Sombrio Beach

Oct, 12, 2011:

I have some extra days off this week due to Canada's Thanks Giving holiday and work giving me an extra day off due to having had me caged for over 12 years.  I wrangled Brett out of the house and we drove up the coast to Sombrio Beach.  The weather was iffy so we packed our water proof stuff and some extra socks, but it turned out we needed less layers rather than more.  The hike made us sweaty, specially the climb back up to the parking lot.

After walking down from the parking log you can go right or left... to the right you cross this odd little suspension bridge over the creek.  It's quite bouncy for such a small structure.

 

All along the cost the creek mouths open into the sea in these slightly wider, deeper areas.  It can be quite dark in the creek due to the forest being so dense and then the beach gets this dramatic brighter line of light.

 

It was a bit misty, but sunny at the same time as we walked through the woods toward the beach.

The wet weather of the coastal rainforest softens up any fallen tree allowing them to become nurse logs for many other species.

We were many kilometers south of the world famous West Coast Trail but this bit of trail we were on reminded me of the notoriously muddy conditions the WCT experiences.  We trod around this bit gingerly being a couple of nancy boy, dry sock types.

 The wave action was causing water to surge up into the creek mouth.  It really brought to mind the power of water.  I kept on thinking about Tsunamis and how the water would rush up the creek.  The whole of Vancouver Island is vunerable to potential Tsunami and all the little communities are putting together action plans with little signs going up on escape routs on roads etc.

 There were some surfers out in the waves.  We never did see one get up, they all seemed to be waiting for a good wave to come by.  It seems a rather cold and soggy way to spend a day to me.  I've been in the water on the island here and it's damned cold!  I know they're wearing wet suits but what about their hands and faces?

The gulls were having a fun time of it.  The waves were big but the wind wasn't strong.  This means they could fly about lots and pick through all the rack on the beach for good stuff to eat.

 

Some of the waves were rather big.  Catching them with the camera was surprisingly hard.  These two are about the best I managed to nab.

Back onto the path and up toward the other side of the beach we found this very sharp turn with a walkway and railing.  The huge leaning tree helped frame it on the left.

A short trek later we saw this huge tree that had fallen over.  We had some really bad wind storms all up and down the island last winter and this tree could have very well come down then.  The contractor for the park has obviously sawed the thing so one is left wondering if it could maybe have be felled on purpose to avoid it falling on someone.

Back out onto the beach further south.  It seemed to be a bit more of a shallow slope here and consequently the waves rushed way further up the beach.  A couple of times we had to run to avoid a dousing.  The water on the west coast can be quite dangerous and every now and then we hear in the news of someone who's been washed away by a wave.

We wanted to get further down the beach than this but just around the corner from this small point the waves were crashing right up against the cliff.  We didn't want to chance a run over the water saturated gravel to get to the other side so we took some pictures from here of the cliff in the background before turning back.  It's too bad we couldn't get further as Brett says there are some caves further along the beach.  Next time we'll have to access the beach from the lower road and see if we can get to the caves from that side.

The water was really crashing on the cliffs and rocks further down the beach... my zoom isn't quite good enough to do it justice, however, when I got the pics downloaded I noticed that the camera had caught people on those rocks being pounded so heavily by the surf!

There were masses of flies on some parts of the beach.  They were all eating kelp and sunning themselves on the rocks.  Lord knows what'll happen to them all when the bad weather of winter arrives.

The kelp was all over the beach.  It made walking very slippery in spots.  most had the hold fasts (roots) ripped from the rocks they cling to but every now and then we'd come across some kelp still fastened to rocks.

On the way back I noticed this twisted stump with all kinds of beach stones on top.

Brett kept on insisting we try to find the trail up in the bush.  We found 3 outhouses and lots of camp sites and many many dead ends.
I also found these fairly tall, thin reed-like plants with the sun coming through them.

And finally we're back at an actual trail!  Sweating and bespeckled with bits of twig and fern I snapped one last picture of the beach before we climbed the trail back to the car.  20km up the highway is Port Renfrew where I had some very excellent halibut and chips and Brett had a bbq'd steak wrap.  After lunch is was back home for a sit down and late night salad for dinner.

Arrival: Myra Falls

We drove around the lake and found the road to the Myra Falls Parking lot.  As you can see from the phot of the map, Myra Falls is not in Strathcona Provincial Park but in Strathcona Westmin Provincial Park.  There are two parks with similar names.  The government split off part of the original park, tacked the name of a mining company onto the original name and created a class B park which allows mining.  So they cheapened the park in order to dig up some rocks.

We took the less travelled, upper path and this lead us onto a rather narrow and treacherous path.  "Caution be damned" seems to be Brett's motto when it comes to potentially lethal falls off of tall rockfaces into churning water.  He's always got to get some shot of white water in some gorge sure to kill a body if a body does fall in.  Yes, he did take a bit of a slip that made me gasp.  MY CAMERA!

