Whitehorse- Fish Lake

The wind rocked my tent last night and this morning the fresh coat of paint on my camp table was covered in conifer cones and dense yellow pollen.  It was still a bit windy, but the mosquitos were fewer and the ones who had survived the night looked shell- shocked and whined in dizzy loops without finding any exposed skin.  Following the advice of a woman in the visitor center, I drove out past town in search of Fish Lake Road.  According to her the lake was just West of town and there was hiking all over the place, but I wasn’t sure if this meant I could wander wherever or if there were designated hiking areas.  

 

Fish Lake from the road

Fish lake road wound past some kind of utility station, then, at the sign marked “city limit”, dissolved in a dirt road pitted with potholes.  The lake was still frozen in places but it looked like the locals had their boats floating in the thawed areas and were dropping lines between ice packs. I parked and followed a rutted path past a silver truck and into a forest of wind-blown spruce.  Tree roots arched in gnarled clumps from a fine dust and the hobbled trees covered a dark trail that might have been penned by JRR Tolkien himself.  Dark things rustled in the bushes and it seemed as if an army of squirrels was mustering for the charge. 

 

Fish Lake and the short forest

But soon enough the trees broke and I had gained enough elevation that the trail cut through dry grasses and across a rocky plateau.  On my way, I met a group coming down the mountain that told me the trail ended at the next peak. Sure enough, the trail at the base of the peak had disappeared and I began the steep climb up an unmarked scree field.  In places, a dense cover of lichen and moss grew over the stones and climbing was easy, but in others the jagged stones sat precariously balanced on the incline.  A thick snowfield circled the summit like the receding hairline of a white-haired man. The snow was was deep and I was in shorts, so I climbed a rocky pinnacle and snapped a few pictures before heading back down. 

From the peak

Whitehorse- Grey Mt

Whitehorse has a visitor center in the proud tradition of impeccable Canadian visitor centers.  I stopped there to find out about local hiking and was given a comprehensive brochure on treks in the area.  Among the suggested was Grey Mountain, a rounded peak with a grey pate just to the East of the city.  The trailhead marked its summit at 704 meters and about 6 miles from parking to peak.

The steamboat in downtown Whitehorse that has been converted to a museum

 

A service road wound up from the parking area, around a foothill, between tall pines and birch trees, and to the cell phone tower on the lower summit.  As I hiked, the wind whispered through the tree tops and walked behind me so that I had to turn several times to reassure myself I was  alone on the trail. The trees shrank as I climbed and the brush thinned until I was walking along the bare face of Grey Mt.   Patches of snow lined the shaded crevasses between rocks and refused to melt in the hot midday sun.  People and animals had stepped in the snow and the prints had melted and refrozen into soft outlines of tracks in long lines.  Past the cell tower, a path continued along the ridge to the peak in muddy lanes carved out of spongy plants.  These plants dampened the sound of my feet and gave way with a dry crackle that was loud in the still air.

The view from Grey Mt.

 

The peak was a broad expanse of boulders arching their backs from the green like waking trolls and when I sat to admire the view, I noticed a small brass circle hammered into the rock.  “Azimuth mark US Coast & Geodetic Survey” was chiseled into the metal, “For information write to the director Washington DC”.  Under it was inscribed 1943, a token from the survey team working on the Alaska Highway I guess.

Laird Hot Springs and Watson Lake

I saw my first wild Bison munching grass beside the road on my way to the Laird hot springs.  Farther along the road, a group of big horn sheep had come down from the mountain to lick salt off the road and as I drove past, they watched me with bugged eyes. At the Laird hot springs, sulfurous waters bubble up from the ground in large marshy flats where lake chub (a kind of fish) have evolved to thrive in the warm waters.  Even during winter months the marsh doesn’t freeze. According to a sign, moose frequent the area, coming to find marsh greens that are higher in mineral content. I didn’t see any moose along the wooden boardwalk out to the hot spring pools, but I did see more than a few older folks boiled lobster red from a combination of  the hot water and the sun.

The drive after Laird hot springs took me out of the mountains, into the Yukon Territory, and to Watson Lake, the first city since Ft. Nelson.  I was ready for a good meal, having spent the last few days subsisting on a 5 lb bag of granola because I forgot to buy groceries in Ft. Nelson. With a meal of chicken and potatoes and a jaunt around the signpost forest and through the local railroad museum, I was back on the road, heading for the Teslin Lake campground.

Signpost Forest in Watson Lake

Overlooking the city of Teslin

Moberly Lake to Muncho Lake

It was late in the day by the time I reached the Moberly Lake campground, but as far as I could tell, there was only one other group in the facility.  Of all the campsites, this had the nicest location.  Although lacking in showers or even running water, the best spots in camp sat on little gravel platforms with clear views of the lake.  As I set up my tent, the evening sun was still high in the sky and a light breeze picked up tiny waves all across the water. 

