Thoughts on the road home

North Vancouver Island terrain is lumpy and shape-shifting and water-sculpted, standing on end as often as not, parcelled out by here-and-gone rivers, clothed with impenetrable jungle. It's a challenging field for road-building engineers; the highways and logging roads they've made are an impressive feat.

But the blueprints they used were mapped out following the tracks of an intoxicated elk with attention deficit disorder. The roads twist and curl, snake-like. Driving across the island gives you a good shoulder workout; swing left, swing right, left, right, right again, left ... Sometimes the highway makes a tight circle that goes on and on and on until you expect to meet yourself coming the other way. Straight stretches are rare and end abruptly, just when you've got up a bit of speed, with a series of closely-packed, 90° blind curves.

And every so often, in case you hadn't noticed yet, they put up these signs:

Right, left, right, left. Got it.

Always  makes me smile.

Did I say shape-shifting? Here's one reason why.

And this one goes left, right, left, right.

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Pensamientos en camino a casa.

El terreno del norte de la isla Vancouver es accidentado, cambiadizo, esculpido por el agua; grandes bultos de piedra se yerguen sobre los valles; rios efímeros lo dividen en parcelas irregulares; se viste con jungla impenetrable. Hacer carreteras y caminos para explotación forestal es una tarea que exige la mayor habilidad de los ingenieros, y los que han construido son verdaderamente impresionantes.

Pero los planos que usaron fueron diseñados siguiendo las huellas de un venado borracho con trastorno de déficit de atención. Los caminos se tuercen, se enroscan, serpentean. Cruzar la isla te provee un buen ejercicio para los hombros: doblas a la izquierda, a la derecha, a la izquierda, a la derecha dos veces, a la izquierda ... A veces la carretera toma una forma circular que sigue y sigue y sigue hasta que piensas encontrarte viniendo en el carril opuesto. Son raros los tramos derechos y terminan de pronto, justo cuando por fin alcanzas una velocidad aceptable, con una serie de curvas ciegas de 90°.

Y de vez en cuando, por si no te hubieras dado cuenta todavía, te ofrecen un señal de carretera:

Foto: Un señal con una flecha con curvas dobles. 

Siempre me hacen sonreir.

Foto: Un señal con advertencia de la caída de rocas. Se añade un letrero que dice "Durante 18 kilómetros". Una de las razones para decir que el terreno es cambiadizo.

Foto: Otro señal con flecha; en este las curvas van en dirección opuesta. Con el aviso; 50 km/h.

Moody Blues

View from the dining room at Strathcona Park Lodge. Looking across Upper Campbell Lake to the entrance to the Gold River Valley.

Looking WestSouthWest.

Google Maps view, annotated.

Bumpy terrain, isn't it? On this central and west side of the island, the only flat spaces are the larger bodies of water. Rivers and such aren't really flat; they keep falling over waterfalls.

Elkhorn Mountain, to the left, is the second highest peak on the island at 2194 m. (7198 ft.), only 1 metre shorter than the Golden Hinde, 15 km. to the south. Mount Flannigan, on the right, clocks in at 1556 m. (5105 ft.).

Some of the other peaks bordering this valley entrance, not labelled, are Bear Lair Peak, 1711m., Big Den Mountain, 1774 m., and Trio Mountain, at 1761 m.. Was that a Trio of Bears, or of hikers?

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Esta es la vista desde el comedor en la hostería de Strathcona Park, mirando hacia el OSO, y la entrada al valle de Gold River, saliendo del lago Upper Campbell.

En seguida, una vista tomada de las Mapas de Google, mostrando la hostería, el valle, y las montañas alrededor.

Terreno quebrado, ¿no? Aquí en el centro y en todo el lado al oeste de la isla, las únicas areas planas son los lagos. Los rios no cuentan; a cada rato caen sobre cataratas.

