Lynn Canyon
Jul. 17th, 2024 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flyminion
Today, I went to Lynn Canyon in Vancouver, BC. I am here for three days with eight friends for our 20-year high school reunion (are we really that old?!), and whenever I’m along for a trip, you know I’m going to try to sneak a swimming hole excursion into it. We had tried to plan a Vancouver trip in 2015, and Lynn Canyon came onto my radar when I was looking for outdoorsy things to do in the area. It features a suspension bridge and several swimming holes both upstream and downstream of the bridge (plus a crazy natural water slide below the bridge that ends in a 30-foot drop, and which I have no desire to try). I assumed the water here would be pretty cold given how far north it is, but the park is only about ten minutes from our Airbnb, so I figured it was worth checking out if I could rope anyone into going with me (or dropping me off).My friends had rented a large house in North Vancouver with no air conditioning, so I rented a smaller place with AC down the street (because in 2024, I don’t trust any place in North America to be cool in July). I met up with the group at the main house around 8:30am and was immediately glad I had opted for AC, because the main house was pretty hot and stuffy. After spending a considerable amount of time deliberating on what to do today, we got donuts and coffee at the 49th Parallel Café near the shipyards, and then we took a ferry across the harbor and wandered around the city until lunchtime. It was about 85 °F with no cloud cover, so some people wanted to stay downtown and continue gallivanting after lunch (preferably to places with AC), but my friends Mary, Cyrus, and Sara were interested in going to Lynn Canyon. At this point, the group split up, and Team Canyon headed back toward the ferry, although we took a brief detour to the Vancouver Lookout tower to take in the views.
We stopped back by the main house to sunscreen up and change into our swimsuits, and it was pretty insufferably hot inside (almost 100 °F in the upstairs bedrooms). I was now really glad I had gotten a place with AC.
The park was only 10-15 minutes away, and we got there around 4:45pm. We had to circle the lot a couple of times until we saw someone vacating their parking space. We took a short walk to the suspension bridge
The infamous water slide was just upstream of the bridge. No one was sliding today, though.
This is were they filmed the scene from Kiss the Girls were Ashley Judd('s stunt double) jumps off a cliff to escape from the killer; I told my friends that when they asked about Lynn Canyon, but none of them had seen the movie (here's a YouTube clip of that scene, if you're interested). There were two more small waterfalls and swimming holes directly below the bridge, but there was no clear way to access them.
We then walked upstream about ten minutes to the 30 Foot Pool, which I recognized as a spot that some people falsely use as a clickbait photo in "Top Swimming Holes of North Carolina" lists.
The creek flowed out from a slot canyon that looked over 30 feet long into a blue pool that was crowded with tourists, including some jumpers clustered on both sides of the canyon. Most of them were doing jumps of about 8-15 feet, but there were some sketchy higher ones up to 25-30 feet. My friends decided they would just wade, but I was interested to snorkel the slot canyon and maybe do a couple of the safer looking jumps. It took me a while to get into the water because people would get in front of me each time I was about to lean forward and just fall into it. The water was 64 °F, which is cold, but not painfully so. It took me a while to get an opening to snorkel the canyon, since people were constantly jumping near the mouth of it. It looked over 10 feet deep all around, save for one rock ledge on the river left near the mouth. I jumped from about 8 feet, and then snorkeled all the way up the canyon to a small waterfall. The river-right cliff was nearly vertical, but the left side was more of an overhang. The water looked over 20 feet deep in some places. There were also no ledges to stop and rest, so it was a long, cold swim to the end and back. I had been wanting to do a slightly higher jump from the river right side, but I was too cold at this point, so I got out of the water. My friends didn’t want to get all the way in, so we headed downstream to check out Twin Falls.
We had taken the boardwalks on the hike in, but we walked along the fence on the way back. We were able to get some slightly better views as we approached the swinging bridge, but the fence was too far back from the edge to see much.
It was obvious there were more cascades and pools downstream of the bridge, but any potential side trails were fenced off. I did get a view of a high but narrow side-waterfall dropping down the canyon wall.
We went down a bunch of stairs to the Twin Falls bridge. I was kind of bummed that we hadn’t stopped here first, as the swimming holes were much less crowded. The creek spilled over two small waterfalls totaling about 20 feet, ending in a large swimming hole.
It looked like you would have to enter the creek a little farther downstream and swim upstream to get to the base of the falls, as all direct access was fenced off. It was 6:16pm at this point, and my friends were wanting to get back to the house and reconvene with the rest of the group. I wanted to get a quick base view of the waterfall, since the bridge was almost directly above it. They were skeptical that I could do this quickly, but I talked them into giving me 6 minutes. I sprinted down the boardwalk and worked my way along a side path to the edge of the fence, and I managed to get a decent view.
It didn’t look like the jumps were as good as the ones at the 30 Foot Pool, but overall it looked like a nicer and less crowded swimming hole.
I made it back up to the bridge at 6:21, with 1 minute to spare. We then walked back up a bunch of stairs and got hot and sweaty. It had clouded up when we arrived, but it was now sunny again. We immediately wished we had done Twin Falls first and stopped at the 30 Foot Pool last. We looped back around to the parking lot. I didn’t track the hike, but I would guesstimate that the loop plus the 30 Foot Pool detour was about 1.5 to 2 miles.
We drove back to the main house (which was still super hot inside) and ordered takeout for dinner. I got pad thai, but I was unable to finish it all because I was still slightly full from the donuts and mussels this morning. We then did a group PowerPoint presentation where we took turns talking about our jobs and what we’ve been up to for the past 20 years. Mine included my swimming hole montage from 2020. I’m not sure if some of my friends were prepared to see me twerking it creekside. Cyrus dropped me off at my airbnb around midnight, and I was pleased that my room was a cool 67 °F.
In summary, Lynn Canyon was a nice swimming hole destination, and the water wasn’t as cold as I was expecting from a Canadian swimming hole, which may be due to the water coming off the top of a lake just upstream. The temperature was similar to mountain streams back in North Carolina. The setting kind of reminded me of Blue Hole near Elizabethton, TN, but with more waterfalls and swimming holes. My only gripe is that it was too crowded, being that it’s in the city, accessible by public transit, and a short hike along mostly boardwalks and stairs. If I’m ever back in the area, I’d like to check out the Twin Falls swimming hole, and maybe see if there are any accessible areas of the canyon between the suspension bridge and Twin Falls (it looked like most areas were fenced off and plastered with warning signs about how cliff jumping is stupid). I probably wouldn’t try to get to the swimming holes under the suspension bridge, because it looks like you’d have to commit to canyoneering through unknown terrain for a significant distance to get in and out of that area.
