Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 29th June.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week we drove up to Bell Rd and along to the Hydro East Junction, then left on to the Russ Creek road and left again at the the old Masck Farm road.  We parked at the top of the hill and headed north along some fairly recently built logging roads eventually reaching the fairly large forest lake we have been calling "No Name Lake".  After lunch we checked out the smaller lake not far to the east and saw lots of evidence of beaver activity including a well used trail connecting the two lakes over a low ridge.   Returning to the first lake I spotted a single loon quietly fishing out in the deeper water and we are now going to call it Loon Lake. 

I think I mentioned that we had run into a lot of fallen trees on the recent Twin Peaks so I thought I would illustrate the email today with this shot of the devastated forest. I've never ever seen this much wind damage to a piece of forest on Texada — it made finding our way through very difficult as parts of the two hiking trails were covered by masses of debris.  Some very large old trees had been broken off or rooted up on the west sides of both of the peaks and in the dip between them a multitude of younger trees had been snapped off.  I wonder what the wind speed would be to do this much damage.  

JD.    

Wind storm damage to our trail in the dip between the peaks at Twin Peaks.

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 22nd June.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week we drove south past Bobs Lake and Angel Lake and parked where the road runs alongside the gasline right of way. Hiking south along the gasline we turned off at the large cairn marking the start of the Twin Peaks Trail.  At first everything in the forest seemed quite normal, but then soon after the trail became much steeper we began to run into fallen trees which became more and more frequent as we progressed.  At the point where the trail levels off and divides, one branch going north to a viewpoint the other south towards the south viewpoint it soon became obvious that both trails were blocked by massive amounts of broken tree trunks and branches. Clearly a wind storm had hit the col with tremendous force not long ago and  it was quite a difficult task to find a route through the tangle of debris covering both trails.  We split into two groups before lunch and enjoyed the panoramic views from each of the two viewpoints 

My photo shows one group in an undamaged part of the south trail.  The giant trees behind the hikers were mostly undamaged by the winds, but the massive tree trunk on the ground in the centre of the image was part of one that had fallen and broken into several pieces.   

JD.

On the winding trail through old growth forest not far from the south viewpoint of Twin Peaks.

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 15th June.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies bay at 10:00am.

Last week we drove along the Davie Bay road as far as Eagle Creek, then headed down to the coastline at Mouat Point the rocky headland at the south end of Mouat Bay.  We searched for a area in the forest where we knew we had seen lots of Giant Chain Fern, but the undergrowth has become thicker and higher over the years and we never managed to get close to this unusually large and beautiful fern. After lunch we wandered along the grassy bluffs, through a narrow strip of evergreen huckleberry and then reached one of several places on this part of the coast where the Prickly Pear Cactus grow.  Some of the clumps had many unopened flower buds on them, but we found just one clump that had five or six fully open flowers.  

JD.

Visit  www.gilliesbay.ca and select the "Texada Trekkers" tab to view many months of my hike notice emails. 

Yellow flowers of Monkey Flower, a species of Mimulus, quite common in places on rocky seaside bluffs.

Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 8th June.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10:00am.

Last week we drove to First Lake to start the hike which took us east on the old logging road that links with the Hydro East Rd.  Turning south we walked to where the road starts it long decent down to the sea, just far enough to check out the wonderful view over Malaspina Strait to Jervis Inlet and the mountains beyond.  Turning back and then taking an old logging road on the left that becomes a barely seen trail through vigorous young trees that were planted on top of the old road we soon reached Horseshoe Lake, our lunch spot.  As always it's interesting to see what the resident beaver have been up to, but we never do seem to see any swimming around although they are certainly living there. There is an old beaver lodge in the open water in front ot the lunch spot, but it appears to be unused.  Someone spotted a pile of branches on the shoreline in a different part of the lake and I used telephoto to get a few shots of it.  The branches do look typical of beaver lodges in the way thay are arranged, but it is a bit odd to find one apparently built more on the land than in the water.

JD.

A pile of branches on the far shore that may or may not be a beaver lodge — building on land is a bit unusual.