The journey North, part 2

As a Brit, you feel like you know all about rain (and certainly this year) but, as the West Coast of British Columbia is one of the world's last remaining temperate rainforests, when it rains here, it can be a monsoon-like torrent which has the added bonus of being really quite cold.  This exact combo is what greeted us on our arrival in Bella Coola; undeterred we set off on a 'bear-fari' to see if we could spot any of the large population of black and grizzly bears that inhabit the Bella Coola valley.

BBB

Our second BBB

We struck gold with BBB score of 3 (Bears Before Breakfast) and 1 BAB.  As the road is fairly quiet, and the locals pretty disinterested in bears, the black bears were happily munching dandelions and we got some good snaps.  Then it was time for 'the Hill'; until the 1950s the government proclaimed the mountainsides between Bella Coola and the Chilcotin plateau too steep to build on.  Locals took matters into their own hands and built the last 65km themselves, with up to 18% grades and too steep to tarmac properly it is an exciting gravel drive with unfenced sheer drops to the valley beneath.  Kat and I maintained a calm silence (yes I know, it was a challenge) as Mark honked the horn round every hairpin bend...

No sticking plaster visible

Into the wilds
The Hill conquered we arrived at Nimpo lake to greet our pilot, Tim, sort our gear and board the 1955 Beaver floatplane to Turner Lake, our home for the next two days.  The clouds cleared enough for him to see the lake and drop us off at the small beach, by the three basic log cabins.  As the buzz of his engine faded, it was replaced by the less friendly buzz of mosquitoes, a LOT of mosquitoes.  Mark secured over 50 bites on his left shoulder alone (through his clothes) and went into mild shock for the next hour or so as his body released a ton of histamine. 


George, on the other hand, seemed unconcerned by northern BC's most popular insects.  Sent to 'clear up' the camps and hiking trails of this enormous park every year, George had huge knowledge and affection for the park and immediately bundled us into a canoe to check out the next lake along, the trail replete with moose and bear droppings...

The picture of the trip?

We unwisely chose a meal which required us to be outside cooking for at least 10 minutes, 9 minutes longer than it took the mosquitoes to find us, but were rewarded with the incredible sight of a full moon rising in twilight over the mountains and lake.  Even George said it was a first for him in the park, so I think a total of 57 photos between us was reasonable...

Planes, boats and ...jettys?

Mark steadies the jetty

The rest of our stay was spent zooming around in George's kindly lent motorboat, canoeing and helping George and Tim chainsaw the cables from and move a jetty (for complicated reasons we all ended up 'riding' the jetty as it was towed through the water, not the most aerodynamic of vessels).  The park has had a tough time over the last five years; forest fire, the mountain pine beetle epidemic and floods in 2010 have made the park less accessible (hence the float plane) and made the trails tougher to navigate.  These calamaties have led to a vicious circle of less visitors means less investment in trails and facilities which means less visitors etc.  But if you're lucky enough to be there, it means that you really feel you have the enormity of the park to yourself. 

So a brilliant stay, now for the final flight over the mountains out....

The journey North, part 1

Actually, it wasn't very far North.  When we came, we thought we'd 'explore Canada' - then we realised, actually, it's not just big, it's vast.  So we thought we'd focus on our own province of British Columbia.  But turns out that's pretty big too, about the size of France and Germany combined.  So now we're mainly focussing on southern BC, where people happily drive 2 hours for a nice lunch...  And in that context, although it was an 8 hour drive back to Van from our most northerly point, we still would only have covered the first quarter of the province. 


So the journey.  We planned to copy BC Ferries' vacation route 'the Discovery Coast circle route' pictured left, travelling on two ferries, one float plane and up Western Canada's most notorious road 'the Hill'.  With the ever adventurous Kat game for the challenge (but with an Arbuthnott family gathering to return to at the end) we had an ambitious 6 day timeline...


Leg 1:  Vancouver to Port Hardy

Celebrating no rain, yet...

