Snow in the Sooke Hills

Last week it snowed in the Sooke Hills.

And it was simply beautiful.

 

It’s mushroom season, which is my favorite. So the little mushrooms were covered with ice.

And the rocks had icicles.

My favorite part was that some good samaritan had covered the bridge with metal treads so no one slips when they’re crossing.

It wasn’t even that cold in Victoria, so it was quite fun to drive 30 minutes out of town and get to see winter.

Community driven mapping

I’m a big map-nerd. My office is just covered in backcountry maps of places I’ve been and want to go.  So, I was refreshing my deskop background with a new screenshot of the Sooke Hills from the awesome open-source, community driven Open Cycle maps project … as I often do … and holy cow!  New trails!!!!

Several  months ago, I uploaded GPS coordinates and created trails to Sugar Loaf & Ragged Mountain, which was almost the only thing going on in this section.  Now there are SO MANY to places I haven’t been yet!

What I love about this open-source map is that anyone can upload data and create new trails.  Open Cycle now far exceeds the level of details of mountains of any of the printed maps I’ve found in the library or online.  Community driven mapping rules.

Mt Quimper: Visitor facilities and vandals

So summer is over, which means less time outdoors.  More time to write about being outdoors!

My hiking buddy and I went to Manuel Quimper this weekend.  The CRD has been working on developing visitor facilities since last year, starting with expanding the parking lot.  Recently, an outhouse went up replacing the I’d-rather-pee-in-the-woods-cause-this-is-so-gross Port A Potty.

And even some bear-proof recycling and trash cans.

Yay visitor facilities!  They’ve been building some gravel & pipe “bridges” over the creek that runs along Harbour View Road as well.  I used to take a wide step over them, so they were already pretty accessible.

The trail to Mt Manuel Quimper isn’t marked yet, but it’s already been seeing more traffic.  Or perhaps, a certain kind of traffic.  More specifically, the fire watch tower has been trashed.

Here’s a photo of the tower last year, already pretty weather-worn.  But this summer has brought human-made destruction.

Someone has smashed out a row of glass on the west side of the tower.

The plywood from almost an entire side of the lower tower is has been ripped off, and my guess is used for wood.  I’m taking this photo standing inside the tower itself where the plywood was ripped off, looking out.

I also saw a tree with all of its lower branches sort of half-hazzardly hacked off.

I often see this in backcountry camping spots that are not patrolled.  People will gather the branches that have fallen to the ground and then start sawing off tree limbs to try to make a fire.  In this case, my guess is that once they realized that a limb just sawed off a tree was not going to burn so well, they started ripping off plywood from the tower.

Does easier access have to bring a greater chance for destruction?

My hiking buddy said on Saturday that we’re witnessing the beginning of the end.  Part of me is afraid she’s right.

Part of me thinks maybe this is just part of the natural ebb and flow of things.  I’ve only been hiking in the Sooke Hills for 2 years, so I’m not sure what is was like before that.  Maybe these woods and this mountain top have seen all sorts of destruction I can barely even imagine.  I suppose building a tower in the first place was a kind of destruction to the natural beauty that was already there.

Nature and human made sights in Summit Park

May is here which means it’s wildflower season!  Friends and coworkers have been telling me to check out Summit Park, a beautiful spot right in the city.  As a fellow flickr user shows in their set below, Summit Park is full of fabulous wildflowers.

Summit Park, a set by ngawangchodron on Flickr.

I visited the park at sunset, so the flowers were harder to see.

But I was quickly drawn to this larger than life size graffiti drawing of an ET-like person.

I just love urban-wilderness graffiti.

I don’t like the destruction of private residential or business property.  I always worry about the individuals who have to spend their money to clean up after it.  But this tower in the park is owned by the city and maintained for its citizens to enjoy.  It seems fitting  that this belongs here, as much as the wildflowers do.

Women and the wilderness

We see all types of folks out in the Sooke wilderness area.

There are tons of hikers … some better prepared than others.  Then there are mountain bikers with their beautiful machines. Horseback riders.  Guys on their ATVs.  People with dogs.  We’ve even ran into someone hiking with their cat.

It’s really hard to nail down a certain type of person who enjoys the Sooke wilderness area.

