North Vancouver Photographed | Coliseum Mountain Summit - Dying From Thirst?

Coliseum Mountain.

Elevation: 1256m (4121 ft)
Distance: 24k (14.9miles) Roundtrip Hike
Time: 13 Hours

Yup, 13 hours toal. Thats how long it took for my friend Jake and I to do this hike. We could have done it faster...but it was my fault for slowing it down :P

Going up was not too bad for the first 7k of hiking, but once you get to the final 5k, it gets pretty difficult. I wanted to climb up this mountain for one purpose. To take a photo...cuz it just looked so beautiful when I saw images from the summit!

Gotta say it was quite the view from up there. The peacefulness from being up high and the gentle breeze was fantastic. You could just fall asleep...but the view was too nice not to. The summit of this mountain was covered in beautiful white granite rock. We should have bought gear to stay the night. Now that would have been an amazing experience.

Right when we arrived at the top, we were lucky enough to be right on time to see a parachuter. What a beautiful way to come down a mountain.

It was a good time up top, having some lunch, rest, and taking in the views.

I wish we could have spent more time up there, but we had to make a move becuase we didnt want it to be too dark by the time we were doing the last 2 hours of the hike at the bottom.

The first couple of hours heading down, I was running low on water. I knew I was going to be in trouble..cuz well.. im a thirsty guy.

After going through the first 2 hours of the hike, I was starting to feel the thirst. Jake had finished up his water, but he was totally fine.

We passed the first 5k of challenging terrain and now onto the bit easier trail. The final 7K. I just kept going trying to forget about my thirst. Once we reached roughly the final 5K mark.. I started to become numb to my surroundings. My body was in autopilot mode. Gravity obviously made it easier to come down with little effort, but my mind felt like it was shutting down and my body was in this constant groove to just keep hiking down. At this point if I would have tripped over something I would have taken a decent tumble without reacting fast enough to catch myself

Now I was really thirsty.. I asked jake if he had ANYTHING.. he only had an apple, and I just took it because of whatever juices I can get from it. He said for me to take a break. We waited for about 10 minutes and then continued to move on. But Jake.. man that guy was not even breaking a sweat, he was still good and not even thirsty at all. His body retains water far greater than mine!

30 minutes later of hiking.. I just wanted to stop.. I pushed so hard but we still had so much more to do. I told jake I just wanted to lie down.. He said not to do that. I said I cant.. i just wana close my eyes.. I think my body was going to shut down. I got pretty sleepy... Jake said he was going to look for water. The machine of a guy hiked back up a bit and went off trail somewhere.. 20 minutes later I hear a voice in the distance,

" Did anyone order a tall cool bottle of water???!?!"

Man, that was some of the most beautiful words I have ever heard in my life. Jake had found a fresh water stream and filled up his bottle and brought it back for me. The trail was known to have fresh running water and it was even safe enough to drink unfiltered. (BC WATER.. THE BEST!) But it's always good to filter that water anyways. Im one picky guy when it comes to water..but I didnt care about anything this time around. I looked at the bottle and it was the most pure looking water I have seen. Not a single spec of anything floating inside and it was crystal clear. Although it did taste a little odd. But man, it was extremely refreshing. Finally.. after a couple more minutes to allow my body to energize itself. I had enough in me to get back up and hike down. Wow what difference it made. I was mentally aware of everything around me and physically stronger. It did get dark when we got to the final few km's but we had our headlamps to light up the way. At this point it was a leveled surface to the parking lot.

I just wanted to go to 7-11 and buy all the drinks they had.

That brings me to the end of this hike. What an adventure it was..
If you're like me and need water all the time and doing a 13 hour hike... Drink plenty of water the day before, and carry extra :P

And for the record... Jake was STILL not thirsty!....I don't even know. In terms of fuel efficiency, it was like a Tesla vs a Bugatti Veyron... ( I know teslas don't even take fuel... but that's what it felt like, compared.)

Anyways I hope you guys enjoyed the few photos taken!

Thanks for taking the time to browse this post guys!!

Cheers,

Joel

(All images were shot on the Canon 5D Mark III with a 17-40mm f4L)

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If you missed it, feel free to check out my photography on my last post, of the fishing style in Sri Lanka!
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