Ferry number 1 took us across to Vancouver Island with the regular beautiful Friday night sunset on display.  A quick stop at a family campground and we were off up the eastern coast of 'the island' to picnic with my ecologist cousin, E. C. Pielou, who took up sea kayaking at 75 and once woke up in her tent on the arctic tundra to find a wolf gazing in.  Always an inspiration, she updated us on her latest book project and after a bird-filled beach hike, we said our goodbyes to carry on up the coast.  

Our first taste of the remote north was the sign proudly welcoming us to Port Hardy and setting out their priorities underneath 'fishing, logging, mining'.  Our second taste was the panic induced when the BC Ferries port staff asked Kat for her photo ID (passport sensibly left safely in Vancouver) and informed us she couldn't travel without it.  Eventually, in true laid back West Coast style, Kat just signed a declaration that 'I, Katherine Arbuthnott, am Katherine Arbuthnott.  Signed: Katherine Arbuthnott' which served as her passport for the next two days on the 'Queen of Chilliwack ferry'.


Leg 2:  Port Hardy to Bella Coola 

Still no rain!

The last time Kat and I visited a fjord together it was Milford Sound, NZ, and not only could you not see the snow capped mountain peaks surrounding it, you couldn't even see 5 metres in front of your face.  Combined with one of the worst months of June weather in western Canadian history, I was understandably nervous about what the weather gods would bring...

Kat's pretty excited re: no rain

The first night on the ferry was therefore a real treat, incredible views back over to the mainland, the snowy peak of Monarch mountain (see more later) towering over the skyline, and a lacy network of inlets and islands before us.  The night didn't prove so serene; a stern warning over alcohol was delivered; a couple's romantic liasion on the deck resulted in being escorted from the boat the following morning by the Mounties; and the ferry stopped dead at 5am to allow 4 sea kayakers a 'wet launch' into an empty bay.  We slept in the solarium on the floor (no beds provided on the 2 night journey), the stars overhead and the sound of the engines lulling us to sleep (well sort of, mainly just being really noisy).  

Klemtu 'big house'

We spent Sunday cruising up and down the coast line, dropping off people and goods to the tiny and unbelievably remote First Nations communities along the coast.  With no roads to them, no shops and no restaurants, it shouldn't really have surprised us that at our most northerly point, Klemtu, 103 of the 300 inhabitants boarded the ferry as visitors to have their regular Sunday night dinner in the cafe.  Reliant on fishing, some forestry and eco-tourism, most of the communities are trying (actually fairly successfully) to keep their young people from leaving for the big smoke.  But given that if you forget the milk on your monthly  shopping trip to Port Hardy (2 day return journey) I can understand why it might be attractive to leave.  

Yay, our first whale tail!

We, of course, spent a lot of time combing the ocean's surface for whales, although happened to all be dozing when the first humpback whale was announced.  We saw 6 or 7, most very obligingly doing 'the tail thing' just ahead of the ferry.  Bald eagles were a regular, as always on the coast, but our first golden eagle, with juvenile, was a real treat.


The weather turned, later than anticipated luckily, so we spent the second night sleeping in the lounge, waking up at 5.30am to a very rainy Bella Cool, pysching ourselves up for... the Hill...

A tale of two journeys: The South

4000km covered, two mountain ranges crossed and a LOT of big trees. The Jeep has performed admirably on 17 days of travel on two road trips: south along the washington and Oregon coasts to California and north along the misty fjords of British Columbia. 

The South

When Nikki said her only free week was early June, my colleagues' warnings about the potential for  'Juneuary' rang alarm bells. With huge amounts of snow across the western mountains this winter, any kind of hiking was out as many places still had avalanche risks. So with Nikki's Canadian cousin Shelagh on board, we planned a journey along the famous (well, in these parts anyway) Oregon coast; long sandy beaches, rocky bluffs and plenty of wildlife.

