My hiking journey grew out of a broader decision to make more of the outdoor opportunities around me while living in British Columbia. Beginning in 2014, I became increasingly active outdoors through running and paddle boarding, and in 2015 that exploration expanded into the mountains and hiking trails surrounding Vancouver and across southwestern British Columbia.
For Ryan Montazer, 2015 became the most concentrated period of hiking in this archive. Over nine weeks from May to July, I recorded 226.8 km (140.9 miles) of hiking with 7,981 m (26,184 ft) of elevation gain. The experiences ranged from more accessible local trails to long and demanding mountain routes, including Panorama Ridge, Wedgemount Lake, Mount Harvey, Crown Mountain, and other destinations across the region.
This hiking archive brings together the reports, photographs, routes, distances, elevation records, and memories from those explorations. Although hiking represents a concentrated chapter of my outdoor life rather than my current athletic focus, it became an important part of how I experienced British Columbia and a distinctive period within my broader journey through running, travel, and exploration.
My Hiking Journey
My hiking journey took shape during the spring and summer of 2015. After becoming more involved in outdoor activities the previous year, I began exploring the extensive network of trails and mountain routes around Vancouver and southwestern British Columbia. What started with more accessible outings gradually developed into longer days, greater elevation gains, and increasingly challenging destinations.
Much of this exploration took place in the mountains north of Vancouver and along the Sea-to-Sky corridor. My hikes included places such as Lynn Canyon, the Capilano Pacific Trail, St. Mark’s Summit, Goat Mountain, Tunnel Bluffs, Garibaldi Lake, Joffre Lakes, Elfin Lakes, Crown Mountain, Mount Harvey, Wedgemount Lake, and Panorama Ridge. Together, these outings took me from local trails close to the city to demanding mountain routes farther into British Columbia.
As the summer progressed, distance and elevation became an increasingly significant part of the experience. Some hikes developed into substantial endurance efforts involving many hours on the trail and more than 1,000 m (3,281 ft) of climbing. The combination of distance, elevation, changing terrain, and reaching destinations that could only be experienced on foot made the more demanding hikes some of the most memorable experiences from this period.
By the end of that concentrated hiking period in July 2015, hiking had become much more than an occasional outdoor activity for me. It had given me a different way to explore British Columbia—slower than travelling between cities, but capable of taking me much farther into the landscapes surrounding the place where I was living.
Exploring on Foot
Living in Vancouver gave me access to a very different kind of exploration from the cities, neighbourhoods, and destinations I would later document through travel. Many of the landscapes surrounding the city could only really be experienced by leaving the urban environment behind and continuing on foot.
Some outings stayed relatively close to Vancouver, with places such as Lynn Canyon, the Capilano Pacific Trail, and the mountains of the North Shore providing opportunities to explore without travelling far from the city. Others took me farther along the Sea-to-Sky corridor and into destinations such as Garibaldi Lake, Panorama Ridge, Elfin Lakes, Wedgemount Lake, and Joffre Lakes. Hiking gradually expanded the map of British Columbia that I knew personally.
The variety was one of the most memorable parts of that exploration. A hike could lead through forests and steep mountain terrain before opening onto viewpoints, alpine lakes, ridgelines, or distant peaks. Reaching those places required something different from simply visiting a destination: the route itself—the distance travelled, elevation climbed, and hours spent getting there—became part of the experience.
Looking back, these hikes represent a concentrated period when I made extensive use of the outdoor opportunities available to me in British Columbia. They also broadened what exploration meant to me. Exploring a place was not limited to seeing its cities or travelling between landmarks; sometimes understanding a region meant putting on a pair of hiking shoes and discovering what existed beyond the roads.
Memorable Hikes and Challenges
The hikes I remember most clearly from 2015 are also among the most demanding ones I completed. As the season progressed, longer distances and greater elevation gains turned some outings into substantial endurance challenges, where reaching the destination was only half of the effort—the return journey still remained.
