Third try, finally got inside the old Plz Fv Hndrd hotel. No roof access, and not much to see beside bare floors, skeletal walls, some tools, and Tim Hortons cups -- although my exploration was somewhat curbed by the onsite security. I think I was playing cat-and-mouse with him/her in the stairwells at one point -- though they didn't call out, so maybe they didn't hear me.

Not much going in North Vancouver by way of hotel pools, but I did do a few lengths here:

I got into the card-locked change-room by pressing the handicap access button. First time that's ever worked!

I rounded out my afternoon with a stroll around Ln's Gt Hospital. There are some nice subbasements, giving access in one spot to the newest $62-million building, which is nearing completion.

Public-area furniture still fresh in its plastic.

Hospital beds too.

While still in the parking garage and looking for a stairwell up, I ignored a couple of women, hoping they'd ignore me. But then someone else called out to them, "Can I help you?" They were looking for their dog, so they claimed. They were informed that this parking lot wasn't open yet. I just kept walking, without looking back. Their presence at that exact moment probably saved me from the dreaded "Can I help you."

I finally resigned myself to using the elevator. I got off on the fourth floor as two construction or hospital personnel got on. They didn't even glance at me! I had the place mostly to myself. With my sights set on the roof, I tried another couple of stairwell doors, but they were card-locked. Finally in a third stairwell I found a twenty-foot ladder leading up to a roof-hatch. I climbed it, shakily opened the hatch, and peered out onto the roof. Climbing up over the lip of the hatch was going to be hard, but I knew the hardest part would be getting back onto the ladder from the roof. I talked myself into doing it.

Happily, there was on the roof an open door leading into one of the locked stairwells, which I was able to take down.

Some views from the roof:

There is this condo construction in my neighborhood that I have been watching for a year. There's usually a security guard (maybe always), and the rental fence is always closed up at night. It looks like the building is now as tall as it will be, so I feel time is running out for the crane. All I really have to do to enjoy the view (with or without the crane-climb) is wander in late one afternoon in a reflective vest and hardhat, or brazenly open the fence some Sunday afternoon. But I haven't been able to nerve myself to do either. There's perhaps a good chance of getting caught, but I doubt that this would be a big deal. (Most security guards I encounter politely apologize for not being able to let me look around.) A recent evening, winds had knocked down some fencing, and several people were repairing it. I thought: the perfect time to climb over the fence on the opposite side of the building! But I didn't go; I talked myself out of it. I decided that I'm overvaluing the target because I see it every day. But perhaps I'm just not that much of a ninja.

I went for an aimless bike ride on a recent weekend, and stopped along the way to wander into a condo under construction, a church basement, an arena and the old barns at PNE, and the presentation centre for Kensington Gardens condos, which is inside an old Canadian Tire building on Kingsway.

There were a lot of prospective home buyers milling around, so I was pleasantly neglected. After drinking in the display suites and the architectural models, I slipped past a small "Staff Only" sign, in search of a washroom. Then I stepped through this door, which was hanging open:

... and snooped around the cluttered, dusty, abandoned back and staff areas of the old store.

On my way out, I was sure to pick up their condo price list and one of their massive glossy advertising packages, each of which must cost $20 or more to print, and of which they had piles of boxes behind the scenes. I most enjoy the architect's CAD renderings, with their superreal buildings and their happy, unnatural, cut-and-pasted looking people.

The other night I hopped over the fence of my first security-guarded construction site. When I checked, the guard (or at least a guard) was in his car, reading with the interior light on, on the opposite side of the building. However, he (or another guard) soon discovered me in the parkade.

He was puzzled and annoyed, and took a disapproving paternal attitude towards my hobby. "You don't seem like a troublemaker. But you are young, and have much life ahead of you to live, and you must live honorably. If you get in trouble with the police, that could make your future very difficult." I explained that this was a risk I was willing to take, and that I hoped my harmless exploring wasn't too inherently dishonorable. He wanted to know (inevitably) how I'd gotten in, so I walked him back to the low part of the fence, then apologized again, hopped back over it, waved, and went away. He watched me, scowling, till I was out of sight.

So exploration isn't quite a victimless crime. Charming and disarming as I tried to be, that security guard's night probably wasn't exactly improved by our encounter. Whether or not he was technically breaking the rules by letting me go, he must have felt a little put-upon. He wouldn't engage in small talk with me, because, as he pointed out, his job was to keep people off the site at night, so I wasn't letting him do his job.

I like to think, though, that I am perhaps doing some small good. I am perhaps planting the seed of the idea that not everyone who hops fences at night is a troublemaker. And perhaps, for every vulnerable point of entry that I am forced to divulge, I am also making a little point of entry in the hearts of security guards all over town.

