Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 18th January.

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

Last week it seemed at first that we would be in for a wet and windy hike as it had been particularly windy during the night. In fact it turned out to be a very pleasant day for hiking as soon as we reached the parking spot at the Masck Farm turnoff.  There was still some wind in the tree tops, but the rain had stopped and the sun was doing a good job of getting through the high overcast.  We hiked down to the Russ Creek bridge and sat for lunch on the logs beside the bridge, listening to the massive roar of the white flood streaming down the creek bed which is especially steep on the lower side of the bridge.

On both sides of the road just above the bridge is the long term White Pine Research Project.   This was started in the eighties to study the many mature and disease free White Pine trees that foresters had noticed growing in this part of Texada.  The study is aimed at learning why so many of this species in this small area are quite free of the rust disease which is killing a high proportion of the White Pine in the Pacific Northwest.  The researchers are attempting to identify the genetic features of these local trees that provide resistence to this pathogen and have produced batches of seedlings selected for test purposes in replanting projects.  My photo shows tree #50, a healthy specimen and fairly old.  The white patches are lichen, not rust scabs, and there is no trace of the white sap bleeding that is such a distinctive sign of premature death.

JD.

Viewing some of the disease free trees at the White Pine Research Project, Russ Creek on Texada.