Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 24th October.

We meet at the Ballpark in Gillies Bay at 10.00am

Last week we again had a cloudy damp day for our hike and drove over to the east of island going part way down the Hydro East road to a gravel pit, the starting place for a several different hiking routes.  This time we headed uphill on the access road to the Vancouver Hydro line right of way and climbed to a spot for lunch that had a view towards Nelson Island which was partly visible through patches of low cloud and fog. On the return to the vehicles we took a side road which we knew would be overgrown in places and decided to clean it up where it needed attention and made good progress in a short time.  When I checked out the old road on Google Earth later I found we had actually gone about half way to a nice view point so we may try to reach that another day.

My photo is of an unusual brown foliose lichen that I think may be a species of Peltigera or Frog Pelt lichen. Lichens are a group of plants that always consist of a fungus and an algae living together as if they were a single organism.  It was growing that day on a steep mossy slope beside the logging road we hiked up from the parking place and it seemed to be the only specimen of that kind anywhere around.

JD. 

A curious kind of lichen growing on moss beside a logging road.  It looks like a type called Frog Pelt, a species of Peltigera perhaps.