Why I Love Mountains: Part 2

The Summit of Arrowsmith looking South
Originally uploaded by Calypso Orchid

I am a sucker for a view -- I'll spend hours bushwacking to get to the top of the humps on Southern Vancouver Island so I can get a 360 degree peek at the place where I live. Within moments of getting to the top of whatever chunk of rock is the day's goal, out comes the dog-eared topo map. Then the great (and traditional) "What mountain is that?" discussion starts. Bearings are taken, GPS waypoints are marked, notes are made -- but me and the Usual Suspects (Jan, Alan, and Mike) are slow learners. No matter how many times we head up the old familiar routes to Empress, Thunderbird, Quimper, McDonald, Braden, Sugarloaf, Jocelyn, etc. at the top one of us will be sure to say "Now which one is Mcguire?" or "That must be Warburton Pike" -- and the rush to demonstrate who possesses the most fulsome local knowledge is on.

We have not yet come to blows, but the discussion often ends with a demonstration of navigational prowess -- we all have to align our walking sticks and poles along the ground towards True North. Then Alan hauls out a beautiful sterling silver compass and the winner is decided. Of course, this is considerably more challenging on an overcast day hunkered down under a rock outcrop.

Even though we don't have Jan and Alan for our summer rambles, we still carry on the tradition of going for the big views and discussing the possibility that yes, that could be Mt. Ranier on the horizon, and not just some cloud formation. Doesn't matter who we hike with, or what type of local knowledge they posses, tradition demands we engage in the "What mountain" discussion.

The picture here is from the summit of one of the largest chunks of basalt on Southern Vancouver Island -- Mt. Arrowsmith. It rises 1817 metres (5962 feet) over Port Alberni. The view here is looking south along the ridge of the massif. A huge, steep gully separates the us on the summit from the next hump along. Past that, the mountains extend off into the distance.

I bet on a clear day we could see the Olympic mountains in Washington. There was a great deal of pollution and haze in the air (a heat wave and no wind = ground level ozone and haze), so no crisp views.

Mike and I, along with Tom (relatively new resident of Vancouver Island) and Rod (old friend from St. John's Newfoundland) went up the twists and turns of the Judge's Route. The trail is badly eroded in places and it was often easier to scramble up the adjacent rock faces then stay in the ruts of the trail.

This is a fairly steep hike -- ascending 1 km of altitude in 3 km of trail. No need for ropes, but a helmet might be a safe idea. The views from the summit are worth every grunt and groan. On a clear day you can see right across Vancouver Island from east to west.

I think Mike and I will try to get back this year for a winter hike. Maybe a bit chilly, but the air should be crystal-clear and surely we'll be able to hold a really detailed discussion on "Which mountain is that".

      


Check out our route on Google Maps:
The Judge's Route .

More pictures from our tramp up Mt. Arrowsmith: Our pics on Flickr .

Why I Love Mountains -- Part 1

Mt. Regan from the top of Albert Edward
Originally uploaded by Mary Sanseverino

I returned last week from a few days rambling in the mountains. I have been working on the pictures I made ever since and I'm reminded why I like mountains -- they always have so much to give -- you just have to be in a receptive frame of mind!

Mike and I, along with friends Lisa and John, backpacked in to Strathcona Park, on Vancouver Island. We were only in for a few days, but we did a hike up to the top of Mt. Albert Edward. The weather on summit day was not great -- it rained when we got to the first steep bit. Then wind, mist, and fog dogged us all the way to the top. We spent an hour at the peak waiting for views. And, even though they were not the spectacular vistas I know Strathcona can produce, I found myself deeply satisfied with what we did see.


Mountains in mist and cloud can be so majestic -- especially when the weather gods are teasing you with wispy views. That was certainly the case with Mt. Regan, little brother to Albert Edward. When the day is fine you don't even notice poor squat and lumpy Regan -- but on a day of thready cloud Regan can be the only ghost peak to float into existence.


When you can see them, mountain colours on a grey day can be deep and rich -- all the more so because nothing else competes. On Albert Edward the burnt oranges and dark crusts of basalt seemed to show us a bit of their birthright, formed in heart of volcanoes as they are. Pale pink granite-diorite helped put depth in the view when the mist parted. Flowers were bright spots of colour, covered with jewels of condensed mist. I could surely spend days in this place.

           

A Two-Dip Summer Day in BC

Buttle Lake at Myra Falls
Originally uploaded by Calypso Orchid

Summer 2009 has been hot, hot, hot on Vancouver Island. Mike and I, along with Rod, our friend from St. John's NL, decided to try one of the Island's premier backcountry adventures -- the Golden Hinde Traverse. This mountaineering trip takes about 7 days and crosses through the heart of Strathcona Park, in the centre of Vancouver Island. Midway along the traverse sits the Golden Hinde -- at 2200 metres it is the Island's highest peak.

I'm sorry to report that we didn't make the trip -- Rod and Mike were ill with a cold and the last thing I wanted was to be banging around in the backcountry with two old "wheezers"! We only did the first day of the planned hike -- Buttle Lake to Arnica Lake.