La montaña Elkhorn, a la izquierda, mide 2194 m. de altura, ganado (y eso solo con 1 metro) por el monte Golden Hinde, unos 15 km. al sur. El monte Flannigan, al lado derecho del valle, mide 1556 m.

Algunos de los otros picos en este rumbo, a los cuales no les puse nombres, son: Guarida de Osos, a 1711 m., Guarida Grande, a 1774 m., y la Montaña del Trío, a 1761 m. Y eso, ¿fue un Trío de Osos, o de montañistas?

Rock sprinkles

On the west bank of McIvor Lake, a small lake, part of the complex of lakes where the Upper Campbell Lake breaks up, eventually emptying into the Campbell River, the terrain rises steeply, with large outcroppings of moss-covered rock. And the moss is sprinkled with tiny white flowers, of different species, but all tiny, all white.

One of the rock outcroppings

A section of the rock, with its fringe of flowers, top and bottom.

Getting closer; the line of flowers on the top.

And flowers near the base.

These flowers are similar, and I haven't been able to identify them, but notice the ripening pods, or siliques; the flowers at the top of the rock have long, erect siliques, and the lower ones have oval siliques.

There were others, much smaller, pinhead-size.

Google map of the lake complex.

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En la ribera al oeste del lago McIvor, que es un laguito que forma parte del complejo de lagos, donde el lago grande, Upper Campbell, se fragmenta, bajando hacia el rio Campbell, el terreno sube por grandes afloramientos de roca, todos cubiertos de musgo. Y ese musgo está salpicado con florecitas blancas, de varias especies, pero todas blancas, todas pequeñitas.

Fotos:

1. Uno de esos afloramientos.
2. Llegando a la cima se ve una roca con su círculo de flores, encima y al pie de la roca.
3. Acercándonos aun más, mirando la hilera de flores encima de esa roca.
4. Y un grupo de flores al pie de una roca.

Las flores se parecen entre sí, y no las he podido identificar. Pero fíjate en los frutos casi listos; estos se llaman silicuas. Las de las flores encima de la roca son largas; las de las otras tienen una forma ovalada.

Había también otras, más chicas aun, el tamaño de la cabeza de un alfiler.

Y una mapa del complejo de lagos, bajando al rio.

At Cromers Corner

 Most of Vancouver Island terrain is standing on edge.

Roadside cliff face. The hill rises 100 metres here in a distance you could throw a stone across. And then goes on to rise some more behind the trees.

More vertical rocks.

And the view from the other side of the road. A steep drop to the lake.

Cromers Corner is not identified on any map. It's about halfway down Upper Campbell Lake.

And as you continue down the lake, the hills only get higher, the cliffs more vertical, the shoulders of the road narrower (or non-existent); every so often, there's a pullout, wherever the road builders could wrangle a bit of a flat spot, so that slower, more cautious drivers can allow others to pass. There are no passing lanes for most of the crossing of the island and the yellow line down the centre is solid; don't dare pass; visibility is only as far as the next curve, a few car lengths away.

The road curves and curves and curves again, following creeks and lakeshores. Driving it is a good shoulder workout.

I could drive this every day. I find it relaxing. Others' mileage may vary.

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El terreno en la Isla de Vancouver se dispone verticalmente por la mayor parte. Estas fotos muestran la vista desde un punto en la carretera a la mitad del lago Upper Campbell. Grandes fachadas de piedra, montando 100 metros en una distancia por el cual podrías aventar una piedra.

Mientras sigues la carretera hacia el oeste, los cerros se erigen más altos, los precipicios se imponen aun más, y la carretera se vuelve más angosta, casi sin bordes. De vez en cuando hay unos metros de tierra plana, donde los constructores del camino forjaron un lugar en donde puedas salir del camino y dejar pasar carros que tienen más prisa, o menos cuidado. No hay carriles para rebosar; la linea amarilla en el centro del camino es sólido. No te atrevas a pasar, cruzando esa linea; no se puede ver más adelante de la próxima curva, apenas distante unos cuantos metros.