Panorama Ridge
Panorama Ridge was the longest of my major hikes from this period: approximately 30 km (18.6 miles) round trip with 1,520 m (4,987 ft) of elevation gain. The combination of distance and climbing made it a major day on the trail, while the views over Garibaldi Lake and the surrounding mountains provided one of the most memorable destinations of my hiking experience.
Mount Harvey
Mount Harvey involved approximately 14 km (8.7 miles) of hiking with 1,460 m (4,790 ft) of elevation gain. Compared with its distance, the amount of climbing made this a particularly steep outing and a very different challenge from the longer routes I completed during the same period.
Wedgemount Lake
The route to Wedgemount Lake was another demanding mountain day, covering approximately 14 km (8.7 miles) round trip with 1,160 m (3,806 ft) of elevation gain. The sustained climb toward the alpine lake made the destination feel earned and placed the hike among the more physically challenging experiences of that summer.
Crown Mountain
Crown Mountain was another standout experience from my North Shore hiking. Its steep and rugged terrain made the challenge about more than distance or elevation statistics alone. It represented the increasingly demanding type of mountain route I had progressed toward during this concentrated period of hiking.
These were not the only memorable destinations from 2015, but together they capture the progression of that hiking season particularly well. Over time, I moved from exploring trails around Vancouver toward longer, steeper, and more demanding mountain routes. By the end of the summer, distance and elevation had become part of the attraction: the physical challenge of reaching these places became inseparable from the experience of exploring them.
Hiking Beyond the Trail
My concentrated hiking period in 2015 was not separate from my running journey. It actually formed the middle part of a year that I divided into three distinct training periods, placing nine weeks of hiking between two substantial blocks of running.
Between Two Running Cycles
The first part of my 2015 training ran from February 23 to April 28. Over those nine weeks, I completed 415.17 km (258.0 miles) of running. After a short transition, I shifted my attention from running to hiking.
From May 23 to July 18, hiking became the second part of that year’s training. During those nine weeks, I covered 226.8 km (140.9 miles) on foot while accumulating 7,981 m (26,184 ft) of elevation gain. Instead of measuring progress primarily through running mileage and pace, those weeks involved long days on trails, sustained climbing, and increasingly demanding mountain routes.
Back to Running
After the hiking period ended, I returned to focused running on August 9. Over the following 15 weeks, through November 20, I completed another 725.44 km (450.8 miles) of running.
During that final training block, I ran a new half-marathon personal best of 1:35:59 on September 6, 2015. I do not view the hiking period as the cause of that result—the running training that followed was substantial in its own right—but it is interesting to look back at hiking as part of the same year-long progression rather than as an unrelated activity between training cycles.
In that sense, my 2015 hiking experience occupied a unique place in my athletic history. Running remained the longer-term pursuit, but for nine weeks that summer, mountain trails became my primary physical challenge. The shift from running to hiking and then back to running connected two different forms of endurance within one of the most active periods of my outdoor life.
Hiking Reports
The hiking reports below preserve the individual experiences behind my 2015 hiking journey. Together, they document the trails and mountain routes I explored across Vancouver, the North Shore, the Sea-to-Sky region, and other parts of southwestern British Columbia.
Each report provides a record of a particular outing, with details such as the location, distance, elevation gain, date, photographs, and activity data where available. They range from trails close to Vancouver to longer and more demanding mountain adventures such as Panorama Ridge, Mount Harvey, Wedgemount Lake, Crown Mountain, Garibaldi Lake, Elfin Lakes, and Joffre Lakes.
Rather than simply listing places I have visited, these reports form a record of a concentrated period of exploration—226.8 km (140.9 miles) of hiking and 7,981 m (26,184 ft) of elevation gain over nine weeks—and preserve the individual routes and experiences that made up that journey.
Explore the hiking reports below to see the individual trails, photographs, and activity records from this chapter of my outdoor life.