We took a walk in the rain in Byrne Creek Ravine Park in Burnaby, BC, today. It appeared conditions were perfect for fungi, as we saw many varieties.
Note: Don’t ask me which are safe, I just take photos! : -)
We took a walk in the rain in Byrne Creek Ravine Park in Burnaby, BC, today. It appeared conditions were perfect for fungi, as we saw many varieties.
Note: Don’t ask me which are safe, I just take photos! : -)
We took an overnight trip up the Sea to Sky. Here’s Alice Lake in the rain. . .
Hooded Mergansers
Sigh. . . I have two pairs, and one pair was so worn with multiple patches that it finally bit the dust.
With some vacay days to use up, we’re doing some daytripping around the BC Lower Mainland. Today we rambled Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver. Nice to visit on a weekday, with few people around. Super day!
Black Oystercatchers
Harbour Seal
After taking in a Metro Vancouver tour of the Capilano watershed/reservoir (see previous post), we headed out on our own and walked the Coho Trail along the river.
We took in a Metro Vancouver watershed tour today. We visited the Capilano Watershed, getting a behind-the-scenes look at where much of our drinking water comes from in the Vancouver/Lower Mainland area of BC.
It was fun and informative — highly recommended. We’d been to the Cleveland Dam several times before, but had not taken the tour into some of the restricted parts of the waterhed.
Also cool to see some signs of early water supply infrastructure still visible though slowly being reclaimed by the forest. . .
Capilano Dam spillway
Reservoir
Masks optional on the bus — most folks were still wearing them
Interesting seeing the forest gradually reclaiming old infrastructure from long ago. Settling ponds, a furnace for thawing frozen filters . . .
Testing the structural integrity of a back-country bridge : – )
Bear calling card
Looks like a Sapsucker was at work?
Rotary traps for moving fish
Nets for moving fish
Bald Eagle in the mist
Another Eagle
I got a summer weekends gig through early October being an Ambassador on ParkBus that picks up hikers in downtown Vancouver and delivers them to Joffre Lakes past Pemberton on the Sea to Sky.
I give them the standard “don’t pick any flowers, pack out your garbage, and don’t pet the grizzly bears” orientation before sending them off .
They’re on their own to hike as many of the lakes as they’re able in five to six hours, and then I make sure everyone gets back to the bus and bring them home.
The Joffre Lakes trails have gotten crowded over the years, so First Nations, Parks, etc., got together and came up with a management plan.
You now need a (free) permit to hike the lakes to limit congestion, and services like ParkBus are helping to reduce vehicle traffic and parking.
It makes a lot more sense to transport up to 50 or so folks on a bus than having, say, 25 dual-occupancy private cars making the trip.
For several years now, a popular topic has been pondering “what brings you joy?”
And I don’t mean socks neatly rolled and arranged in drawers in color-coded series .
The answer for me is simple — being outdoors in nature.
Increasingly arthritic knees and hips be damned (I have good days and not so good ones in that department), within a minute of being out the front door and on my way down a Byrne Creek trail in SE Burnaby, BC, my spirits soar.
Rain or shine.
Let me see a salmon spawning, an eagle soaring, an owl silently staring, and my aches melt away.
It’s that endorphin surge of excercise and the primal heightening of the senses.
We are blessed here in Burnaby, with many salmon-bearing streams and a variety of parks with varied ecosystems.
Forests? Yup. Meadows? Uh-huh. Rivers and streams? Check. Lakes? Roger. Saltwater inlets? Sure.
I walk at least an hour a day, sometimes two or three, as work and other committments allow.