Two highlights for me of Doors Open Vancouver were the Vancouver Police Tactical Training Centre and Queen Elizabeth Theatre. The TTC's hour-long tour was impossible to sneak away from, but not boring.

The 25-meter firing range.

The 50-meter firing range.

Foam-padded foam-furnished foam room for practicing scenarios.

The Queen Elizabeth Theatre was closing to the public, to my surprise, just when I arrived, so I pretended not to hear that fact and "explored" the dimmest recesses of the auditorium for a few minutes while people were being ushered out. Then I spent 45 minutes crawling all over the place, including a fan room, on stage, in the orchestra pit, back stage, etc.

The rather dingy green room.

Rehearsal room.

I saw a few other buildings too.

A few downtown hotel pools:

One of these is totally accessible; only the change rooms are keycard locked, but you can change in the bathroom inside the pool area. One of these is accessible from the sundeck a floor up. One of these, currently under construction, is occasionally accessible: sometimes the door isn't locked. Another, not pictured here, is almost always accessible, since the door to the pool and fitness area is not well fitted, and usually sticks open. One of these is inaccessible without "social engineering," though all I had to do was knock and the attendant let me in. (He also had to let me into the change room.) I didn't give him any explanation, just smiled and thanked him -- though I did have a hotel towel over my shoulder.

As a bonus, here is a picture of a downtown hotel roof (quite accessible):

Finally found something abandoned, though I had to go all the way to Barnston Island for it. (Thanks to Canadian Viking for the tip.)

Barn swallows feigned dive-bombing me while I took this beautiful photo.

I enjoyed at the time trying to figure out what I was looking at -- what this building had been, what that structure had been used for -- but, in retrospect, I didn't learn much. Thirty minutes on Google didn't leave me much wiser.

These canned peaches seemed no more than a year or two abandoned.

It was a former cow farm; I did figure out that much.

A cow calendar.

There were about a dozen buildings, including a couple of farmhouses. Some barns were badly collapsing. Sturdy perimeter fencing had been installed sometime since 2013, as Google street view reveals. Blackberry bushes had also, in no time, taken over everything, making some of the buildings inaccessible.

A cow shed.

A cattle thingadoodadifier. Possibly.

Beside this door were signs that said "DEADLY GASES: Not enough oxygen to support life."

Aside from the joy of exploring (however superficially) a place without any fear of being caught or interfered with, I also enjoyed the tangible sensation of time's passage. You get a taste of decades in a single glance. One only gets this with decay, I think; and it's why well-preserved museum collections often leave me cold.

I went back to this highrise the other night. I'd been meaning to for a while, because the penthouses look finished, and I figured the total absence of security measures could not last forever.

My old POE was blocked with new fencing. But, to my delight and amazement, one of the sections of perimeter fencing (on busy Kingsway) was sitting ajar. So I just strolled in like I worked there, feeling lucky and blessed.

I climbed 45 storeys without much dilly-dallying, admired the views from the skeletal penthouse apartments' balconies, and climbed back down, perhaps forty-five minutes to an hour after going in.

The fence had been closed again. I was trapped inside! I felt unlucky and cursed, and very bewildered.

That fencing is heavier than it looks. I finally managed to rip one up off its peg, but then couldn't get it back in place from the outside. I did my best and casually skedaddled.

Had an employee without keys entered the site briefly? Had a thief, or a fellow explorer, been there? But if they took the trouble to reconnect the fence after leaving, why hadn't they bothered to do so while inside? Had a security patrol come by and finally noticed a gap that had been in the fence all evening? Mysterious.

I like condo presentation centers and display suites for themselves, but they also provide superb credibility props for further exploration -- like this brochure for prospective buyers.

They call the spanning structure the Skybridge because, unlike ordinary bridges (?), this one passes through the sky(?).

"Oh, hello. I'm thinking of buying one of these units, and couldn't resist giving myself a little tour of the rooftop garden."

I didn't have to say this to anyone, because I didn't run into anyone. It was late in the day on a weekend. The security fencing had many gaps, doors were unlocked, and there was no sign of any construction workers or tradespeople. I heard a saw somewhere in the building, but that was all.

Armed with my brochure, I felt pretty invincible.

When completed, the building will glow with a soft, golden, holy light.

I drank a beer for courage and headed over to the construction site. It was approaching one a.m. on a weeknight.

The future condo was currently little more than a big two- to three-storey pit with three vertical sides -- impossible to climb down, even without the security fencing. The fourth side was a steep slope of dirt with one switchback road, above which sat various trailers, thrumming generators, vehicles, equipment, and the presentation / sales center. Several after-hours reconnaissances had revealed no sign of human activity, and, delightfully, a two-foot-gap between the perimeter fence and sales building.

