Joyful Journey: Vancouver Island Sept/Oct

Sept 25 I picked up Allyson from a wedding in Langley and headed out to the island for a fabulous week on the boat. The first day it was super stormy causing us to have to stay tied up to the wharf for an extra 2 hours as we waited for the wind outside of the harbour to calm down enough so that we could even come out. Once we were out the waves were a fabulous 4-5 feet. As I could sail the west coast this past summer the motion was so welcome. Unfortunately not all people aboard tolerate the motion very well both crew and trainees. Leaving me to a very "only on SALTs" moments.. ie rolling out foccaccia bread dough for Italian dinner for 34 while in my rain gear!!. The sunshine did come and stayed for the rest of the week. We had a fabulous group on and had some great sails, saw some whales, caught prawns, did some great beach combing.

Beach on Pender

The Grace and the islands from the top of Mt Norman on Pender.

Poor Al.. and all the "innocent guys"

Sunrise with a little cloud poof on Mt Baker

On thursday I was confirmed to go sailing the next week as well which was super awesome as I had only been counting on one week. Sam and Elske had been throwing around different plans for the weekend and on Friday afternoon, I got the call asking if I wanted to go hiking.. Flower Ridge.. "a nice ridge walk".. we were leaving in 45 mins. Sounded pretty good to me even though I had no idea where we were going. Sam and I hit downtown for some stove fuel, new base layer and to rent some boots. As I had not counted on hiking I didn't have a lot of gear with me except my backpack I borrowed a bunch but the boots I rented.. I didn't even know you could rent boots. but they actually were pretty kind to me.. only one little blister but I did and still have numb toes. We picked up Elske, who was frantically finishing off a paper and headed up island. We stopped in Duncan to buy camp food and Elske rediscovered the power of chick peas as a super food =). We reached the trail head later than we thought and rather than starting to hike in the dark at 930 at night we decided to just sleep and get an early start. After rearranging our selves several times in the back of the 4runner we found semicomfortable spots and settled in to sleep. I slept pretty good.. only interrupted by Germans with a crazy amount of bear bells also reaching the trail head at about 130 in the am!!. The next morning at 630 the rain pounding on the roof of the truck caused a few second thoughts and a calculation of how far it would be to tofino to go surfing in stead.. but we sucked it up, packed our bags and and got out of the truck. It drizzled for about the first 1/2 hour but thankfully stopped and rained no more!!.

We hiked 2 1/2ish hours up a fairly standard rainforestly treed mountain trail until we reached Bedwell Lakes. Little Bedwell a small pond and Big Bedwell a mountain lake ringed by a few impressive mountain peaks. We hiked around the lake and then climbed steadily up through the alpine.

We hiked past a few more small lakes and up through some passes caused by streams. The view started opening up more and the landscape became more snow fields and rocky glacial debris

Nine Peaks (even though I counted 14)

Nine Peaks with Della Falls ( the highest waterfall in Canada). The falls are kinda hard to see in the picture but they looked amazing. I would love to do that hike and see them up closer!!)

Cream Lake A fabulous blue gem right at the bast of the upper side of Mt Septimus. We reached here at about 330 and had a nice stop for lunch. The sun was shining it was just gorgeous.

From here things started to get a bit dicey. Our goal originally had been to get at least on to Flower ridge and about halfway down the ridge so we could hike out Sunday morning. We knew there was no trail from the bottom of the valley up to Flower Ridge but there was supposed to be one from Cream Lake down to the valley. However that trail was no where to be found. We scouted around for a bit.... started to follow the creak down but soon realized that there was no trail and that were we were trying to descend was just too steep. Now the only thing worse about going down 20mins down slippery scrubby a fairly vertical non trail.. is going back up. Once up we decided looking at the topos and the map. The best way would be to make our way along the northern side of Mt Setpimus and down to lake between the two ridges.