The next morning I had a big drive planned.  I was crossing the “boring part,” as a visitor center attendant called it, and cutting through the mountains far to the North, past Ft. Nelson.  As it turns out, today’s drive was probably the most uniform scenery for such a long stretch that I’ve seen so far.  Hill after hill rolled by, carpeted with a continuous spruce forest.  By the side of the road, the cleared sections had giant furrows carved in where spring creeks had run through grassy hills.  I saw some black bears sitting by the road, munching whatever was growing in the cleared sections between highway and forest.  They reminded me of giant toddlers who were perfectly happy sitting almost cross- legged in the grass. 

After Ft. Nelson, the scene changed to Birch forests and more lumbering bears.  According to the man at the info center in Ft. Nelson, there were more bears than people in the Northeastern section of BC and I was about to drive through what he called the “Serengeti of the North.” I was skeptical, but on the road from Ft. Nelson through the mountains, my bear count grew to 14 and I saw two more moose if you count the one keeled over on the side of the road. With the size of that moose, I wonder how the car that hit it looked. At Toad River, I couldn’t find any campsite, provincial or otherwise, so I headed on and landed at Muncho Lake for the night.  This site was similarly deserted, but with a few more RV’s and an even better view than last night.  Before I fell asleep, I saw the snowy mountain opposite my camp was reflected in the perfectly calm water.  According to a brochure I picked up in Ft. Nelson, the electric blue of Muncho Lake is the result of dissolved copper oxide.

Muncho Lake the first evening

 

Muncho Lake the next morning

 

As I woke up the next morning, I could hear what sounded like glass wind chimes or someone sorting through a recycling bin. I unzipped my tent, the chilly air showing my breath and making my nose run, and I saw that lake had frozen over.  When the sun rose, the ice broke apart and thinned with the sound of falling glass.  I pumped up the inflatable kayak I brought and launched into the lake, each paddle stroke through the chunks of ice giving a different  chime.

100 Mile Post and Quesnel

I stopped today in 100 Mile Post (it’s a city), named for the mile marker along the Canadian gold trail with its epicenter in Lilooet.  Considering the number of lakes in this area, I was sure that I’d have some luck fishing, so I decided to stay overnight, fish the afternoon, and then camp at the Luc du Hache provincial park.  When I arrived at Luc du Hache, the afternoon was sunny and my campsite looked across the highway at the shimmering waters of the lake.  I set up my tent and pulled out my solar camp light and was pausing to admire the view when a dense cloud passed over the sun.  Within seconds mosquitos appeared and surrounded me. Not 50 or 60 but clouds of them. So many that I jumped into my car to get away, taking out my frustration on the few that clung to my clothes and whined against the insides of my windows.  The air was so thick with them that the telephone lines 100 feet away were slightly blurred and I realized now that the ground squirrels chirping at me as I set up my tent were yelling warnings.  So after a few minutes of thought I wrapped a scarf around my head, jumped out of my car, threw my tent in pieces into my car, and hightailed it out.  I figured I’d drive until I stopped seeing marshy water and I left the mosquitos behind.

I didn’t stop until almost 8 pm and I’d passed Quesnel (pronounced Qwenel) by a few miles.  Spotting 10-mile Provincial Park, I pulled over and was so happy that they had not only a fishing lake and relatively few mosquitos, but that they had showers (with warm water!).  After the biting mess that was Luc du Hache, 10-mile lake was a paradise.

Lilooet

I woke up this morning from a dream about a waterbed, but when I opened my eyes it still felt as if I was sloshing around.  The night before, the rain was light but I had picked a nice hill between the roots of a tree, figuring it would keep most of the rain off.  While I slept the rain kept steady and now the hill I had chosen was the sloped shore of a small lake.  Luckily, I had bought a new and apparently waterproof tent, because my old tent would have had me swimming.  Still, my things were damp and the continued rain made it so that no matter how I tried to pull my tent from the lake, the canvas and tarp stayed soaked.  So I wrapped it all in a towel and threw it in my trunk. 

Frustrated and soaked to the core, I got in my car and drove to Whistler but the rain kept up so I kept driving.  Miles farther, the road began climbing between towering forests of giant trees and mist and rain.  I wound around hairpin turns between mountain peaks and eventually the rain stopped. The sun was out and waterfalls lined the road and as I passed through misty rainbows, water condensed on my windshield and sheeted past my windows.  As I passed higher into the mountains, the trees began to thin and granite cliffs parted as I passed.  Ranches cropped up in dry corners between hills and the mood changed so quickly that I forgot the maelstrom I had emerged from. 

