Old-Growth Giants and Falls at Cypress Falls Park

West Van's secret swim spot: 5 km of forest trail, 200 metres up, and a dock built for cannonballs.

Four kilometres of gentle climbing buys you a wooden platform over Howe Sound with Bowen Island below and the city behind you.

An 11-km round trip on the Howe Sound Crest Trail delivering clifftop lunch and ferries crawling below like bath toys.

An 8 km Cypress climb past historic log cabins and First Lake to a summit above the Lions and Howe Sound.

Six flat kilometres along Burrard Inlet to a sandy beach at Old Orchard Park. Most first-timers never make it.

Locals' pick over Capilano: a free 50-metre suspension bridge over a roaring gorge, with emerald swimming holes and no eighty-dollar admission guilt.

A flat forest walk along an emerald creek to a waterfall that roars in spring and turns swimmable by late summer.

Vancouver showing off everything it has in one gloriously flat, car-free, 10 km loop where the ocean is the only map you need.

A forest hike in Pinecone Burke to two waterfalls, ending at the jagged Sawblade cascade that earns its extremely good name.

The 4.4 km Deer Lake loop wraps in under an hour and deposits you beside a rowboat rental and Burnaby's heritage district.

A big ridge loop above Buntzen Lake named for its ten views over Indian Arm, reserved for people who mean it.

A 25 km river loop around all of Port Coquitlam, almost zero hills, salmon in the water and absolutely no pressure to finish it.

Big-sky dyke-top walking where the Fraser meets the sea, with a 10-metre treehouse that grown adults are absolutely allowed to climb.

3.8 km from Deep Cove village through cedar rainforest to a granite outcrop hanging over Indian Arm, with doughnuts after.