Cape Scott

After a long weekend of long drives, mud, and mosquitoes I made it back from another trip to Cape Scott. I went over to the Island on Thursday and picked up my friend Jeff in Victoria. We carried on up the east coast for 8 hours, then took a logging road left past Port Hardy and ended up in Cape Scott provincial park on the farthest Northwest Corner of the Island at about 8:45pm. We started hiking then and made pretty good time to our first campsite at Eric Lake, 3km in. We had the place all to ourselves-- except for the thousands of mosquitoes that are thriving in all of the mud up there. On Friday we hiked another 14km through the ruins of the Danish settlement attempts to Nels Bight-- a beautiful long, sandy beach where we set up camp and stayed for 2 nights. On Saturday we did a day trip to the Cape Scott lighthouse, where we had a lovely encounter with a large black bear. Jeff and I had been sitting at a picnic table at the lighthouse comparing mosquito bites and aching bones, and finally decided to stretch out and face the 5km hike through mud back to our campsite. As we tottered down the trail at the lighthouse, I said "Is that a bear? That's a bear."
Jeff said, "That's a bear."
Not 20 metres ahead of us was a large, shiny black bear staring right at us. We backed away and went back up to the lighthouse-keepers' lawn to have a safer view. The lighthouse keepers came out and realized that they had forgotten to close the door to their compost, so the bear was enjoying a large, healthy snack. We watched him for about 15 minutes before one of the keepers shooed him off and he waddled back into the forest. Jeff and I carried on our way, whistling and talking loudly.
Yesterday we were up early to break camp and hike the 17km back to the parking lot. We made great time, and even took a few minutes toward the end to have a swim and bath in Eric Lake. It felt wonderful! We then hopped into my car and after demolishing an entire pizza in Port McNeill we drove all the way to Victoria last night, getting in just before midnight.
Here are some pics:



This is the Shoe-Tree (also apparently called the "Sole Tree") which is on the logging road just past Port Hardy. No idea whose shoes they are, but some of them are really old.


This is another quirk of the crazy logging road... the first time I saw this I was with Janet Porter, whose car had just had a break-down followed by a flat tire and missing muffler. She rounded the bend, saw this and yelled, "Now ya tell me!"


View of Eric Lake


The mud was endless, but made great sounds when we walked through it.


Nels Bight, where we camped for 2 nights.


We did a wee bit o' illegal fishing and greatly enjoyed mussels for dinner one night.


The black bear at the lighthouse


This is a narrow neck of land that attaches the Cape to the Island. From the top of the meadow we could see ocean on either side.

Happy 4th!

Hey all.

Happy 4th of July. Not doing much celebrating around this household, although it does mean that Dave gets a day off of work. We had a busy day yesterday. Started off as per usual with a bottle for the kid, but early morning feedings have become far more bearable these days as both Dad and Mom are interested in watching the Tour De France, and since live coverage starts each morning at 5:30 AM, we're not so reluctant to crawl out of bed.

The past two days haven't been too exciting (except of course the last couple of minutes of the race) but the first day was absolutely stunning. Most of the attention has been focused on Lance of course, but big kudos to Dave Zabriskie who actually won the stage. He maintained an average speed of 54.68 km an hour. This is absolutely amazing. My fastest average speed doing my little sprint into work has been about 36 km an hour, and even on the straight aways where I can top out, I can only hit a max of about 45 km an hour. He also did this very early on, and set the bar for everyone else. No one even came close except for Sir Lancelot, who still missed the mark by 2 seconds.

Jen, Mollie and I actually got to watch Dave Z in action up close and personal, as he raced here earlier this year in the Morgan Hill Grand Prix (winning it handily). I also like Dave (and his team CSC) because they ride on Cervelos like yours truly...but of course they ride them much faster.

After watching the tour, we headed out for a quick hike up in the hills. As it turned out, we really didn't get to hike very far due to time, but at least we got out into the wilderness, and proved that we could do it with child in tow (and breastpump, and diapers, and backpack, and extra clothes and....).

We then headed down to Half Moon Bay, and met up with my buddy Bruce McKinnon, and his friend Jesse. Bruce was in San Francisco for the weekend, and was playing a couple of gigs. Unfortunately we didn't get to go up and see him actually play, but we had a great dinner at the Half Moon Bay Brewing Co.

Pictorial goodness is here!
I also finally posted the pictures of Mollie's visit to meet Keira.
Pics of Keira with her Gran

Don't Drink and Boat

...and the latest new development on the shores of Shuswap Lake....