El camino da vuelta y da vuelta y da vuelta de nuevo, siguiendo riachuelos y el borde del lago. Manejarlo es recibir un buen masaje de los hombros.

Yo podría manejar esta ruta todos los dias, con gusto. Me descansa. (No todo el mundo estará de acuerdo.)

Lumpy cliffs

The highways crossing the island follow valleys and lake shores. But the terrain is standing on end, so the road usually runs along a narrow shelf; water at the bottom of a slope on one side, almost vertical rock faces or towering forest on the other, with only a narrow shoulder or ditch separating road from rock. I watch the rock faces as much as I do the lake views.

A wide spot on the highway beside Buttle Lake. Goldenrod, cliffs, forest.

At one spot along the Buttle Lake shore, the rock face turns lumpy, pillowy.

Brown and blue rock.

It looks like something made out of PlayDough.

Same rock, slightly different angle.

I don't remember seeing rock like this before.

Another face, a few curves down the road.

A few more turns, and the cliff faces returned to "normal".

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Las carreteras que cruzan la isla siguen el agua; ríos y lagos. Pero porque el terreno está tan accidentado (mi mamá decía que era una mesa, pero con las patas para arriba), los caminos normalmente ocupan un corte angosto, con el agua allá abajo de un lado, y los bloques verticales de roca del otro.

Me paso mucho del tiempo mientras manejo, mirando esas caras rocosas.

Al lado del lago Buttle, vi estas rocas algo raras; parecen bolas de plastilina todas amonotonadas juntas.

Solid comfort

I find masses of rock, the bones of the earth, curiously comforting. Maybe it's their indifference to the passing whims of wind and weather and the feeble scratchings of people below them. Maybe it's because they're always just there, while the centuries roll over them.

Mount Flannigan, Elk River, central Vancouver Island.

Rivers wander about, chewing at the land they flow through, changing their paths, rising and falling. The rocks remain.

In a valley near the Elk River

Summer brings a froth of green around the base of the mountains; evergreens blanket the upper slopes. Even they come and go. The rocks remain.

The face of Mount Flannigan

Somehow, amid the panics and enthusiasms of the day, a look at a rock face slows time, calms me.

No-name hills behind Drum Lakes (really two small, shallow puddles, but the map names them.) Rising water levels have killed the lower trees.

Photos on a rainy afternoon near Gold River.

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Contemplando la roca, la materia esencial de nuestra tierra, me trae consuelo. Tal vez por su indiferencia a los accidentes del día, el viento y las tormentas, los rasguños que hacemos los humanos, el paso de los años.

Los ríos vienen y se van, cambian su camino, suben y bajan. La roca permanece.

Lo verde es una espuma que pasa. La roca permanece.

Entre los terrores y los entusiasmos del día, miro la cara de una montaña y descanso.

Las fotos son de cerros al lado del Rio Elk, en una tarde lluviosa.

It's a jungle in there

"Rugged". That word comes up repeatedly in descriptions of Vancouver Island's terrain. And with reason.

Bear Creek wetland creek, off Oyster River. The circles in the water are from resident salmon.

Processing photos from Tuesday's trip to the salmon hatchery, I was impressed again by how impenetrable our bush is. The photo above is in an area that has been logged off repeatedly, cleared, cleared again; "managed". It is barely a dozen steps from the holding tanks for salmon fry (I was standing on the plank bridge beside the first tank), a stone's throw (thrown by me, with my old, gimpy shoulder) from the fence and the Oyster River Enhancement Society main office.

And yet: try walking through that! Scrambling, rather, sometimes using both hands as well as feet. Carefully, though; there's Devil's Club in those bushes, amply deserving of its name, and cunningly disguised as harmless thimbleberry bushes. And sudden pit traps, hidden under coats of moss or dead leaves. And trailing blackberry vines to grab your ankles and tip you over. And fallen trees barricading any clear spaces, clear only because the tree knocked over the Devil's Club on the way down.

