after 6.5 hours. It worked out really well. I encourage others who haven’t tried doing a callout yet to give it a try.”

Tangled Summit 25/09/10

Day hike, , ,

Ben on Tangled Summit:
“For braving the gloomy weather forecast, we were rewarded with clear skies and a great day for hiking. We set off down the powerhouse road shortly after the park gates opened and made our way to the far end of the Buntzen Lake to the Swan Falls trail head. This trail deserves its reputation as one of the steepest around. It took us nearly three hours at a steady pace to reach the junction it makes with the crest trail. Just a short ways beyond was a rocky open area on the ridge that afforded us some nice views. Although we found signs for the high points, none were actually labeled Tangled Summit which is in contradiction to both 103 Hikes 6th ed. and Google Maps. The trails system however was very thoroughly marked with clear signs at every fork and junction. We took the crest trail and part of the very muddy Lindsay Lake loop back to the south end of the ridge where we made our descent back to the cars.”

Diez Vistas 06/03/10

Day hike, ,

Heather at Diez Vistas:
“Nine keen hikers did a relaxed early season hike around the Diez Vistas loop. The sun was shining, the views were beautiful, and the conversation was interesting, varied, and plentiful. This hike was coupled with the great idea of a book exchange, so much of the conversation wound its way around the books people had read, heard about, liked or disliked, and which book each person had brought for the exchange. A big welcome went out to the few “first-time” Wanderungers in the group, and a big thank-you to Hurrian for organizing.”

The group enjoying great views

Croker Lookout 13/02/10

Day hike, ,

Su-Laine at Croker Lookout:
“A fine Saturday with good company on the lush green trail to Croker Lookout. Stream crossings made life interesting. Hiking poles were helpful, as were umbrellas. Traffic was a non-issue and the trails were practically empty. Lougheed Mall’s bus loop was a good meeting spot, especially as it was close to the Insadong Korean restaurant where some of us enjoyed a tasty post-hike dinner.”

Indian Arm from Crocker Lookout

Lindsay Lake 11/10/09

Day hike, , , ,

Alain at Lindsay Lake:
“On Sunday October 11th, I was joined by Allan, Chad, Cindy, Debra, Lyndon, Rob, and Robin on this very rewarding hike. We left the trailhead at Buntzen Lake just before 10:00 am. The trail ascended at a moderately steep pitch for the next couple hours before we came to a plateau upon which we passed by several small lakes, one of which had a thin sheet of ice covering it. We continued upon the plateau for approximately one hour before reaching Lindsay Lake which was very pretty and our lunch stop. We decided to make the ascent to Tangled Summit (Mount Beautiful) rather than complete the Lindsay Lake loop. The trail between Lindsay Lake and Tangled Summit does lose a fair bit of altitude before making a final steep ascent to the summit. We had been worried that we somehow ended up on the wrong trail and were headed down the mountain, but alas we were on the right path and approximately an hour and a half after leaving Lindsay Lake, we made the summit. We could not have been better rewarded with the spectacular panoramic view in clear sunny skies. We could easily see downtown Vancouver and further west to the Island, Indian Arm and across it to Deep Cove, and to the east, Coquitlam Lake just below, and further to Mount Baker. It was difficult to pry ourselves from our sunny perch, but finally we began to descend using the Swan Falls trail. While a much steeper trail than the one we ascended with, it still took about 2 1/2 hours for most of our group to reach the base of the trail at the far (North) end of Buntzen Lake which still left a 4.5 km hike along a service road to our cars. As both darkness and the closing time of the park gate were nearly upon us, one member of the group was forced to run the entire length of the 4.5 km service road in just half an hours time (with sore tired legs I might add) to flag down a BC Hydro Park attendant who agreed to pick up 6 members of our group who were at various sections of the service road, and they then enjoyed a relaxing ride back to the parking lot in the back of a pickup truck. Notwithstanding the little crisis near the end of the hike, all in all there was great satisfaction all around. Recommend allowing 10 hours if combining the Tangled Summit and Lindsay Lake hikes as we did.”

Diez Vistas 20/06/09

Day hike, ,

Pablo finding all Diez Vistas:
“When I posted the call-out the forecast was sunny, but next day changed to rain. It was raining when we met at the meeting spot, but it stopped before the five of us started hiking. I don’t know why people complain they cannot find the 10 vistas. They are clearly marked Vista #1 to Vista # 10. That doesn’t mean they you will find 10 view points, but the 10 vistas are there. Actually, there are 2 viewpoints before the 10 vistas that are way better. The group was great, we keep a good pace and allowing lots of time to take pictures, but no-one was either running nor staying behind, in fact we stayed together the entire hike. We couldn’t finish the trip without doing the must stop at the ice cream place at the entrance of the park.”