Category Archives: Daily Walks

Summer Day Tripping

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Another summer passes through and once again, no travel or visitors other than Steve and the grand-dog and cat. We had a late start, summer really didn’t get started until mid-July after many months of cool, wet weather, but after last year’s horror show of extreme heat events cool and wet was fine, no complaints there. I feel for those in Europe and south of the border whose turn it was this year to live through such extreme heat, drought and fires, and to those elsewhere on the planet affected by the other extremes of massive flooding. This year, for now at least, here on coastal British Columbia we have escaped the worst of the extremes. In our backyard this was also the best ever year for the fuchsias who don’t like the dry heat and usually collapse by late July – they’ve been looking great all season.

Our travelling has been limited to day trip hikes and there are a wealth of options within short drives from where we live. Here are some new explorations as well as an old favourite transformed.

Walking History – Cameron Lake Railway

On the way to the west coast of the island between here and Port Alberni, about half an hour’s drive from home, the road passes alongside Cameron Lake. I have long been curious to explore the far side of the lake, where I knew there was a trail along an old rail line built in 1911 which connected the coast to Port Alberni, long since abandoned. This summer I did a little research on how to find the trailhead and away we went.

Not too far in to the trail you come across a large, flat clearing where the old station used to stand. All the track is intact, along with remnants of machinery as I guess it would have been too difficult to take out given the steep terrain along the lake – it must have been a real challenge to build in the first place.

The trail. Slopes above and slopes below.

Evidence of human industry in the forest beside the track:

And beautiful wildflowers and mushrooms juxtaposed with the iron rails.

There are several trestle bridges along the way, built to solve the problem of the mountain’s steep slopes.

One of the Cameron Lake Rail Trestles (found this online but unfortunately no mention of the photographer)

This was the first of the trestles along the way. I stood there for awhile looking at the dodgy looking timbers, the gaps between them in places and the long drop to solid ground, unmaintained since the rail track was abandoned. Nope. Not for me. Don’t wanna, can’t make me. Time to turn around.

Friends along the way:

Stellar Jay – you often hear them before you spot them. Noisy!

Heading back out, passing the old station area. Way out in the background is the distant mountain with visible clear cuts. All across the mountain slopes of Vancouver Island are the highly visible patchwork of logging industry clear cuts. More on that later.

Finally a rest and a picnic on a little beach on the lake’s shore.

The Top of the World – Mount Washington

About an hour away from us are the ski slopes of Mount Washington, a popular place in the winter for skiers (not me) but also equally as wonderful in the summer. At the foot of the mountain are a series of easy trails around parts of the Forbidden Plateau (love that name) that are filled with alpine wildflowers and trees we don’t see where we are down at sea level on the coast. Our walk was not a long one but this is also the trailhead for much longer wilderness trails. We passed several groups of hikers laden with big backpacks full of the necessaries for multi-day hikes. Hardcore.

Below is the view from the plateau’s lakes up to the slopes of Mount Washington. I kept eyeing the top. I have to get up there!

Here’s how I hike to the top of a mountain – I catch a ride!:

View below the ski lift – what do you do when there’s no snow? Mountain biking.

Top of Mount Washington. This view looking down the island, with the waters and islands of the Strait of Georgia to the left, covered in the haze of this hot August day.

View over to the mountain range. I looked at this scene for awhile wondering what was wrong with what I was seeing. Then I got it. No clear cuts! That’s because this is part of the oldest provincial park in British Columbia (1911) – Strathcona Park – 250,000 hectares of rugged, mountainous wilderness in the centre of the island.

View to the west. Clear cuts behind an active mine foreground.

As we climbed on the ski lift to head back down my 20 year old Tilley hat (see my photo in the sidebar) blew off so we stayed onboard to go back up again to retrieve it. No worries, more time to enjoy this wonderful scenery on top of the world.

My Favourite Trail – China Creek

The China Creek trailhead is located about an hour’s drive away, past Port Alberni on the Bamfield Road to the west coast. The road is unsealed and after parking the car by the side of the road you literally have to run from car into the forest entrance, as passing vehicles, mostly logging trucks, kick up huge amounts of dust every minute or so. But once you make it in, you find a paradise of huge, dense forest along the most beautiful creek. Following the trail for a few kilometers, you finally reach some steep terrain – a bit challenging – but at the end the reward is the most beautiful waterfall falling between steep, tree covered cliffs. It is not a park, but is clearly well taken care of by volunteers who maintain the trail and the ropes to assist in the steep parts and build little log bridges over the wet parts where streams feed into the creek. In places the creek widens out into calmer pools of clear, inviting water, a good place to swim or just rest and enjoy. Very few people.

We’ve been visiting this place every summer for years now and this July we eagerly returned for the first time this year. As we made our way along the path through the dense, mixed forest along the creek, so happy to be back again, I announced out loud, “This is my favourite trail”. Famous last words.

And then we turned the corner. To find this:

The entire slope along the path was gone. This camera lens I was using doesn’t even begin to capture the depth and scale of the horror. I stood there in complete shock and couldn’t even move for awhile. A scene of complete violence, I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. It went on and on like this as we continued walking for the next half hour. It’s not just about the removal of trees, the entire ecosystem had been destroyed – all the moss communities that were as old as the trees themselves, the ferns and understory plants, the seedling trees creating the next generation and all the habitat for countless species of insects, invertebrates, birds and mammals. All gone in a flash, thanks to the heavy machinery that they bring in to harvest timber in the most “efficient” way – by wiping out everything.

In silence we continued, to the place where the steep, rope assisted climb begins, and the cut slope swung away out of view. Eventually we descended to our destination. The falls.

