Summit Mount Gardner on Bowen

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

A 20-minute ferry from Horseshoe Bay, a 9 km rainforest loop around Killarney Lake, and let the boat do the heavy lifting.

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

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

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.

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

The date that earns its smugness: 2,830 steps up, Skyride gondola down, beers and jelly legs at the top.

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

Grab rentals on Denman, go counter-clockwise, and let 9 km of Coal Harbour yachts and Lions Gate Bridge views do the romantic heavy lifting.

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

Paddle a glacial fjord from a sheltered postcard village and earn a legendary Honey Doughnut on the way back.

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

Prince of Whales runs heated catamarans out of Granville Island after orcas and humpbacks, with a 95 percent sighting rate and hot chocolate on board.