2013/01 Family - Winter scenery |
|||||||
Winter scenery |
|||||||
We had dark days and snow showers for the rest of the week and then we had one perfect day, clear, cold and calm, time to get the camera out. We headed over the bridge and tried to get down onto the beach opposite. The main trail goes down the cliff through a jungle of broom and it had been buried under snow and collapsed broom. The other way down is along the creek but the banks had been cut vertical by recent rains, too far to jump, so we ended up bushwhacking our way down through the woods and sliding down the snow under the shrubs. It was easier than when it’s warm and muddy, but we wouldn’t be able to go back up that way.
The mudflats were nicely frozen and snow covered, so I was able to get my pictures. The area is much more extensive than it looks from our side; there are ponds and inlets and the flowing creek. The river has a back eddy on that side, so dead things end up there, making it popular with the eagles and gulls and bears. In the long sideways picture, our house is just to the left of that humongous tree at the end of the bridge.
Sandie found some spots where water was bubbling up and warming the ponds enough to melt the snow and ice. We are sitting on a fault line, so maybe not a surprise; there are hot springs on the other side of the mountain.
Our only way out was a careful climb up through the broom jungle. The trail is easier to find from the bottom. The flats we had been standing on will be 25 feet underwater this summer, so the low water gives us an opportunity to go to places we normally can’t reach.
We took more walks out to Croft Island and Thacker Marsh, usually in the afternoons so we could watch the setting sun light up the mountains.
Some of you will be glad to hear that I’m finally in therapy. But no it’s not for my mind; that’s beyond help. It’s for my back. Every few paragraphs I’ve been leaping up from the keyboard and contorting my back muscles. The guy treating me is a New Zealander who’s about to move to Sweden, a typical Canadian healthcare transient.
What happened to the weather in my first paragraph? We did indeed have a lot of rain and it merged with the snow to form inches of slush, like a half-frozen jelly. I couldn’t pick it up with a shovel but I could push it away. Up in the mountains it fell as three feet of snow and all three highways out of Hope were closed, terrible for travelers’ plans but great for Hope’s restaurants and motels. The ploughs got the roads cleared quite quickly but they stayed closed for a few more hours because of the avalanche risk. It’s sunny and cold now. Time to go and contort a few muscles.