Cliff-Edge Lunch at St. Mark's Summit

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

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

A West Vancouver forest walk past 300-year-old cedars to two waterfalls that make you instinctively lower your voice without agreeing to.

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

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

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

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 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.

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 1,400-metre summit above Mount Seymour with Mount Baker, Vancouver and endless peaks in every direction, earned in about 8 km.

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

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

The glacier-fed lake so clear you'll forget there's a Costco 40 minutes away, paddle included.