Two Canyon Loop

Last week I decided to try a new circular walk which joins both Lynn Creek and Seymour River Canyons.

I had to run a couple of errands on Lonsdale before setting out, the view here back up Lonsdale Avenue. It was a beautiful, crisp fall day.
Zoomed in on the new wind turbine and observation tower on Grouse Mountain. When I photographed it from Dog Mountain only the tower was constructed, now you can see the blades and observation pod are in place. Reading online they say the tower should be working from December 2009.
I picked up Mojo and headed over to Lynn Canyon Park, the starting point of our walk. The view here up on Braemar of more autumnal colours.

Once at Lynn Canyon Mojo was brave enough for the bridge.....just. He wasn't planning to stop and enjoy the view though. Actually, I didn't either as a large tour party arrived at the same time which was noisy and very bouncy on the bridge.

The official route of the Two Canyon Loop takes you straight up into the forest towards the Seymour Conservation area. However, I decided to take the more scenic route alongside Lynn Creek to 30' pool.

Down beside Lynn Creek, the sun is still quite low even at around 10am as it was at this point.

This is 30' pool. It looks quite calm and in the summer probably inviting but a very strong under current flows beneath the surface.

Now the downside to taking the initially scenic route alongside the river is that you have to regain the height you lost doing it.

Views across the canopy from the top of the stairs.
Once at the top of the stairs we walk along into the Seymour Conservation area parking lot where there are a myriad of trails leading off into the parkland.

We were headed for the Homestead trail

The Homestead trail was very easy walking, although pretty steep in places as it descends into the Seymour River Canyon

It was a good opportunity to practise some recall for Mojo which he has been working on for his class.

The morning sunlights streamed through the trees

We reached the base of the canyon and turned right to follow the trail alongside the Seymour River.

Until the 1930's there had been a small village situated on the banks of the river. In the 1920's the area was designated a protected watershed and this eventually brought about the demise of the village.

This arch is one of a few remaining architectural details from one of the homesites. Apparently there are also some chimneys, gates and foundations from other ranches and businesses.

Here are a few old photos taken of some of the homes in this location from the 1920's and 30's



Further along the river we reach a spawning channel built on the West side of the river. There weren't any fish visiable today as it is out of season but the channel is used to breed coho salmon, rainbow and cutthroat trout and char.

View of the Seymour River, it is quite a bit bigger than Lynn Creek.

Old tunnel cut through the rock created to carry a pipeline, now disused.

Looking back up the Seymour River.

A brief panorama view of the river and the remaining one of the Twin Bridges.

At this point our camera finally decided to stop working properly (it had been playing up for some months previously) and I found I could no longer zoom or use the wide angle as the lens was stuck in a certain position. Therefore the remaining photos on this post are simply what I could do with the camera malfunctioning !

This view downstream towards the bridge.

We reach the bridge and will cross it. It's pretty uninspiring and a quick search on the internet I can't find when the other bridge was either dismantled, or collapsed or indeed why they needed two in the first place ?

Looking upstream from the bridge

The two pillars at either end of the now removed bridge are visiable

We then walk someway downstream on the East bank of the river before joining the Baden Powell Trail and crossing back over the river on a narrow bridge built above a pipeline. At this point the Seymour River is very narrow and the water rushes through the canyon with explosive force

A short piece of movie of the water to give an idea of the force with which is passes through the canyon. Unfortunately the video is sideways and I was a long way from the bridge before I realised so I couldn't go back and refilm it.

Unfortunately I knew at somepoint I was going to have to payback for the steep descent on the Homestead Trail. We now reached another very steep staircase built into the canyonside which then gave way to a long stretch of steep switchbacks.

Once over the top of the canyon side we crossed back into Lynn Canyon Park and down close to the Lynn Creek where the trail became much more manageable again and in places was on a boardwalk where the ground was too boggy to walk upon

We found a nice quiet stretch of beach along the river. Mojo stopped for a drink, paddle and a pose.

A brief panorama of the beach area, canyon and river

Looking up Lynn Creek

Further along the trail we reach Twin Falls. Unfortunately as the camera was not working correctly the images are pretty poor, although the falls were quite impressive as it's a very wet time of year


Finally a view back up the canyon from the bridge over Twin Falls.

We then continued upstream until we reached the suspension bridge once again, crossed the river and back to the car. It was an excellent walk and one that we will certainly do again at different times of the year.