A complex visa waiver run in with the US authorities was avoided thanks to my boss's timely warning and Nikki's disarming British chatter.  Torrential rain on night one luckily wasn't represenative of the trip (although the other night of rain did necessitate a retreat from the tent to a yurt) and there were plenty of highlights:

- Incredible long, sandy, undeveloped beaches with tons of picturesque driftwood and rocky out crops. Leftie liberal Oregon decided to keep its 350 miles of beaches public and much is protected as state parks.

- Yet again the vindication of my incessant questioning of locals re wildlife opps: rewarded with immense star filled tide pools, huge colonies of seabirds, seals and sealions and lots of teetering on slippery rocks

- Beer (oregon is the microbrewery capital of N America), ice cream (where else to celebrate Nikki's birthday but with 57 flavours) and everlasting home made cookies

- First encounter with US police in the form of a speeding ticket for Nikki (okay, maybe more of a lowlight for her bank account) in Kurt Cobain's home town - once you've left Eugene as quickly as you can its not hard to see why he was so miserable

- An unexpected sense of remoteness; in crescent city, CA, you're 350km from the nearest big city and cut off from the freeway by the mountains.  They don't follow baseball or ice hockey but the local little league soccer and it felt like the whole town, all generations, attended the trivia night.

- And finally: our first encounter with a real life US marching band, replete with trombones, baton spinning and glitter outfits.

So much fun was had by all in the journey south.  You can check out the photo album here:  Oregon highlights

Next instalment covers the journey north...

Whales, wine and the first bear of 2012

Most Canadians only get 10 days annual leave, 15 if you're lucky. So the 'long weekend' assumes huge importance as a chance to get away and into the outdoors (well, I'm sure some of them use it to visit the Home Depot but the sensible ones go camping).


Luckily long weekends crop up almost every month (much more sensible distribution than the UK) and we've made excellent use of the first two of spring:


Easter time whale watching

Sunset, West Coast style

On the way to the west coast of Vancouver Island (just "the island" to Vancouverites) we had a whistle stop visit with my awesome first cousin twice removed, Chris Pielou (my only known relative with her own wikipedia entry E.C. Pielou wiki entry).  Still hiking and writing books at 87, she is a force to be reckoned with in the sleepy seaside town of Comox and I was touched to be given a signed copy of the latest reprint of her first popular science book 'The World of Northern Evergreens'.  I'm still sorting out my spruces from my pines but I'll get there...

Yes, we think it did walk there

The island's west coast bears the brunt of the northern Pacific Ocean's wind, waves and, with amazing frequency and force, rain.  So we had low expectations of a dry weekend on the drive over (particularly as there was still about 3 feet of snow on the roadside on the passes) and much time was spent rigging up a complex tarpaulin arrangement.


But actually, it turned out pretty nice.  We walked on the huge expanses of sandy beach in the Pacific Rim National Park, watched grey and humpback whales, saw our first sea otter (!) and cooked up on the beach in an amazing sunset.  No coastal wolves yet, but there's always next time...


Wine tasting and rock

Baby vines at the Nichol vineyard

The long weekend towards the end of May heralds the start of Canadian summer.  Proving this wasn't yet firmly embedded enough in our psyche, we headed to the major summer destination in B.C without a campsite reservation.  And, predictably in hindsight, they were all full by the time we arrived in the Okanagan (300km east of Vancouver) at about 11pm after hours escaping the 'burbs so we put a motel night on our flexible friend.


All was resolved by morning, just in time to start out tour of B.C. vineyards.  Little did we realise that the Canadian wine that makes it's way to the Vancouver liquor stores is the bottom of the barrel and they actually produce some excellent wine, particularly whites.  I pretended to know the difference between Bordeaux and Burgundy style and Mark's savvy actually got us some 'below the counter' tastings.  With temperatures in the high twenties, clear blue skies and acres of dry vineyards it felt very European and totally unlike our home turf.  

