Diez Vistas

Dec. 17 - Stats: 17.5 km / 940m gain / 556m high point / 5:10 hours MT

Stats will tell you the elevation gain is 426m, but that's not cumulative. Once on the ridge there's numerous dips and swells. We did the loop counterclockwise, parking at the south beach. This is mandatory because of Covid restrictions. At 4:30pm the gates close. Having started at 10:00am, we made it back with one minute to spare! Two wrong turns and rough slippery trails delayed our return. With our off course mistakes, our actual stats were: 18.05 km / 1000m gain / 6 hours MT

The Diez Vista trail is the one to the very left, with 10 viewpoints (hence the meaning of its name).

Only 4 of the viewpoints offer open views without evergreens obscuring them.

Patterns created by the stream pouring into Buntzen Lake.

The first hour hike was on this gravel trail along the east side of Buntzen Lake.

At the north beach.

This bridge was built in 1992.

Now on the west side of the lake, we passed under power lines and then turned left onto the Lakeview trail, instead of the Diez Vista trail. No, I should not have relied on the muddled memory banks of my brain. Not when I've done so many hikes and done this one so long ago.That mistake cost us half an hour of precious time. I should've zoomed in more on my Garmin 66i map. Now I wasn't so sure we'd be able to do the whole loop or have any views with such low cloud cover.

Watch out!!! That third log from the front is loose and when I stepped on it it start to sink. It took all my skill to step on the next very slippery log and not fall into the water.

Second pic: now on the ridge. the viewpoints were on open rocky bluffs. We stopped at this first viewpoint-with-no-view and had lunch. We'd agreed that at 1:00pm we'd stop and if we found ourselves less than halfway, we'd turn back the way we'd come. But to our surprise we were almost 3/4 of the way. That left 2 hours to go, or so we thought. There were still slippery steep sections and more climbing and one more wrong turn.

What a thrill! The clouds parted at the second viewpoint and we got this amazing view of Indian Arm where it meets the Pacific and the skyscrapers of Vancouver on the horizon -- south.

Deep Cove on the other side of Indian Arm and beside it Mt. Seymour.

This was the south end of the ridge and the highest point.

It doesn't look like it, but this was a very steep slope going down.

At a 5-way junction where the ground flattened out somewhat, we followed the sign onto what we thought was the Diez Vista trail. But the sign had no arrows and after about 10 minutes I thought I'd better check my GPS. OK, wrong again. So back we went and went onto the Saddle trail, according to the sign. But on my GPS is showed up as the Diez Vista trail. Ho hum.

Amost there.

We got back to the parking lot at 4:15pm. By the time we had changed out of our wet-from-sweat clothes and emptied our bladders, it was 4:29pm. A park's vehicle had driven by 5 minutes earlier. So yes, they do shut those gates at precisely 4:30pm.

Lessons to be learned this day: #1: Don't always trust the signs or the weather forecast. It wasn't supposed to rain but it did all morning. At the very beginning of the trail on South Beach, the sign stated: 460m gain / one way Distance 14 km. Not true. Cumulative gain was over double that + it was 14 km return, not one way. #2: Don't be stubborn and think you know it. Zoom in and check that GPS.

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