Friday, October 17, 2014

Do you like heights?

I was looking for some pictures, and found these from a day trip I took with the kids.

Have you been to Capilano Suspension Bridge? It's really beautiful, no matter what time of year you go. One hot summer day, I took the kids out to visit the park. It's the 125 anniversary of the park, so it was even more beautiful that normal. It was also much more crowded than normal. I must remember to take the kids one rainy day. 

 We arrived and decided that the suspension bridge looked too crowded and so we decided to do the cliff walk first. With a quick stop for photos first, of course!

 Then we descended the stairs to the cliff walk. I'd done the suspension bridge years and years ago with my school, but it was the addition of this feature that made me want to go back and visit the park again (because, quite frankly, I found the actual bridge terrifying!)

 The cliff walk is also suspended in mid air, and winds it's way up and through the rock along the canyon. It's beautiful, and I imagine it would be different every time you went depending on the weather and the changing seasons.

 David thought it was brilliant. Lizzie, not so much. She was a little unsure to begin with....

 And you can see her fears only grew the further we got along the walk. You can also see that it was very busy and we weren't able to hurry along, or turn back.


 Poor little Elisabeth soldiered on, despite her fears. David tried to be supportive, but he thought the bridges were great fun.

 Safely back on solid ground, we posed for a picture in the forest.

 And then we crossed the suspension bridge. I'm not sure why our school hasn't been here on a field trip. Unless it's the fear of having children fall of the swinging bridge. I guess that could be it. But there's so much to learn here, whether it's about our ecosystem, the forest, the history of the canyon, or even just about salmon. We spent several hours reading all the information and looking around.


 And then we ventured up into what I call the tree houses, but they're really just more suspension bridges, through the forest.

 There are a series of bridges, that lead from one tree to another. We stopped at the ranger's booth and picked up a little booklet with tasks to complete as we wandered around the park. It helped make us pay attention as we wandered.


 Here we're learning about the wing spans of various birds. As you can see, Elisabeth's span isn't really all that great.

 And then we learned about trees and how tall they grow, what sort of leaves they have...that sort of thing.


 And at the end, we collected our badges for learning.
 This is the view from the middle of the suspension bridge.

It was a wonderful day, we can't wait to go back!


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