So they DO put the signs in the right place

We were just about sober enough to run and climb the following day and have a mini night time safari to try to spot bighorn sheep (no luck, but we did see a well placed deer). On the way home the first bear of 2012 made an appearance looking a bit dazed from hibernation.  And luckily dazed enough not to charge a the family of 6 who ran towards it from their SUV...


So, summer has begun (though it's raining as I type this) and next stop is the 300 miles of beaches of Oregon.

Spring has sprung on the West Coast...

Downtown & Island mountains

It's not really a 'Canadian' winter in Vancouver; it only snows in town a few times a year and it's certainly not cold enough for the pond ice hockey they have further north.  But it's still nice when it finishes, so to mark it's passing here are some of our winter highlights (and, unfortunately, lowlights):

• We both learnt to ski.  My initial advantage of 2.5 days of skiing 5 years ago quickly faded as Mark applied his normal training dedication and obsessive internet browsing to   improve his technique.  It was lots of fun until...

• Mark ruptured his posterior cruciate ligament (PCL, twin to the more commonly torn ACL) on our 'final run' at Whistler at the end of February.  Walking wasn't very easy for the first week or so but he is now back in action with some light hiking and running with a mega carbon fibre knee brace.  He might need an operation when we get back to the UK, but we're still planning lots of adventures (just with a bit less brutal downhill)  

Me post race with running buddies

• I trained hard for my first 25km trail race on the North Shore mountains.  The 1700m elevation was pretty punishing, but not as much as tweaking my knee on the final stretch - bit of a limp home but still really pleased with my progress.  Next up is another 25km race in May in preparation for the big one, 50km, (12.5km straight up a mountain, eeek!) in August.

• Despite occasional 'Baker days' (when you can see the huge and snowy Mt Baker 100km away in Washington State), it rained A LOT, which I guess at least topped up the reservoirs...

• We had our first visitor, the fab Nicky Smith who had just finished being very clever at a 'ski conference' in Colorado (where there was no snow) and then almost drowned in powder (the rain does have its uses at altitude) at Whistler.  And she reports our sofa bed is pretty comfortable for anyone planning a visit....

From Bowen Island

So, that was our first Canadian winter, next year we will try to get somewhere properly cold (I asked someone from the Yukon Law Society if they were having nice weather in February and she said 'yup, it's been above -40degrees for 3 days' now so think we need to try a bit of that...).  We've already made our first camping expedition for 2012 (see next post) so hopefully we'll have many more sunny days to come... 

Yellowstone in Winter: part 2

Flushed with our success of day one, we happily attended the pre-briefing for the rest of our stay, a 3 day wildlife viewing tour led by a former Park Ranger, Anastasia.  We saw an incredible amount throughout our 3 days, here are some of the highlights (not really in reverse order, but definitely ending with #1)...

- Bison up close and personal, blocking the roads a few times, banging heads and generally looking massive.  The guys have much bigger horns than the girls and giant woolly afro hair-dos, although its the ladeez that rule the roost.  Seeing them in the falling snow was not just a bit like being in a David Attenborough doc.  


- Beaver casually swimming down a tributary of the Yellowstone River.  Our first sighting outside of Vancouver and apparently a first for our guide in the park.


- Lots of lovely fluffy coyotes, on the hills, in the long grass and, best of all, watching them listen intently for mice under the deep snow and then leaping through to catch them.


- Huge amounts of elk, every wolf's favourite fast food on hooves, all around the park... which means you also get to see elks after the chase.  Not quite so pretty, but good to see not much goes to waste.

Before

After

- Pronghorn 'antelope' venturing outside the park (pretty brave considering you can buy guns on pretty much every main street and there ain't much else to do 'cept hunt)

Basically an African Savannah

- Wolves, wolves and more wolves:  After our initial success we thought it would be pretty easy to spot them, but the next couple of times they were about half a mile away, only really visible through telescopes.  But on our last afternoon, news of a kill near the roadside reached us.  Despite it being New Year's Eve, we headed to bed early (after a hot tub in the falling snow) and met the another couple from the group (who were both super nice and happen to live in North Vancouver) at 6.30am the following morning.  We headed to the river and gazed at the hillside in the pitch dark straining to catch a glimpse of a furry canine.  After an hour we were losing hope, but then we saw them, wolves on the ridge.  We watched them lounge around after their late night dinner of elk for over 30 minutes only a couple of hundred metres away. So entrancing that we all forgot to take photos!