Except, of course, they are almost always men.

Women have always been in the wilderness, though this is still hard for some folks to believe, even now.  In 2010, a Maine paper ran an article declaring the northern woods finally “tame enough” for women to explore.

A group of women were so shocked and offended by the article, they decided to take matters into their own hands.  They hiked the tallest mountain in their state in Victorian skirts and bloomers to honor the early women explorers who climbed Katahdin in the 1800s in those same ridiculous outfits.

Not to mention, of course the Native American women who were there long before the Victorian settlers of any gender.

I’m just left wondering … if we’ve always been exploring, then why does it seem like there are there still so few of us?  In the past year and a half,  I’ve seen girlfriend on the back of ATVs.  Occasionally, I’ve seen a co-ed group of mountain bikers or even hikers.  But rarely, if ever, have I seen another group of women traveling without at least one man.

Where are all the female explorers?

A well placed parking lot.

We did Mt. Manuel Quimper this weekend, which is one of my favorite hikes.  It only takes about 4 hours, so it’s one of the shorter loop trails in the Sooke Hills that still has a good summit.

I again used EveryTrail to track the GPS coordinates and create a cool map.  From our stats, I found out that the elevation change from parking lot to peak is 1600 miles.

I was looking at topo maps of the Olympic Mountains today (Isn’t this every 20-something woman’s hobby?  Looking at topo maps?)  and I found out that the elevation change from one of the trailheads and the peaks of the Olympic Mountains is also only 1800 feet.

Which is hard to believe when you compare these mountains.

 

The Olympic Mountains

 

Mt. Manuel Quimper

I’m feeling very happy about this well placed parking lot in the Olympic Mountains.  And geared up for a fun backpacking trip this summer!  (Just don’t tell anyone about the well placed parking lot.)

 

John Dean Park (made extra awesome by EveryTrail)

Today was a short hike sort of day, so we just popped up to John Dean Park in Sidney for a quick 90 minute loop.  A real park, with a real parking lot, with marked trails.  Next to a suburban housing development.

Not the sort of thing I’d normally have much to write about in my hiking blog. (We saw poodles on leash!  We smelled women wearing too much perfume!)

But I did get a chance to try out this new free iPhone App developed by the creators of the website EveryTrail. This app is so cool!  When you launch the app, you can turn on GPS tracking as you hike.  When you take pictures with the iPhone camera, they are automatically inserted to the place where you took them.  With a few clicks, you can upload a few trail notes and then your trail, maps and pictures are online.

Here’s what I created on my iPhone from our hike in John Dean Park.  It took me maybe all of five minutes, if that.  The map is pretty darn good, too!

I am hoping to use this to track some of the more remote hikes we do.  The only concerns I have is that this 2 hour hike drained my battery down to about 30% capacity.  Also, cell signal is not available everywhere in the Sooke Hills.  However, I did find this guide to Empress Mountain made with the iPhone app.  Empress Mountain is one of the highest peaks in the Sooke Hills that’s quite far away from a road.  It’s easily a 5+ hour trip.  But it seems to be possible!  Stay tuned.

Mt McDonald

We started off with directions from the ever helpful guide on summitpost for Mt McDonald.

We parked at the trailhead for Mt Wells, which being part of a regional park, has a parking lot.  Mt McDonald, though right across the road, is part of the watershed area.  There are no parking lots or official trails for this mountain.  Just the way we like it!

We walked about 500 meters from the parking lot south on Humpback Road until we found an unmarked and well worn path, which would lead us up Mt McDonald.

Unfortunately, we came across not one, but two animal skeletons within the first 10 minutes. This was slightly unnerving.

I do prefer my skeletons sightings in the afternoon, after I’ve had a chance to let my coffee digest a little. Here’s hoping it was some deer that are keeping the wolves and cougar nice and full (and disinterested in hikers).

The climbing was pretty steep right away, but the views made it well worth the effort.  The path was very clearly worn, making the usual searching for tape and blazes unnecessary.

Near the top, friendly hikers had secured ropes to help others get up the steepest parts.

Penny, the adventure dog, was none too pleased about having to be pulled and pushed up the near vertical parts.  But she survived without too much indignity.