Marble Canyon Lake

It was through this scene that I wound, past sheer drops off loose gravel to rivers hundreds of feet below.  Signs that had just warned for avalanches now posted caution for rockslides.  And then, as I rounded a bend past a hydro plant and dam, I looked into a valley and spotted the small city of Lilooet.  I stopped for gas without planning to stay long, but as I was pulling out of town I noticed signs for a winery.  Curious, I pulled over to ask how they grew grapes in such a cold climate, but the woman at the winery said that the weather was dry and mild.  There was rarely snow in winter and summers were no more than 100 F.  At the suggestion of the winery folks, I decided to make for the free BC Hydro campsite, just beside the BC Hydro Dam.  Looping back through town I crossed the Fraser River, famous for its prehistoric looking sturgeon.  Up to 12 feet and over a ton (according to a sign) these behemoths trolled the bottom of the river and are an exciting sport fish although it’s exclusively catch and release. 

With the late afternoon light, the mountains above the camp glowed red and orange in geologic layers and the warm sun dried my tent in minutes.  A warm wind whispered and howled through rocky valleys and lifted the edges of my tent so that I had to line the inside with large river stones.  Basking in the evening glow, I finally had my chance to dry off.

 

Squamish and “The Chief”

About an hour from Vancouver, Squamish sits at the end of the Howe Sound and boasts an impressive number of outdoor or extreme sports.  Salmon fishing charters head out just south of town, kite boarders use the high winds in the summer to launch off the ocean, rock climbers scale the granite peaks, and there seems like an endless number of hikes.  Add to that the grand scenery of granite cliffs rising steeply from the ocean and a short drive to Vancouver and you have the perfect little resort town, without the notoriety of Whistler.

Squamish from sea level

I spent two nights here in a sleepy little campsite just across the road from Shannon falls and directly beneath an uncomfortable number of power lines.  The stone face of “The Chief” dominated the mountain above me and I made an afternoon hike up to two of the three “Chief’s” peaks.  Rising 700 meters, the six-ish mile trail climbed wooden stairs then continued, winding between fallen trees and across makeshift bridges, before it ended abruptly at the bald head of “The Chief”.  As I scaled the steep granite, tiny reflective plates hammered into trees growing every hundred feet or so kept me on track.  The third peak might have been the tallest, but a segment on my loop to the second peak had the best view.  It dropped off so suddenly that I found myself 5 feet from the edge, looking down maybe a thousand feet.  According to the lady at the information center, slack line professionals had been teetering across up there earlier in the year. 

 

On the way up "The Chief"

I saw a photo of this gap with a man slack-lining across.  In the background is Squamish.

Seattle in a Day

I started my drive today along the Hood Canal past stacks of shucked oyster shells, down to Olympia, and then back North again to Seattle.  As soon as I got off the highway it was apparent that although Seattle was clean and beautiful, parking would be a nightmare. My first stop was an hour (dictated by the parking meter) to run through the Frye Museum.  East met West in a display of four colleagues’ paintings from the interlude between World Wars.  I finished in the museum and pulled my car away from the curb as a meter maid was counting down minutes on my car.  I found another lot down town where I parked for the afternoon and headed to the Seattle Art Museum. The outdoor sculpture garden was a collection of fantastic shapes reaching towards a blue sky with perfect mushroom-cap clouds.  Tall buildings stood out against the skyline and from my vantage on the waterfront, it seemed as if they were the background of a two dimensional city.  

Oyster shells and the Hood Canal

 

Seattle Art Museum's sculpture garden and Seattle skyline

I strolled along until I reached Pike’s Place, a market hosting the famous fishmongers and a variety of other boutiques and jewelry shops.  Inside, I bought some postcards from a gentleman with a unibrow who had adopted an accent that made him sound like a close relative of Count Dracula.  A woman in his shop visibly started when he spoke to her from his vantage behind the bookshelves.  I left and meandered up to the top level, where I saw the fishmongers invite a girl up behind their counter and instruct her in the ways of fish flinging. To her credit, she didn’t drop the beheaded salmon that was tossed to her, but she must have caught some of the smell because she wasn’t behind the counter for long.  Back down to the lowest level, I stopped in a jewelry shop with tiny jade figurines in the window and fell into a conversation with the extremely friendly owners.  One of them was a shorter man with a round face who smiled from behind thick glasses and gave me a plastic cockroach. 

“Here’s a lucky cockroach… you know, they’re probably the ones who are able to time travel.” As an explanation, he offered “I always talk to them, just in case they’re here from the future.” 