After the long hike in, a picnic on the rocks surrounding the pool at the bottom of the 10 meter high falls, with this little guy on the rock in front of me for company:

A last look at a beloved place, before retracing our steps to hike back out past the carnage, heart broken as I know it will be the last time. Yesterday as I was putting this post together I came across a new word, a recent term making its way into the vocabulary:

Solastalgia – formed by the combination of the Latin words sōlācium (comfort) and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief), that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change.

Nothing left to do but lace up the hiking shoes, expand the perimeter and go in search of a new favourite place. But the sadness remains.

Hello Old Friend

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Yesterday morning I was walking in the forest (no, not looking for mushrooms) checking out the tree branches with an eye peeled for Owl. As usual. It had been almost exactly a year since I’ve spotted one. Walking along the loop trail I became aware of a commotion up ahead – a group of birds, swooping and yelling, clearly very upset. I stopped and without even bothering to scan the trees or look through my binoculars, I reached into my bag, pulled out my camera and changed to my long lens. I knew exactly what I’d find.

It’s always a thrill. I hung around watching and photographing the action for a long time. There were several songbird species coming in to sound the alarm, they were seriously pissed off and didn’t let up on harassing that owl. Not for a minute. They screamed and yelled, always on the move, flying from one branch to another, perching on branches as close as they dared, getting up into the owl’s face and even flying in close to peck the owl on the head. The owl moved perch three times but other than that sat there looking completely unperturbed, ignoring them while scanning the ground below.

While I was standing there a family came walking along the trail towards me. Among them were two young sisters, maybe aged about 9 and 11, and as they passed behind me I heard the youngest speaking earnestly to the other about what needed to be done to help the planet. She was describing the packaging of a loaf of bread she’d seen that had a cardboard tie instead of a plastic one, and how important that was. As they passed she looked at me and I smiled.

Her mother came along then with other members of the family and stopped to see what I was doing. I pointed out what was going on, gave them my binoculars and stepped aside. The girls doubled back and there were then three generations of this family watching owl and the other birds, passing the binoculars back and forth between them, phone cameras out (the mother took a picture with her phone through the binocs). They were all thrilled and it was a delight to see them share my own feelings about it. As they were leaving I told the sisters, who were beside themselves with excitement, to make sure that they listened to the birds when they were in the forest as you never know what you might find.

As they left, I turned to watch them go and heard the youngest sister say to her family “I love life!”

I thought my already ecstatic heart would explode. THERE’s our future.

Capturing Spring

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At the beginning of May, as spring was starting to explode here in coastal British Columbia and the mood lightened with each opening blossom, I decided that after such a winter of angst and disruption it was high time to turn my attention fully to the natural world and go live there and try to record some of that, both in image and memory. So (once again) I went into total news blackout, grabbed my camera and each day went out to see what was what. There was a lot.

I didn’t have to go far. Our garden transformed from late winter resting and early spring bulbs to a vibrant jungle by the end of the month. Each day there was something new, a new shoot, a new bloom and a patch of garden could change from morning to night. By the end of the month, there is now blooming honeysuckle, peony, iris, lupin, valerian, poppy, aquilegia, lily of the valley, sage, chive, rosemary and more. By tomorrow, something else will open up.

Further afield, as it were, I’d walk past the farmer’s field, where I’d been watching 7 lambs, born in February.

One day I stood and watched for a long time as the lambs played a game. One little lamb would take off at full speed, running from one side of the field to the other, round one of the trees and head back to where it started from, jump up on a concrete platform, then leap down off the other side. All the other little lambs would follow so there would be seven little lambs running back and forth across the field as fast as they could, sometimes bumping into each other. But they weren’t just running. Little lambs leap. They run some steps and then they jump vertically, all feet off the ground, and then keep running. It was a riot.

I was reminded of the time in New Zealand when we went on a visit to a sheep farm and had a demonstration of the sheep dogs in action, herding the sheep up and down the field, to precise directions from the farmer. These little lambs I was watching this day were herding themselves! They were hilarious.

Queenstown NZ Sheep Herding 2016

The lambs weren’t the only members of the herd of assorted animals in this field worthy of a portrait:

A little further down the trail, there’s a pond worth checking out for frogs this time of year. Instead I came across another family:

The forest at the end of our road is a noisy place these days, now that the songbirds have returned and it’s canoodling season. In winter I often notice and remark on the silence of the forest, the almost total lack of bird song, other than that from the ravens flying above. They’re never silent.

In spring, when there are so many birds in the forest and the owls are also very active if they have owlets in the nest, I sometimes find the owls just from the noise of other birds or squirrels. This happened three times in a week this month, when I noticed the sounds of stressed out birds above, quite high in the canopy. They were yelling and swooping and clearly extremely pissed off. I checked it out with my trusty binoculars (my walking necklace) and sure enough, there was Owl, pretending to take a nap, obviously much too close to someone else’s nest. The interesting thing about it is that there were a number of different species of birds who had come flying in from wherever to help harass the owl. As well as yelling loudly, some were flying back and forth, close in front of him/her, and some were even dive bombing. The owl completely ignored them.

On May 26th the total eclipse of full moon was visible from where we are. I didn’t get much sleep that night as the eclipse started at around 1:30 a.m and ended around 4:30. I dozed, waking up every half hour or so to sit up and look out the window.

Accompanying this full moon were the lowest tides I have seen on our beach:

And here’s what I found on the beach that day:

An eagle feather. In pristine condition, it must have just lost it (I wonder how). I take this as a gift and a reminder to always look, always see, always notice. This is a beautiful world.