The falls drop several times before they get to the main pools.  This log, once a full sized tree, had been washed down to its present location.  Winter must see even stronger water flow.

The trail then lead us back away from the perilous cliffs and down this rather steep and narrow path.  Skittering all the way we managed not to fall or otherwise tumble our way down.

The path lead down to the upper of the two main pools.  Everywhere I go I run into German tourists.  True to form there was a gaggle of them at the falls.  Having talked to friends from Germany they have told me everyone there loves Canada because we have so much wild area left.

 

This  moth had lost its life in a very calm little side puddle.  Usually I'll check out stuff like this to see if the animal is still alive and if I can possibly help out.  Having poked it to ensure it wasn't in need of assistance I got the gamera rigged for close up shots and took this one.

Below the last pool the river starts to cut a bit of a gorge away again.  The rock layers have given way to look like steps.

The cut lets the river down into Buttle Lake.

 

We had an earthquake up island and off the west coast last week.  At 6.4 it wasn't strong enough to cause any damage but it was felt as far away as Vancouver.  I never feel these things.  I've also been known to sleep through houses burning to the ground across the street.  This shot shows a good illustration of how the the earth can bend things up.  Look how arched this bit of rock is!

Further Down Buttle Lake, Swimming and Myra Falls (far view).

After the stroll up to Lupin Falls we got back into the car and continued down the lake.

 

We stopped at a little beach with this weird sort of nurse log thing going on.  I ran up to the car and got my towel.  Ran back down to the beach, ripped off my clothes and hobbled quickly down into the water.  The rocks were big and sharp, the water was cold and numbing.

So fo course that good Brett snaps a shot of my painful and concentrated exit from the water!  I lumbered out... stepped on something very sharp... flopped down on my towel and laid back to warm up just a little.  After drying off I gathered up my clothes and go dressed.  We hopped back into the car and continued down the lake road.  Then we saw it!

 

Myra Falls.  This photo is taken from across the rather large Buttle lake with my rather pitiful telephoto lens.  Still, you can see what an impressive set of falls it is.  We both agreed we had to try to find a way over there.  Luckily it ended up that the road took us right to it.

More of the falls in the next post.

Gimp Foot

In 2004 I was returning home from a little bit of skinny dipping up at Salisbury Lake way out past Mission when my car was hit by an approaching car who had crossed the center line.  The other car crushed in the driver's side of my car.  My driver's side wheel was bent into the wheel well, which caved in, smashing into my ankle and busting it into many little bits.  My car spun around 2 and a half times and came to rest pointing back the way I had come.  While waiting for the ambulance to arrive some yahoo drove by and shouted out the window, "Sucks to be you!"  I was wisked off to the hospital where I waited 2.5 days for surgery to bolt, plate and screw my ankle back together.

I woke up with my leg wrapped in this nice clean white bandage.  Other than the pain of recovery all seemed peachy!

My surgeon, Dr. Tracy Hicks told me to invert my crutch and hook it under my toes and pull back.  This would increase the range of mobility I would have after healing.  Some people seem to have a problem with Dr. Hicks.  I don't.  He fixed my ankle, wrote a very good report for my lawsuit against the other driver and was always positive and joking when I had to attend the casting clink for check ups.  My theory as to why people don't like him is that he doesn't suffer whiners and many people who are injured are huge crybabies.  People also expect to come out the other side of major body trauma with no ill effects.  This simply does not happen.  People need to get over it and stop blaming doctors who do good work.

 

Inevitably I had to take the dressing off.  What lay underneath was truly disgusting.  The tissue was all kinds of bruised colours from black to yellow.  They'd stapled my incisions closed and the stretching had pulled some of the staples out.  I ended up with a minor skin infection that cleared up be left some extra scarring.  BLECK!

It took 8 months to heel up fully from the injury and even then I was shakey on my feet.  It took some months more to regain my strength and lose the weight I'd put on while laid up.

Lupin Falls

On the opposite side of the Buttle Lake road than the lake is a forested area with a path that leads to Lupin Falls.  This smaller waterfall is quite nice and not actually so entirely tiny.

Here the stream winds through the trees and mossy rocks.

There were lots of dead fall logs in the stream.  Of course the water just flows over and around them.

Brett's been so kind here as to illustrate the scale of things.

A little more zoomed in.

And we finally got to the falls themselves.  There was a main drop then a level bit and then another shorter drop.

 Then we crossed back over the little bridge to climb up a bit of dirt and rock to get to the higher part of the falls.

Woodpeckers had had a field day with this old, dead stump.

There's Brett at the upper area of the falls.  The scramble trail we'd climbed didn't go any further.  We looked around a little bit more, but we'd seen all the good stuff... so it was back to the car and off to see a REAL waterfall.