Crooked Falls in Squamish: our wedding anniversary hike
Last Monday, Jelger and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary with a hike to Crooked Falls in Squamish. Even though we’re already working away in the middle of our busy wedding season, we preferred taking the day off and celebrate!
The seven years we’ve been married feel like they flew by, and yet like a long time at the same time! I posted a before-and-after photo online and I had to laugh when I saw how SERIOUS we looked in ALL of our wedding photos (and I mean tight, clenched-butt-cheek serious, haha). That said, I’m proud of who we were back then because it’s part of our story. But I’m even more proud of who we are today. The side-by-side photos show me how we’ve completely reinvented ourselves. Today, we focus on “what do we want” instead of “what is the next step expected of us”.
Our anniversary also reminded us to look back once in awhile. It’s easy to lose yourself in focusing on “what’s next”. But your present builds on your past accomplishments. Without those, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Which makes it all the more important to remember and celebrate that past, no matter how awkward it may seem today!
While it’d probably be sexier to tell you “oh, it’s so easy to be married”, I’d be telling you only part of the story. Like everything in life it comes down to “you get out of it what you put into it.” Luckily both Jelger and I are on the same page about that and we’ve always invested a lot in our marriage. One of the biggest factors being communication. With the risk of sounding cliche, communication is indeed everything. But let’s not digress, that topic is a whole different blog post, haha. If you ever feel like chatting about relationships, send me a message because I’m quite passionate about the subject. 😉
Back to our wedding anniversary! What better way to spend it than in our second home: nature. Squamish is without a doubt one of our favourite places. So I found us a beautiful, unexplored and off-the-beaten-track hike in the outskirts of Squamish. Juuuust the way we like it. 😉
The Crooked Falls hike has an amazing viewpoint over the Upper Squamish Valley. It also has a lot of impressive rock formations and boulders along the trail. And of course, there are the actual Crooked Falls, which are BIG. No, scratch that, they’re not just big, but HUGE. They are the most impressive falls I’ve seen to date in the Squamish area.
When standing next to the falls, the thundering noise and intense vibrations feel immensely powerful. Because of the sheer size of the cascades, I had to stitch several photos together to capture it all in one shot. And the constant water spray was an extra challenge to take photos! Also amazing: the tiny trail that splits off from the main one, and leads to an unexpected side angle of the waterfalls.
During our hike, I noticed a lot of signs warning us about the presence of bears. Apparently, they even closed the campsites for this reason. But we didn’t see a single furry animal on our entire trip. Probably because they were all hanging out at the deserted campsites, lol.
On a final note, make sure you come prepared with the usual supplies and precautions because Crooked Falls is outside of cell phone coverage.
Cheers to 7 more years with this man of mine. I have no idea what our lives will look like in another 7 years, but somehow I think it’ll involve a lot of nature ;)).