My goal, the crane, was located in the corner opposite the trailers and machinery. Though it stood about five meters from a major thoroughfare, its small size, and its slanted, staggered ladders -- not to mention its wide-open accessibility -- made it an appealing choice for an acrophobic novice such as myself.

I was able to pass through the gap and into the site with this clever maneuver: I removed my backpack, and turned my body sideways.

The switchback road felt too exposed, so I partly clambered, partly slid down the dirt slope, which became wet sand halfway. (My imagination thought an avalanche was likely.) I had worn a nice black shirt and nice dark blue pants in case of a human encounter; but any credibility my neat appearance may have given me was now lost, because I was filthy.

I skirted huge concrete blocks, piles of rebar, mud puddles, and trenches, and reached the base of the crane. It surprised me a little that it was not easier to get inside -- as if they had forgotten to include a door in the design. I put on gloves and started climbing.

Each ladder section had about 24 rungs, extending the height of about two storeys. I had to pause after the first section and ask myself if I really wanted to do this. At this point, I was still in the shade of the pit, and pretty invisible to the street or anyone who might be in any of those trailers across the site. After another ladder or two, I would be bathed in streetlight and almost directly in the headlights of cars travelling down the near side of the road. Traffic was light, but there was still enough of it.

While maintaining three points of contact, I unzipped and took a nervous piss off the side. Then I continued up.

I paused again at the next platform, just below street level now, and reassured myself that it was almost impossible to fall to my death from this thing. Nevertheless my imagination kept throwing me off the ladders and through the gaps and down onto protruding rebar spine-first. I told my imagination to shut up and leave me alone.

It was not hard work, but my forearms were soon shaking from nerves. I moved slowly, even when climbing through the most visible section. Most of the time, I put both feet on the same rung. Getting on or off a ladder, I must have looked like a decrepit nonswimmer entering a cold pool.

I paused at nearly every level, telling myself that I was okay, that there was nothing to it, that I just had to take it one ladder at a time. While climbing, I tried to concentrate on the rungs, but my mind and my eyes kept darting around. Was that a police car down there? What was that sound? Can those people see me? (Having stared hard at the crane from the street myself, I knew that beyond a certain point I was practically invisible, especially when not moving, but it was hard to remember that.) When my brain wouldn't cooperate, I assured myself that I didn't need my brain anyway -- my body could climb a ladder perfectly well all by itself.

At one point, a door slammed across the street. It was a security guard, doing his perimeter check of the neighboring office tower. Had he seen me? I stood motionless behind a strut, and waited. When I looked again, he was not in sight.

Once I passed the fifth or sixth platform, I rose above the adjacent building, and suddenly felt very exposed and precarious -- as if a support had been taken away from me.

On one platform, the grated flooring was a little springy, which worried me and made me move even more slowly.

I paused again and looked around, and began to enjoy the view.

There were perhaps eight ladder sections altogether, bringing me about sixteen floors from the crane base. Anyway, I was about level with the thirteenth floor of the office tower across the street.

I was almost at the top, but now I encountered something new. The next short ladder was not slanted, but vertical. Also, it was flush with the "wall" of the crane mast, whereas all the other ladders had been in the middle, leaning over the hole to the level below, and thus providing a sort of safety barrier. Also, all the previous ladders had been caged. Not this one. I climbed it extra carefully, my imagination repeatedly tossing me down the hole behind me.

I poked my head up into a small, round chamber (the turntable?) and tried to figure out how to proceed. The platform I needed to get onto was covered in a nest of big thick electrical cables, which I did not like (my imagination was busy electrocuting and tripping me simultaneously). Also, the ladder I was on only extended one measly rung above the platform, which was going to make getting up there tricky. I was about to climb as high as I could, then perch my ass on the edge of the platform and carefully get to my feet, when it occurred to me how much more difficult this operation was going to be in reverse. I also didn't like how low and narrow the interior of the turntable section was.

So I said fuck it, and climbed back down.

I had a camera and tripod in my backpack, but I didn't take any pictures before descending. It would have been like lighting a cigarette while crossing a highway. I just wanted to get the hell out of there. I also had a victory beer that I didn't drink.

Even as I was climbing down, I kept shooting glances over at the site-office trailer. As if there was anything I could do at this point if I was spotted!

When I was about two storeys above street level, a couple of chatting guys began walking in my direction down my side of the street. I waited for them to pass by, not even looking at them -- just in case people actually can sense when they are being watched.

I was retracing my steps towards the dirt slope when I looked up and saw, on top of a pole at the back of the site, flashing red and blue lights. Oh, fuck.