In all honesty, I was almost glad we had to cancel. It was so hot I could barely make it to Arnica Lake, and that part of the hike was all in the shade (although an uphill grind). Still, we did enjoy two wonderful dips that day. The first was a skinny dip in Arnica Lake under a bowl of clear blue sky. The second was in the green and cool pool below Myra Falls.

Arnica Lake is a classic sub-alpine pool -- clear water, meadows down to the shore, straight firs reaching for the sky. This one certainly didn't disappoint. After three hours of steady uphill hiking it was a welcome sight. We jumped in almost at once and stayed until I wrinkled.

On our way back to Victoria that evening we decided to make it a two-dip day by hiking down to the bottom of Myra Canyon and taking a dip in the grotto where Myra Falls enters Buttle Lake. The pool here has a definite elvish feel -- like we dropped into a scene from the Lord of the Rings. We had the place to ourselves and plunged in off the limestone cliffs. It was BC-summer-perfect!

There is nothing like spending time floating on your back gazing up at a sunshine-blue sky. Those moments make me sigh, flap my toes, and say "Ain't life grand"!!

More pictures from Arnica Lake

          
Check out the full set of pictures at my flickr site: Strathcona Park Hiking, July 26 - 27, 2009

Native Summer Wildflowers

It's true -- spring DOES give a better wildflower show down on southern Vancouver Island than summer. But July and August are not without their beauty on low and mid-elevation cliff, meadow, and forest.

These images showcase a few of the native summer blooms found in and around the wilderness areas close to Victoria BC.



St. John's Wort
Hypericum scouleri ssp. scouler . A lovely grouping of St. John's Wort on the western slopes of Jocelyn Hill.



Harvest Brodiaea
Brodiaea coronaria ssp. coronaria is common on southern Vancouver Island. I love seeing it peek out from the golden grasses. Ants seem to love it.




Oceanspray
Holodiscus discolor is in full bloom at this time of the year. The flowers on this graceful shrub become lacy seed pods in the late summer and fall. They can be seen right through the winter, until the spring brings new growth.



Manzanita
Not a flower at this stage, but Arctostaphylos columbiana berries are still interesting to examine. These tiny fruits look like small apples. The word manzanita is the Spanish diminutive of manzana (apple). A literal translation would be "little apple".



Tiger Lily
Lilium columbianum looks so bright and perky in the dark green forests of Vancouver Island. I enjoy seeing their flashy spots of colour on our summer hikes.

The Usual Suspects

Jan, Mike, and Alan: The Usual Suspects
Originally uploaded by Mary Sanseverino

Saturday, May 23, 2009: A perfect late spring day, and I'm spending it the way I like best -- bashing around the Vancouver Island back country through bush and rock. That I am out with Mike, Jan, and Alan (a.k.a. the Usual Suspects) is an extra bonus.

On this day we decided to try a new route through the Sooke Hills Wilderness area. We took off from our usual spot on Sooke Road (up the road from the mailbox pull-off), hiked in and crossed Veitch Creek. We didn't stay on the usual route. Mike had sighted some new ribbons a few weeks previously and wanted to see where they led.

The route turned out to be an excellent one. We got some fine views from a height of land we had never been to before, and some excellent flower sightings. Ah, yes, nothing is so sweet as experiencing another Sooke Hills "lifer" (doing a new route for the first time).

The highlight of the day -- aside from finding and photographing the extremely rare Prairie Lupine, was the final ascent up to Secundus (the 2nd of the MacDonald "Bumps"). The views opened out over the Sooke Hills and the Juan de Fuca Strait as soon as we got out of the valley. And the sky -- a perfect jewel of blue overhead.

The day was warm, so we stopped under the spreading branches of a huge arbutus tree and took lunch and a breather. Alan went down to his skivvies, but the rest of us demurred.

Even though the day was glorious we saw nary another soul for the entire outing. The Sooke Hills Wilderness is really a gem -- I am surprised that more people don't simply disregard the ridiculous "keep out" signs erected by the Capital Regional District. The Usual Suspects gave those signs a big raspberry some years ago and, frankly, I couldn't be happier!

          

PS. I hope to once again become your faithful photo-correspondent. For the past two months I have let things slide as I got back into the swing of my university gig. I am all caught up now and can post a bit more frequently (at least until Sept).

Bold as brass

Bold as brassOriginally uploaded by Calypso Orchid

So, the BC government is going to cut back on an already gutted BC Provincial Parks budget. Well, that tears it -- I was seriously thinking about voting Liberal (because of their carbon tax initiative), but now I am striking them off my list of possibilities! Parks are such an integral component to life here in BC. I don't think we should stand by and see them further reduced.

If every MLA would cut his or her travel budget by less than 1%, I bet we would have more then enough money to keep rangers in the field, campgrounds open, and (be still my beating heart) even put interpretation back into the system! Better still, stop those ridiculous "Best Place on Earth" adds and put the money into the "Best Places in BC"! Those adds must cost a pretty penny.

My post today illustrates very well how desperately important BC Parks are to individuals, the province, and the country. The little fellow pictured here is a Yellow-bellied marmot. Not particularly endangered (he is a pretty adaptive guy) -- but the landscape he is inhabiting is. He is in Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park. This jewel of a park hugs the northern extent of Kalamalka Lake. It is one of the last examples of okanagan grasslands -- an ecosystem that is rapidly disappearing.

