Next Hike

The next hike will be on Saturday, 9th June.

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

There is one parking place close to a small gravel pit and up on the high ground near Second Lake that we use several times each year because it provides a very good starting place for several of our more popular trail hikes.  Destinations include Plateau Mountain, Mystery Lake, Thompson Road, Thompson Bluffs and a circular hike that passes the Reactor Station.  Last week we added a new route that ends on a steep sided bluff high up on the south side of the Vancouver Island Hydro line.  Directly below and partly under the cables is a lake we are calling Hydro Line Lake.  A common shrub that usually grows in wetlands and around the margins of lakes on Texada has recently undergone a scientific name change no doubt the result of recent genetic research by botanists who have found the earlier name was no longer appropriate.  In this case the low shrub we know as Labrador Tea has the new scientific name Rhododendron groenlandicum.  The species part of the name remains the same as before, but the genus is no longer Ledum.  Whatever the name you use I must say it's creamy white flowers were putting on a great display last week. 

JD.

The Labrador Tea shrubs in full flower all around the end of Hydro Line Lake.