"You are under video surveillance," a pre-recorded announcement informed me. "The police have been notified. Please evacuate the site immediately." This was repeated two more times, then an alarm began to shriek.

I waved and saluted respectfully in the direction of the flashing lights, and walked "calmly" up the switchback road and out the gap in the fence. The alarm stopped shrieking. I kept walking.

Three blocks away, I dusted myself off, sat down on the curb, shook out my sandy socks, and had a swig of my victory beer. Had I set off a motion detector, or had somebody finally spotted me on camera? I still didn't think anyone had been on site, or they would have come out to say hello. I didn't entirely believe that the police were on their way, either -- the alarm seemed like more bark than bite -- but I didn't linger. I circled back the long way, and headed home. My wife was still awake, and seemed pleased, on the whole, that I wasn't dead.

Oh yeah: Don't forget the parking levels!

Ropolis at Rotown is Canada's second-biggest enclosed shopping mall. (That sounds impressive, I guess, but it's about 48% as large as the first-largest.) Built in 1986, it acts as the city center of Rotown. Ropolis's 450 shops, and a nearby Skytrain station, make Rotown an appealing place to live, apparently, because highrise condos continue to pile up here like termitariums.

If you hate shopping as much as I do, you may be as delighted as I was to discover the mall's many service corridors, stairwells, freight elevators, and backrooms.

Aside from being tantalizingly off-limits (some, but by no means all of the doors leading to the corridors say "On-Duty Employees Only), these narrow, battered, high-ceilinged corridors are also almost always completely empty. They therefore offer a refreshing reprieve from the noise and crowds of the public areas. Whenever possible, I use them as "short"cuts to wherever I'm going.

The corridors do not connect all together, but there are a lot of them, they mostly look alike, and with their strange twists and turns, it is quite possible to get lost in them. That's fun; but it's also fun to try to see everything, and to do that you need to know where you are.

There are maps in most of the service corridors to help you get around. Here's one, which I started, but did not finish, annotating:

This is the least blurry of about three snaps I took one night with my cell phone, while eating a sundae outside a loading dock after mall hours. While patiently framing, stabilizing, and taking the third shot, someone came out of a door and stared at me. When I was done, I turned to see a security guard. He asked if he could help me. I said no, I was just trying to, you know, get to know the building. He asked if I was an employee. I said I was not. He was puzzled by this, and became suspicious and unfriendly. I suddenly found it very hard to explain what exactly I was doing. I said that I lived in the neighborhood and shopped there occasionally; finally I admitted that I was interested in figuring out shortcuts to get around. "All right," he said, "but you realize that it looks a little suspicious?" He took down my driver's license, I apologized for the trouble, then I beat a retreat.

All you really need to know is that MOST of the doors that say "Alarm will sound" are not hooked up to an alarm. If you know (e.g., from the map) that a door leads to a service corridor, it definitely is not alarmed. Employees go in and out of there all the time, obviously.

When you get tired of wandering the service corridors, and you've tried the doors to all the electrical rooms, and ridden all the freight elevators, you may want to explore the storage rooms and back areas of the bigger, "anchor" stores. These areas are also usually pretty empty, and full of picturesque clutter, stock shelves, janitorial equipment, and other intriguing nooks and crannies -- and lots more doors leading who knows where.

The stock room at Toys R Us is larger than the front public area.

The mannequin room in the basement of Sears is kind of sexy.

This tiny backroom desk at The Bay reminds me a little of a shrine.

All this is great fun, but for me, the real attraction at Ropolis is the roof.

I should say the west roof. The east roof, around the foodcourt, is still unknown to me. I haven't figured out how to get onto it.

The vast west roof is covered in gravel, dotted with noisy ventilation outlets and HVAC units, and divided by footpaths one concrete slab wide. It is a strange and beautiful landscape, rather like a giant zen garden. It is a lovely place to go to be alone and thoughtfully drink a beer or smoke a cigarette.

It is probably best enjoyed at night, when the overlooking office towers are not so full of people, and you are less visible.

At night, too, the massive skylights are lit up from within like glowing sculpture.

Peer down into strange backrooms, staff rooms, and intersticial spaces, and try to figure out how to get there.

Spoiler alert. Do not read the next paragraph if you want to figure out how to get on the roof by yourself.

Actually, I'm not going to reveal much. There are three stairwells that will take you onto the (higher part of) the west roof. One is locked, one is usually locked, and one is a fire exit, which emits the feeblest alarm when the door is open. You can seek these out, or you can just walk boldly out the fire exit doors of Silvercity, before or after you've enjoyed a movie, because these doors which claim to be alarmed are in fact not.

Okay, that's it. Go have a good time, and save your money.