The creek looks walkable, but watch out for waist-deep silt pools, looking as if they're only inches deep. And slippery, slidy slime. And more fallen branches, only half-anchored in the mud, ready to roll underfoot or to jump up and swat you. You'll need a good, sturdy stick; two feet aren't enough.

A few steps up the slope: cleared space beside the gate. Maple, cedar, evergreen fern, young alders, and blackberries. There are always blackberries. Give it a couple of years, and you'll need a machete to get to the sign.

It's the rain that does it. The rain, and the mild seasons, never too hot, never too cold. The rain and the mildness and the "intricate topography" (another synonym for "ruggedness"). And the isolation: a ten-minute drive from the populated coast takes us into bush untouched by anyone but the occasional loggers and fishermen. Who mostly stay on the trails, because it's too hard to cross that bush without land-clearing machinery.

It's bear country. The bears had been at the tanks the night before we arrived, leaving the leftovers from their breakfast for the ravens and the crawdads. They walk through this bush as if it were a highway. On all four feet, of course. And wearing thick, protective, furry armour against the Devil's Club.

Wild forest floor

I grew up on Vancouver Island, in the northwest coastal forests, dense, lush, and silent, only marginally tamed along the edges. Across a creek that ran under my bedroom, a creek we crossed on a fallen tree, crawling (me) or dancing (my brothers) according to our sense of balance and scorn of danger, and through a hollow log that traversed a salmonberry thicket, we came out onto a fern- and moss-blanketed cathedral: unlogged Douglas firs, yards across at the base, towering high into the rainy clouds overhead. My brothers would race on through; I tended to find a dryish log and sit there a while, just listening.

On the Ridge Trail, I followed a sort of trail off the main trail; a deer track, maybe, looking for mushrooms. There were none visible, and I didn't want to disturb the moss, but stepping carefully around mossy roots and huge ferns, I got a brief flashback to my childhood wanderings. This was the forest floor I knew of old.

Healthy forest, mixed evergreen and deciduous, probably third-growth, after two or more loggings.

The trees on the ground are as essential to the health of the forest as the standing timber; they provide nutrients and shelter to new growth and the animals that make it their home. The moss on top soaks up the rain, releasing the moisture slowly to the thin layer of soil underneath; these forests sit on rock, sometimes barely under the surface duff. Without the moss, they would dry and burn with the first lightning stroke.

Evergreen fern.

It's not an ecosystem hospitable to humans, my brothers notwithstanding; any human trails are made with chain saws, constant monitoring, frequent traffic. Abandoned for a year or two, they disappear.

Sometimes I wonder at the early explorers who made their slow way across the continent, following ridges like this one, rivers like the one in the valley below, clambering at every step over slippery logs, stumbling into hidden holes, sinking through wood that seemed solid and turned out to be mostly wet rot, trying to find a dry, flattish spot to sleep after an exhausting day. Or at today's firefighters; at least they have helicopters and chain saws, but it's still a daunting task.

Much of Vancouver Island is logged off now, sometimes repeatedly. Entire mountain sides lie open to the sun and wind, the moss dry and brittle, the ferns dying. With the added burden of a warming climate, they are a bonfire waiting for the first match. I'm not looking forward to our next fire season.

Looking up

Most of Vancouver Island, on a map of the terrain, looks like that piece of aluminum foil that you gave up trying to flatten out.

Central Vancouver Island, Buttle Lake to the west coast.

The two highways on the north end follow valley floors and skirt the shores of lakes, and rarely climb more than 200 metres (600 some odd feet)*, but the view from those highways is mostly vertical.

Hwy 28, on the shore of Upper Campbell Lake, looking southwest.

The same spot, looking back towards Campbell River.

And looking through the trees at the lake and the mountains on the far side.

A bit further down the highway, sun and shadow on the upper part of a cliff face.

*Logging roads don't follow this rule. They go where the trees are.