To his credit, the logic seemed sound: since roaches are evolutionarily sturdy animals and the most likely ones to survive an apocalypse, he figured they would probably be the ones who would be around long enough to invent time travel. Therefore he wasn’t taking any chances in case his roaches were the ones trying to reach out to the human race. If he’s right and the roaches are coming back to communicate, I hope they visit him instead of me.

On the way out of town I looped around one block a couple times, which was when I realized that Seattle is like the Bermuda Triangle for my GPS.  Frustrated, I had to sit in a tunnel, trapped in evening traffic as my guiding system told me repeatedly to turn left. From museums, to the waterfront, to eccentric shopkeepers, to rush hour traffic, I’d say I saw a good chunk of Seattle today.

Climbing Mt. Muller

Mt. Muller peaks high above lake crescent in the Northern Olympic Peninsula, but its trailhead is hidden in the woods, down an unobtrusive gravel road.  A large signpost required 5$ for a day use permit and when I parked, the box offering maps was empty. The only help was a basic sketch of the trail with mile marks and a sign marked “trail” pointing into the undergrowth.  I made a quick note of some trail markers, packed myself a lunch, and waded in.  According to the trailhead, the loop was 13 miles with a peak elevation of 3745 feet.

Mt. Muller’s first couple hundred feet was a wet forest of lichen-covered trees and tiny single leafed clovers growing across the ground like umbrellas across restaurant patios after a rain.  The air was cool and I kept my windbreaker on for the first mile.  As I hiked, my walking stick marked the tattoo of my steps: “mush, thump, clack” as it struck moss, dirt, and rock.  I wondered how the equestrians using the trail managed on the soft loam that was hardly wider than a deer trail.  Winding higher, I passed back and forth up switchbacks and the miles crept by with the steady pace of a slug sliding down a leaf.  By mile 3 of the steep climb, I was wondering if the trailblazers had been measuring only straightaways because I felt like it had been at least twice the distance.  At the 4-mile mark, the trees began to thin and the earth dried.  Bumblebees buzzed around, thanking me for using my face to knock down every spider’s web across the trail.  The sun peeked through the trees and the path became ruddy, with a mulched texture of rotting redwood branches and leaves.  

            At the peak of the first mountain, trees parted and I saw that the trail continued along, tracing the spine of the mountain.  I climbed higher, noticing that the horse tracks I had followed up the mountain continued over fallen logs and across winding segments of the trail with nothing but a precipice to the right.  The rider must have been fearless and the horse stupid because half the tracks seemed to skirt the edge.  I stopped at the peak, enjoying my sandwich and looking out over the mountains to the east, their snowy caps just visible under a dense cloud ceiling.   A light wind shook the trees around me, but the clouds were open above and the sun dried a rock enough for me to sit.  

On the way back down, I passed through similar terraces.  Just along the fringe of darker Redwood groves, a forest of Christmas pines traced their branches across my arms.  Morning dew weighed heavy on their needles and I came away with damp patches soaked through the light shirt I wore.  As the trail traced down the mountain I saw an abandoned ski lift on another ridge cut through the dense forest and every mile or two, I followed numbered wooden markers hammered into trees. The last three miles were along a flat, marshy creek that I followed, jumping over muddy horse prints and the occasional fallen tree.  Patches of clover folded their leaves down in places where the sunlight had broken through the trees.  It was just past two and I could tell that the sun was bright outside my gloomy canopy.  The whole loop with a stop for lunch had taken me 4.5 hours. 

 

A quick detour to see Fout's house

The Western Olympic Peninsula

Across Southern Washington, yellow expanses of blooming scotch broom filled in the mountains with color.  Between acres of clear- cut redwood stumps, and even in the downpour that seemed to hover only over my car, the bushes were like highlighters that stood out in a greyed landscape.  Rain persisted for hours, but by the time I had reached the coast, the clouds had cleared and the afternoon sun was causing pools of water on the road to steam. 

Along part of the Sol Duc river by the Mora campground

My campsite in the Mora campground on the Western coast of the Olympic Peninsula was 1.4 miles from the beach, a windy pile of pebbles that were mostly perfect for skipping.  But the waves crashed heavily on the steeply piled rocks and ominous clouds promised a shower, so I didn’t plan to stay long. Just off the coast, a towering island structure with cavernous roots matched a landscape of grey rocks and a glowering sky.  The rain began quickly and as I grabbed my pack, the drops got heavier until my hair and face were soaked.   Even the waterproof jacket I had draped over my shoulders became waterlogged, but by the time I trudged back to camp the sun was out again.  To avoid being soaked in my sleep, however dry the roots of my redwood seemed, I decided to camp in my car.