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UBC students just pulled *this* prank near Squamish.

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You won't believe what they pulled in Squamish.

You know, sometimes I think we're living inside one of those urban legends, the kind where you hear about something so ridiculous, so utterly *Vancouver*, that you just have to shake your head. Remember that bright yellow Volkswagen Beetle that showed up last week, dangling precariously from a cliff face just outside Squamish? The one near the Stawamus Chief, visible right off the Sea-to-Sky as you're heading north, a real head-scratcher against that granite backdrop. Well, it's gone now. And the group claiming responsibility for this masterpiece of absurd engineering has stepped forward. It's apparently a "long-running tradition of pranks" by anonymous UBC engineering students. *Nani kore?* What is this, some kind of elaborate *sotsugyō-shiki* graduation stunt?

### The Squamish Cliff-Hanger

For a few days there, it was a real talking point on the Skytrain, everyone wondering how on earth someone managed to hoist an entire car up there. It wasn't just some random act of vandalism; this took some serious planning and, frankly, a good amount of ingenuity. Think about the logistics:

* **Vehicle Acquisition:** Where do you even get a Beetle that you're willing to sacrifice for art?

* **The Ascent:** Getting it up a sheer rock face without anyone noticing must have been a *very* late-night operation.

* **The Setup:** Rigging it securely enough to hang there for days, a bright, impossible yellow against the green and grey of the Chief.

It's gone now, removed quietly, probably by people with less time for whimsical public art installations. But for a little while, it was a beautiful, complicated symbol of something uniquely West Coast – that blend of outdoor adventure, a touch of engineering brilliance, and a healthy dose of "why not?" It's a reminder that even in a city grappling with serious issues, there's still room for a little bit of playful anarchy. It makes you wonder what they'll try to suspend next. A Vancouver Special, maybe?

Beautiful out here. Complicated in here. That's the coast.

Curious about how they actually got it up there? The Morning Wire crew talks about it every day – catch them at mornings.live.

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More from Kenji Nakashima

The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →