Maya writes

Nine of us managed to make it to Cypress backcountry lodge, boots with us. One unfortunate person left their boots at home. 

The conditions were perfect. New snow had fallen yesterday.  It was cloudy, but dry. A little breeze blew,  but that was only felt in the car park. Moreover, it wasn't the usual crew that typically hike that came out. There were quite a few on the hike that don't frequent the hills that often. Efrat now has confidence in her spikes and kept up with Michelle, who led the way down. 

At the top, we had intermittent clearing of the clouds, and got the odd peak of blue sky. It was a delightful place to stop and have lunch and we were alone there.  We sat for quite a while, until the chill started to seep through the layers. On the way down we passed quite a few groups going up. It was a well-timed hike and everyone was nicely content when we reached the cars again. Though the descent did have a couple of us folk complaining about muscle tiredness, it was worth every step. Approximately 8km, over 21k steps and 2k calories burned, with 152 floors of elevation! (Goodness knows how much that is in meters.)