It was a West Coast kind of day. A grey, rainy Sunday. But even though it was grey and rainy, it was still a good day for a walk on a less than crowded beach.
The Stanley Park seawall was probably busy, but heading out along the beach trails at the base of UBC on a rising tide meant very few people to share the space with.
The problem with starting out at the Jericho end at that time of day and on a rising tide means that you won’t be coming back that way, because the beach will disappear….and that means that you will have to eventually climb the stairs at the steepest part to get back up to the road to walk back down to Jericho.
It’s a bit amazing to me that I spent 15 years (1989 – 2004) as a student/staff on the UBC campus…and I never visited any of Acadia, Tower, or Wreck beaches. Wreck beach is famous for being a clothing optional beach, but that’s not what kept me away…it was the staircase. I just never had the urge.
I drove by it almost every day and saw the beach goers coming and going. But I just never made the time. I was at UBC for one purpose….well, I guess you could argue three…a BSc, a MSC, and then a PhD. Four if you include the time spent as a technician in one of two labs at any one time, and in two at one time once.
But I never walked those beaches.
Until today.
Kirk suggested we get out of the house and get some exercise. When we were part way I asked if he’d checked the tides….no…so we did…they were rising and at high in two hours.
It sometimes amazes me that, at the right time of year, we can find places that are isolated and deserted to enjoy this place we call home. The waves washed the pebble beach and, as they drew back down towards the water, the pebbles rolled and chattered against each other; a sound I associate with the outer coast, not the beaches of Vancouver.
We weren’t coming back the same way and so, not knowing where the trails up lay, I kept an eye out for places of refuge should tides come up and the need arise.
It didn’t, and we had a wonderful walk along a largely empty series of beaches and trails. We spent a few minutes appreciating the two watch towers still standing from World War II, covered in graffiti. Same for a gun tower tucked up in the trees.
A structure we couldn’t identify lay between the towers….we dubbed it the Pizza Oven. It’s some sort of drain, also presumably from the days of World War II.
We ended up at Wreck Beach, and wandered the lonely sands, us and maybe a dozen others scattered across a space that is probably filled with bodies, clothed and non, in the summer months. A little boom boat moved logs around and we could hear the planes taking off at YVR, across the water but lost in the mists.
Eventually we climbed the roughly 400 steps back up to NW Marine Drive above, and then walked the road to the Museum of Anthropology where we detoured to walk around the back of it and admire the architectures, as well as the First Nations longhouses.
Then it was back down to the truck parked at Jericho, where we shook the rain off our jackets, ate a couple of cookies, and headed home.
I don’t care much for walking in the rain… unless it’s on a beach. Then, for whatever reason, it doesn’t really matter. It just seems sort of right, and it keeps most people away.
Funny that it took a global pandemic to finally walk these beaches and discover that they are an introvert’s paradise on a rainy winter day.
