Forbidden Plateau

The first night we hiked in a couple of kilometers into Helen Mackenzie Lake, and set up camp here. It rained. We were wet. It sucked.


Then we woke up to this and I convinced Sarah it was worth continuing for another day. We'd gamble on the weather, and hope for the best.


Breakfast.


The campsite was very well built up. It took some of the charm away from wild camping, but I suppose in the rain it's not so bad. At least it kept us out of the mud.


We took off through alpine meadows. They were incredible. They looked like giant playgrounds, except that if you touched them, they died. Needless to say, Maggie had something of a large footprint. It was very cool. There are little clear ponds and lakes spread out over the land, the trees are all stunted, and the ground cover looked like tundra.


BC is too big for simple pictures, so I started playing with the panoramic setting on the camera. It worked pretty well. This is a hill about halfway on Saturday. We stopped here for a snack before continuing.


This is our humble campground. Nice and clean with a view on the mountains and the lake.


After setting up camp, we dropped our packs and set off towards a Cruikshank Canyon. This is Mariwood lake, on the way.


I forced Sarah to take this picture.


Again, BC is too big. This is a panoramic view of the alpine meadows. Those snowy peaks are outside Strathcona and are across the canyon.


Here was our first view of Cruikshank Canyon. Precipitous cliffs all around. We tied Maggie up to make sure she didn't sail off the edge. For my part, just looking at this picture make my knees weak. Heights are scary. Anyways, it was very big and totally worth the side trip out there.


Of course, I also had to play with the panoramic setting on the camera. Luckilly, Sarah didn't fall off.

Remi

Photos con't

I had to force myself into this position. The dliff was straight down god knows how far. That small lake to my right, that's not even the bottom. Freaky.


This is another panoramic from the campground. As you can tell from the clouds, it later rained.


Luckily, I used my outdoorsman skills to build this superb lean-to. We were nice and dry. Although the blackflies were so thick we both ate at least a few dozen.


The next morning we woke up to some light mist on the lake. So we took 3489274234 pictures. This is one of the best.


The mountains in the interior were just peaking through the clouds as the haze burned off in the morning. Again, this is a view from our campsite. We saw this at breakfast, what did you see?



Sarah crawls out of bed.


The view gets better still.


Breakfast on Sunday.


They built lots of boardwalks to protect the plants and wildlife. As a result, we were able to walk somewhat faster than 2km/h. Not bad.


Winding mountain paths.


More meadows...


This is just past Mt. Washington, the local ski hill. Note the clearcut just beyond the edge of the park. The logging companies like to keep all the forests nice and short. Nothing is sacred to those heartless bastards.

We found an apartment!

Good news on this Sunday the 16th of July - Remi and I found an apartment in Vancouver that is:
(a) reasonably priced
(b) has a beautiful mountain view
(c) is rented by a nice family
(d) is dog-friendly!! (or at the very least, dog tolerant)

For any of you who wish to help us move, we're now accepting offers ;)

Again, happy birthday to Dave and Ronak!!!

sarah

The elephant paragraph

I need to post something so that I don't feel so distant from you all, but it is totally unrelated to me, besides the fact that it's from the book I'm reading. Yeah, I am still reading A Primate's Memoir. I know, it's been like a month since I've started it, but I'm savoring it. It really is that good. Anyway, I was reading today and I remembered this one passage that instantly become one of my most favorite things I've ever read. So, I wanted to share it with you all, whether you know what the book is about or not. Here we go:

"Elephants at night in camp are quiet a spectacle, enough to speed up anyone's heart. You wake up in a panic--chaos around the tent, crackling, a tree has fallen just missing the tent, someone is eating a bush just by the door, the tent lines have been torn loose. You peer out the window, and the tree trunk that wasn't there when you went to sleep lifts up and comes down--an elephant leg! Now for certain you'll be crushed to death by some oaf elephant dropping a tree on you. And each time, as you lie there in absolute terror waiting for your end at the feet of the elephants, there is this bizarre counter-current of feeling, this amazement you feel at hearing... their stomach sounds. The elephants make monstrous amounts of noise with their stomachs. It's the most perfect sound on earth: low bass rumbles like the core of the earth, like you're a child again and you have the most perfect ancient white-bearded enormous loving grandpa who, just because he loves you, is going to lift you in his gnarled hands and put you in his lap and put your ear to his belly and just for you he's going to belch loudly and so slow and deep that it will last and make you tingle happily until the next ice age comes, that's what it sounds like, you're lying there in you tent prepared for death and you're surrounded by this wonderful lulling aura of stomach noise that makes you want to curl up and sleep like a puppy, but you can't because there are fucking elephants outside that are going to kill you, and invariably, you suddenly find yourself having to go outside the tent and take a crap. Once I really had to at such a time. Even I had become crazed with the rice and mackerel and had been taken to lunch at the lodge by tourists I had pulled out of the mud. I made up answers to their questions about animal behavior and mostly ate like a pig, finishing it all with mountains of hideous lugubrious tasteless pudding that the British adore and have left as their most lasting legacy to Kenyan hoteliers. Chicken gumbo, meat loaf a la Kikuyu, curries, Spam loaf with pineapple slices, all topped with brown thickened murk pudding with crystallized sugar doodads and filigrees on top. I was up all night with the runs and regretted nothing until the elephants came. During one wave, I suddenly found myself cramped over in front of my tent, stark naked, painful, liquid acidic craps, and, the humiliation of it all, surrounded by six elephants, silent, quizzical, polite, murmuring, almost solicitous, their trunks waving in the air investigating my actions and moans. They watched my agonized shitting as if it were an engrossing, silent Shakespearean tragedy performed in the round."

So, if that doesn't make you want to read Robert Sapolsky's book, I don't know what will. I have about 70 pages left and I'm doing my best to appreciate them all.

I hope all is well with everyone else. I don't have much to report, just doing my puffin business thing and taking in as much of Maine as possible. I should have some new pictures soon. Much love to all.

I got in!!

Just a quick note for those of you who don't know... I got into pharmacy school at UBC!! And, since Amanda can't bother to post herself... For those of you who don't know, she got into U of T pharmacy :)

That's all my news for now. I've got to email some profs about getting course exemptions (it seems to be a lot easier at UBC than it is at U of T, sorry Manda).

Post guys!

Camping!

We went camping this past weekend off a logging road beside a river. It was fantastic. We went with a couple friends and their dog and tented. Not much else happened, but here are a few pics:

This is Scott and Nicole using walking sticks (we each had one) to cross the river.













This is Remi, Koda and Mags after Remi rescued my flip-flop from its escape attempt down-river (it fell off my foot whilst I crossed the river).
















Our campsite.














The view... Now who wants to visit US? ;)

The Hockomock Trail

I finally got out on a hike the other day, a short one, but still a hike. The Hockomock Trail is just a mile long trail at the end of Keene Neck Point, on the wildlife sanctuary that I live at. Anywho, here's some pictures:


This is an old rock wall through the woods. These are all over New England, apparently.











A pristine E. tiger swallowtail butterfly. On some raspberry flowers, maybe?









An overlook on the trail looking at an inlet of Muscongus bay. Lowish tide.




Another (better) shot of Muscongus Bay. That is the southern end of Hog Island on the left half.

This is a closeup of Hog Island. There are two tall evergreens in the middle, one of which is leaning towards the other. If you look at the leaning tree and find the branch that kind of looks like an awning over a mass of a branch below it, you have found the eagle's nest. The two adults are sitting upright in it. It's just where the sky meets the foliage line. Find it? I sat and watched them for half an hour and they never flew. They just sat there and watched me and everything else.





Some neat metamorphic rock formations next to the water.

Snails at low tide. I played with them for a bit.






The camp's boathouse with many lobstah boats tied up in the background.

And finally, the 70-year-old Audubon Camp on Hog Island. It has been visited and worked at by many a well-known naturalist, including Roger Tory Peterson, Kenn Kaufman (who was here last week), and others I can't remember. This also happens to be the view out of our kitchen window. Okay, now who wants to come visit?

So, a belated happy Canada to everyone! Tell us what you did for the holiday!