This picture is from April 20, 2009, but Mike and I have hiked through this park many times. We always hope to see a rattlesnake. No luck yet. We did get to see a Gopher snake once though. It was very impressive. At first we thought it was a rattler, but the lack of a rattle made us suspicious we were seeing something else.

This park has a great diversity of plant life. In all 432 varieties of vascular plants have been identified here. At 4209 hectares it is rare to find so many species in such a small area.

In 2006 a State of the Park analysis was conducted ( State of the Park Report ). One of the report's findings noted the importance of building public awareness around ecosystem issues. This is going to be very difficult to do if there is no one there to help interpret and explain the importance of this place. Without help all that will be seen and understood by most visitors are some cute rodents, space for a few picnic tables, and lots of land to develop into yet more subdivisions.

Well, perhaps that is a little bleak, but these parks belong to us. I think they deserve better treatment than our BC provincial government is currently doling out. Bit by bit our parks are being dismantled. And, since it is death by a thousand cuts, we don't notice it happening. It is the little things -- less maintenance on trails, closing a few access points, cutting research budgets, no replacement of interpretive signs, canceling one or two programs a year, later seasonal opening, earlier seasonal closing. And so it goes until one day we wake up and realize that "Super Natural BC" has been gutted.

No matter which group ends up running the show here in BC, we the people, especially we the people that put parks and the environment first, will have to be vigilant. Government types have to wake up and smell the coffee -- it's not a choice between the economy OR the environment. A healthy economy is built on a healthy environment, and parks are a key component in building and keeping our environment strong.

Talk to your friends and family about this issue, ask potential MLAs about their opinions on Provincial Parks and the environment. Vote for the ones giving an answer that supports parks and the environment. When these folks get in power, hold them to account. In general, make a nuisance of yourself -- your kids will thank you.



If you get a chance, visit Kalamalka Park. A few more cuts to our BC Parks and it could be "Last Chance to See".
Info on Kalamalka Provincial Park
More photos from Kalamalka .

          

A rare and delicate bloom

A rare and delicate bloom
Originally uploaded by Mary Sanseverino

I love Spring in Victoria. The town is awash in colour, cherry and plum petals blizzard down on walkers and cyclists, and everyone seems to be in a wonderful mood. Out in the parks the show is, if anything, even more spectacular as our native wildflowers start to strut their stuff.

Mt. Wells Park, in Victoria's Western Communities, is one of my favourite spring hikes. It has all of the colourful and delicate native plants that I am coming to know and love. And, it is home to the very best display of Satinflowers in all of Vancouver Island. This flower ( Olsynium douglasii ) is only found on southern Vancouver Island and in a few spots in BC's southern interiour. Its delicate magenta petals look like they have been cut out of a satin ball gown. In the sunlight this flower nods and swings, splashing colour and light all around. It is one of our most beautiful harbingers of spring, and when I see it, I know warm days are coming.

These flowers are almost always a magenta purple, but every now and again we see a very rare white Satinflower, or a variegated one. A few years ago Mike and I were bushwacking through some back routes on Mt. Wells when we stumbled upon a patch that had all three types of plants -- magenta, white, and both together. I'm pleased to report that three years on the plants are still there and doing better than ever.

Mt. Wells was established as a park in 1994, but it was only in the past few years that a new path has been put up its north slope. Unfortunately, this path has suffered terribly from overuse. The erosion is quite wide on the steep bits. This year Victoria's Capital Regional District installed an ugly chain fence up through the area. Not very pretty, and far, far, far from "natural", but necessary to keep people off the delicate habitat to either side.

There are other routes up Mt. Wells, but they can be difficult to find, and some go over private property (or at least I assume it is private -- it doesn't belong to the park). However, once found they are well marked and you can't go wrong.

Mt. Wells is an example of a roche moutonee -- a rocky hill shaped by glaciers to give a smooth up-ice side and a rough, bouldery surface on the down-ice side. The up-ice side is where the main trail is located.

Mt. Wells is famous for its native plants, but its bird life is just as fascinating and lovely. Sooty Grouse, Golden Eagles, Ruffed Grouse, Pygmy Owls, and lots of other birds can be found here. Just this past week (April 8, 2009) I rode out from town with Alan and Rick. We heard and saw Sooty Grouse and Townsend's Warblers. Both are magnificent birds and NOT easy to get good looks at. As well, three weeks ago Alan and Jan were hiking on the south side of Wells when they looked up and noticed a Saw-whet owl just a few metres away at eye level.

My worry for Mt. Wells is that it will be "developed" (what a stupid word to use for the process of habitat destruction in service of yet more suburban sprawl) right up to the park boundaries and the delicate balance that allows unique plants like white Satinflowers to flourish will be completely over turned. As I was saying to a friend last week "we humans have a lot to answer for"!


Magenta and White Satin Flowers on Mt. Wells.

Info and map of Mt. Wells Park .
More flower pictures from Mt. Wells.
Photos of Sooty Grouse on Mt. Wells