I've been wanting to do this run for a while so ambition nearly got the best of me on this one. I'd been sick for a few days but felt a bit of energy back in my body on Sunday and so I figured I'd wake up at a reasonable hour and head out for a long run if I felt alright. This was the case so I packed up and headed out the door around 830am on Monday. Compared to the run to Vic my bag felt very light with only a liter of water and whatever fuel I had in the house, about 6 hours worth I figure. I was still a bit congested so I knew my body wasnt 100% which prompted me to head out at an easier pace than I usually do. The plan was to at best run up Coliseum and back, not knowing really how long it would take, or to run up then take the bus back from Lynn Headwaters park. So it took me a few minutes longer to get into the bush on the Seymour river than usual, but I was feeling alright and the climb from the west side of the river over to Lynn Headwaters park went reasonably well. Having taken on a decent amount of water I stopped and refilled my bladder in Lynn creek and continued my conservative jog out to the trail-head for Coliseum. A detailed map of Lynn Headwaters trails is here. It's about a 7k approach which has a very slight climb to it.
From the turn off it abruptly starts up hill roughly following the valley carved by Norvan Creek, which is actually pretty steep at points. The hike over all is apparently 10% grade, but there were many sections which reminded me of the BCMC(parallel to Grouse Grind). There were also some up and down sections which brought the average down. Unlike the ascent of Grouse and Seymour the trail is far less used and maintained, in fact, the "Trail Closed due to Unsafe Snow Conditions" sign was still up. Needless to say the trail was very technical and slow going at the best of times. There was a lot of mud, snow, creeks, rock chutes, steep root ladders, and the hardest climbs were in the snow where I had to kick my toes in so I didn't slide down. Despite the mud etc. below the alpine things went reasonably well but once I reached the alpine and snow my body was pretty much done. This wasn't a great point to get tired because the steep slog up the snow was going to be far more tiring that I had expected. Well, I knew it would be tiring but perhaps I thought i'd be tougher! Anyway, I followed the footsteps of some hikers who I passed on the way up, which helped with the traction, but the slipping in the snow was getting to me and I was very quickly running low on energy so I kept my eyes on the peak and slogged on. Once I reached what I had thought was the summit I quickly realized the true summit was behind this and I would have to head down the snow for about 50m or so(elevation) then up another 150m or so! This was pretty deflating but I wasn't about to stop now, I figured it would only be another 30mins, so off I went, and this time I had a couple of people to run after who were nearly up the true summit. Even though I was exhausted this part of the run was my favorite because I have been looking forward to running in the alpine for months now, among the mountain peaks. It was stunningly beautiful. Heading up the the main peak was absolutely brutal and the steep snow had me reduced to a slow hike, but at that point I just didn't care, the beauty was all that was keeping my will to live intact. I ended up making it alive.
SO, I tweeted that I set a new time-spent-on-the-legs PB of 6h51m, but that's a bit of a lie because when I reached the summit I ended up taking my shoes, socks and calf sleeves off, eating a powerbar and laying down/walking around for an hour. There weren't even many flies around, at least bite-y ones, which made it a great break. Anyone who hikes now and again can appreciate the serenity of being atop a mountain and more than anything I wanted to soak up the beauty and the feeling. It actually did take nearly an hour for me to get motivated to run back down, and when I did pack up and head out my legs were still feeling pretty done. As I ascended the lower peak again, I realized my legs pretty well had nothing in them and I probably would have to take the bus home as soon as I could find one. Not only were my legs cooked but on my way down I took a bit of a wrong turn and started on the trail down to the Seymour river. I was busy looking at my feet as I slid down the snow and didn't realize which footprints I was following. Rookie mistake! Always do your own trail finding and use footprints as confirmation, especially with snow melting rapidly! I wasn't interested in taking that route down so I did a bit of bush whacking/rock climbing to get back onto the trail I came up on. Energy I was not pleased about expending. Once I was back on trail I mentally regrouped and continued the quick decent, filling up my spent water bladder at a creek on the way.
The descent, including the detour was only 20mins quicker than the ascent because the trail was so technical and the risk of falling was too great to get any kind of speed. In fact I did put my heel down first a couple of times and had it slip out from under me, nothing serious though. I enjoyed the jog down quite a bit but as with any long descent after about 1000m your knees have had enough and you really just want to be done with it. Once I did reach the trail-head at 190m elevation(the peak was 1446m) I was pleasantly surprised by my legs coming back to me. On the run back to the Lynn Headwaters park entrance my legs felt quite good so I kept drinking lots of water and eating what was left of my fuel and kept the run going all the way to Dollarton Highway on the north side of the Second Narrows Bridge. I was and am super stoked about how good I felt for the last 90+mins of this run. I was having doubts about my ability to run really long distances but it appears(although not clear because of the hour break) that I can rebound and feel energetic and strong after being in the depths of despair. I mapped the run and the link is below however the distance is wrong. On the map-my-run that I did, the distance to the top of the mountain was 28km or so from my house, but on the Club Tread site the distance from the trail-head to peak, round-trip is 23.6km, which, would then make the 'out' portion of the run roughly 8km further. This distance of ~36km makes more sense to me because the peak was parallel to the Seymour Dam, which I ran before and was mapped on the road to be 28km. The way to Coliseum also has some switchbacks which the other route doesn't. ANYWAY, that probably sounds confusing but i'm gonna go with the longer estimate of 36km because it makes me feel better giving me a total distance of about 62km.
Here's some photos I took along the way:
POST SCRIPT: After looking at google earth again, it turns out the first summit was in fact the summit of Coliseum Mountain, and the final peak I went to was the summit of Mount Burwell(1541m). Oops!
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