Part way from Cream Lake. Flower Ridge is the ridge in the back ground. We made our way along the mountain on the right of the picture, up to the top.. down the other side and ended up camping by the snow patch just to the left of Elske.

Quite a few snow glacier fields. Some more vertical than others. My rented boots unfortunaly didnt have the best of tread and the snow kicked my butt.. literally!!

The Ridge we had to go up and over.

Looking back down the Price Creek Valley

The climb up the ridge took a long time. It was pretty much vertical all fours rock and tree climbing. Thanks to Sam I made it up without killing myself but by the time we summited it was pitch black. Once at the top we stopped for some food and little first aid. I had pulled a pretty big rock down on my head leaving a bit of a gash. Us two nurses were thankful for the non nurse who had packed the first aid kit =)

From the top we had about 2 hour scramble down the side of the mountain. It was mix of rocks and trees and we definitely relied on the topos and headlamps to not send us over the side of cliff!!! 15 hours after leaving our car we reached the pass. We pitched our tent beside the lake and stream and downed our supper. It was so cold!!!!

We woke up to sunshine, coldness and fabulous views. We were camped right at the base of a glacier ending in a lake which even had a little iceberg. As the sun rose it shined so bright on the glacier!! We also could now see the hillside we had come down in the dark. After a quick breakfast which was little frustrating because the fuel bottle would not hold its pressure.

Once was were around the lake we picked a line for the top of the ridge. There was no real clear way as any diagonal line led for fairly sheer cliffs so we made our way mostly up a wash of down trees and rocks. it was fairly vertical and rather discouraging a because every time we though we had cleared the top.. it was just a false summit with a newer one rising beyond a short flat. it took about 4 hours to gain the top of the ridge.

So so happy!!! On top!!! and for the first time in 22 hours a semblance of a trail!!!

Looking back across at Cream Lake and the northern slopes of Septimus that we had crossed the day before, Nine Peaks in the background.

Looking forward to the ridge.

Looking back at the first peak of the ridge where we had come up.

From here we walked 4hours along the top of the ridge. Not any pictures unfortunately as we didn't take much time to stop as we were doing our best to get off before dark. The ridge itself a about 10-50 meters wide. Lots of little ups and downs, little lakes, and sheer drops. 360 degree views of spectacular mountain peaks. As the afternoon wore on the wind and clouds picked up and soon we were fairly socked it. 530 just as started to enterback into the trees for the descent the heavens opened and the rain started to pour down!!!. Once again fairly standard treed decent 2 1/2 hours in the pouring rain and unfortunately the dark!!. The bad part about this hike and we knew when we started it was that it was a horseshoe shaped. The original plan had the car about 7 km from the end point but because of trail closures we had ended up parking up about 15km. Sam started to run for the car and Elske and I stayed with the stuff hoping to hitchhike to the car and then pick up Sam. I had never prayed for a nice person to hitchhike with before =).. however it was not to be as no car passed in either direction for 1 1/2 hours!! Elske and I had been walking circles on the road for the past hour trying to keep warm and ignore the rain and reciting all the warm food we wanted to eat. When a car finally came and did stop for they had no room. Thankfully Sam had reached the truck by then and was by in about 15 mins. What an adventure.. so much for the home Saturday night.. yeah.. bed was not seen until 3am Monday morning!!!

8am Monday morning came way to soon as another week on the boat kicked off. We had the Kaleo program from Briarquest College on the boat. Always a fabulous week with a group of students who are so passionate for life and for the Lord. We had some a fabulous time.Tought a littke sailing, had some amazing sails,saw some humpback whales rowed by the cliffs of Valdez. We also went ashore at James Bay on Prevost island and picked apples from the orchard there. Then Andrew, Carly and I took the zodiac into Ganges and picked up ice cream for the apple pie. When we were in Ganges we were wearing our life jackets as they are to pricey to leave in the boat. Andrew managed to convince the cashier that it was National Wear Your LifeJacket day =)

Portlock Point Lighthouse