Anyway, it was from my first hike up to the Lynn Peak viewpoint. I hiked alone, but the photo was taken by a park ranger who happened to be up there at the time. I've never seen a park ranger up there since, in countless visits, though I'm sure they do still make the grunt from time to time.
The photo of a scrawny tall kid in jeans and a striped, button-up shirt seems like ages ago. Well actually it was. Pretty much 2 decades give or take.
As I discovered later, the viewpoint is not the true summit of Lynn Peak, and is in fact no summit at all. But it's pretty enough and of course, increasingly popular nowadays. I've brought friends up there, even my Dad a few years after my first hike there. Being one of my first solo forays onto the North Shore mountains, the trail has always had sentimental value. There's even a little patch of old growth, dubbed "The Enchanted Forest" on the way up that to a more impressionable version of me, conjured images of what the entire landscape must have been like before the area was logged by hand, and later by balloon(!).
Tens or hundreds of thousands of vertical metres and a few decades later, in December of last year (2018), I finally decided to explore beyond the Viewpoint along the fainter trail that leads to the truer-- though view obstructed-- peaks of Lynn Ridge. Got as far as South Lynn (Rice) Peak in light snow and dropping temperatures.
Today I set out late but determined to get through Lynn Ridge, making a loop of the trip and exiting via the Hydraulic Creek trail. The late start meant I probably couldn't (finally) bag all of The Needles, which stand to the north of the Lynn Peaks and have been a source of ogling fascination for years from countless vantage points low and high.
Turned it out it was a beautiful day to be in the mountains; few bugs, a light breeze and great visibility, particularly to the north. Here are some photos from today's trip. And I'll post the old one if it ever turns up too!