There were some awesome rocks, plants, and little tiny waterfalls.

(I was way too into the little tiny waterfalls to take pictures, sorry!)

It took about an hour and a half to get to the summit.

Besides the beautiful views, there were also quite a lot of towers, buildings, and other equipment all protected by a barbed wire fence.  The sign said it was meteorological equipment.

Of course all that equipment meant one thing — an access road!  We decided to follow the road down, as from our maps, it seemed like a shortcut back to the car.

The other side of the mountain still had little piles of snow along the road, which was surprising.

This road did eventually lead us back down to the car, but it took quite a while.  The road we took ended up not being the one on our map — perhaps it was too new.  The blue pin is Mt McDonald, the red pin is Mt Wells and the P is where our car was.  The blue line is my best guess for the the extremely circuitous path we took.  Certainly not a shortcut.

Here’s a shot of Mt McDonald from the side on one of these access roads.  Not too impressive looking.  But my aching thighs are reminding me that it was over 400 meters tall.

The access road took us to the Humpback Reservoir, which until recently was part of Victoria’s water supply.  In 1995, this reservoir was polluted by feces from wild cats giving 100 Victorians toxoplasmosis. (We now get our water from another reservoir.)

This concrete flowline used to carry water Sooke Lake to this reservoir, where it was then transported to Victoria in underground pipes.

I’ve seen parts of this historic flowline in other parts of Sooke, so it was neat to see where it ends.

The reservoir was right next to the parking lot, so we had thankfully found our way home.  Safe and sound and only a little bit damp from the never ending west coast rains.

Bearanoid

One evening in July a few years ago, I came close to walking into what I thought was a large black dog.  It was dusk on a the beach on the Juan de Fuca trail, a few hour drive out of the city.  Many people were still up, eating from coolers.  Letting their dogs romp off leash.  It was an idyllic west coast camping scene.

Within a few seconds, I realized the animal I had stumbled upon was not a domesticated animal.

This was a baby bear.

Being the east coast native that I am, I ran screaming in the opposite direction.  The bear continued leisurely picking over the kelp, enjoying a sea lice snack … paying me no mind.

This was the fifth bear I had seen that summer, one of my first hiking on the west coast.  I started expecting to see a bear every time I left the city.  I was bearanoid, and not totally without cause.

Vancouver Island has one of the highest black bear densities in all of North America.

The next summer, I connected with a new hiking buddy.  She had no fear about bears, so the responsibility fell on me alone to be bearanoid.

One of our first hikes together, we were off into the Sooke wilderness with no other people or trail signs in site.  I knew it was only going to be a matter of time until I stumbled into another bear. And with that in mind, of course I did.

After a four hour hike up beautiful Sugar Loaf, we had made it back to the car in one peace.  I was digging around in my backpack for some nutritious hiking fuel (probably chocolate or beef jerky) still outside of the car. We were parked in a community mailbox area off the side of the highway, near some dense trees.

All the sudden, I heard a loud noise a few feet away from me.  Something large and black rushing towards us.  I started screaming “Beeeeeaaaar!” and yanking on the car handle, which was of course locked.  I was pretty sure we were going to die.  I was going to be eaten by a bear.

My hiking buddy, being the calm, cool and collected person that she is, didn’t move.  She just sort of squinted, standing there calmly.

“It’s a horse.”

A horse?

We had parked next to some farmland that still had quite a lot of trees.  I had stumbled across one of the first and only horse-bear.  And it’s cute little squishy tail had scared the beef jerky out of me.

And you know what — I haven’t seen a bear since.

Harbour View Road

Today we went to Harbour View Rd, which is an old logging road that’s been partially paved.  After a quick drive up the hill, there’s a parking lot, a gate and no more asphalt.  The dirt logging road continues on for miles and miles and endless miles.

We walked to  a favorite spot of ours — a large grouping of alder trees.  They feel magical to me.

Old logging roads are so perfect for horseback riding.  And ATVs. And walking when you’re sick.  You can’t get lost.  No thinking required, no decisions to make.  And they’re pretty flat.

The only thing that could of made it better was if it was spring.  Here’s what this same place looked like in May:

I can’t wait for long, warm, green days!