-  But even that wasn't the #1 highlight.  On our second day, as we stopped at a regular wolf watching haunt we noticed everyone was even more silent than usual.  As soon as we got outside we realised why; the magical sound of a pack of wolves just off the road in the woods, howling in unison.  Much more mournful than we imagined it might be (partly as they may have been trying to cross the road!) and you could clearly hear the different wolves 'voices' at different pitches.  Magic. 


All in all, an immensely good trip.  We're returning in the summer on our road trip round the Western States so let us know if you want to come along for the second look!  

The Park: Yellowstone in winter part 1

Okay, enough about getting there.  What about Yellowstone, made famous by Yogi Bear (remember Jellystone Park?) and an awesome BBC 3 part documentary (basically the reason we went).  


A few quick facts:
- Created in 1872 it was the first national park in the US, and the world.
- At 3,500 square miles it is about 4 times the size of the Lake District
- It sits on what was once the biggest volcano in North America and acts like a giant deep freeze in winter
And...
- Its northern mountain ranges and valleys are (pretty much accurately as it turns out) described as the 'Serengeti of North America'


(WARNING: Look away now if you aren't interested in detailed nerdy wildlife spotting descriptions, read on if you love knowing how to tell bison boys from bison girls...)


The first afternoon

What are they eating up there?

The huge stone gate welcomed us to the Park and within about 4 minutes we spotted our first wildlife; a small group of Bighorn Sheep grazing (though I'm not sure on what) on the steep rockfaces right by the road.  Much more powerful looking than domestic sheep, they didn't seem phased by us, but lucky we stopped for as long as we did as the other times we saw them they were specks in the distance. 

He followed in our footsteps

Feeling pretty pleased with ourselves, we took a short walk from the car in the snow to check out a nearby valley.  We disturbed a large herd of elk (basically red deer but also a bit stockier and with thicker coats) grazing and, as we turned back to the car, a coyote was sneaking over our tracks to a nearby viewpoint.  Our first carnivore!  No photo (don't worry, you'll see them later) but the first of many animal prints in snow of the trip.

Mark was only allowed about 5 minutes to drink coffee when we checked into the hotel in case we missed any other wildlife action.  But as we'd be leaving straight after our wildlife tour we thought we should check out one of the parks 'thermal features' (it has half of all the world's geysers, hot springs, mud pools etc).  The terrace of springs right by the hotel was awesome, huge clouds of steam in the cold air and funky thermophile bacteria coating everything in pyschadelic colours...


Then it was back on the wildlife tour.  Our next encounter was with a group of bison, photos later.  If you've seen buffalo in Africa, think of something bigger, shaggier and with a huge shoulder hump comprised not of muscle but bony fins extending up from the spine.  The hump helps them sway their huge heads through the snow to clear patches to get at the grass underneath.  Seeing them in the falling snow was magic. 

Look hard and you'll see him centre left

But let's be honest, you all know the real reason we were there; to catch a glimpse, just a glimpse, of a wolf as it is supposed to be the best place in the world to see them.  And that's exactly what we did next.  Turns out that there are group of wolf watching devotees in Yellowstone, and if you see their vehicles you are pretty much guaranteed a sighting.  

A much better, but not mine, piccie

Not knowing this, we casually stopped at a roadside pullout and quietly asked the people with huge telephoto lenses if there was much around.  'Have you seen the wolves yet' they replied, pointing at a black and a grey wolf lounging in the snow just two or three hundred metres away... Awesome.  Okay, my photo is rubbish, but you could seem super well through binos!    


to be continued....