Ridgewalking again.

After six days of sun a storm blew down the valley leaving a double rainbow behind.

The head net is fantastic! Don't leave home without it.

The way up

Sea Jazz

 

 Music at sea was part of my preparation for the next hike. It was a privilege to see some of the J-pod Orcas and quite amazing to see those giant Steller sea lions. 'Here's that rainy day' was written by Jimmy van Heusen and Johnny Burke.

  While I was packing for a trip recently I heard that a hiker had fallen off a cliff and died at the very place I was headed. Another person was seriously injured on the same trail at the lower waterfall a few days before that. Shortly after hearing about those, the person who was going to drive me to the trailhead called to cancel. At that moment a quote from Tom King popped into my head, "Stay calm, be brave and watch for the signs". These seemed like enough signs for me to change to another mountain and let that one rest. My alternate plan worked well because it was lower and less strenuous while having no idea the air quality was going to plummet due to the forest fires in Washington, Oregon and California. As the smoke rolled over the peaks I watched carefully and figured it was from far away. Being late in the afternoon the first thing I did was cook dinner in case I had to spend the night walking out,or worse, crouching in the river to avoid flames. If I started to hear a lot of aircraft activity, that would be my que to leave. I found it better to sit in the forest and lay low until I walked out two days later.

 

Treeline [ridgewalkerpete.blogspot.ca]

 It was during a morning walk around camp when I noticed that a bear had crept along the muddy edge of the lake behind the bushes to check me out. It had also walked around the other way to get a sniff. During the previous several days I had seen this black bear feeding on blueberries in the high meadow. Part of me was pumped to get some video but I would have to get closer due the camera I was using. My gut feeling was to leave it alone. I could drive it away from a valuable food source and worse still, I could provoke an attack. I decided just to stay well clear and head up to the rocky lake and the peak, far above the food. 

   Each day at the high camp the ravens would fly over to see what I was up to. It is really great to have a few days above the treeline because it is a tough go just getting up there. Good to have a rest/weather day before doing the final peak.

Bird Ballet

Watch this incredible feat of avian choreography featuring a huge flock of Sandpipers set to music by Peter Tennant. These birds nest in Northern North American and Siberia before migrating to central and South America. This bay is one of their important feeding and resting areas as they eat insects , mollusks and small crustaceans along the ocean shore.Yum Yum.

After the rain, before the snow

Mountain meadow time again.

 

Morning, day two and it was pouring rain. After a soggy day climbing over 1,000 meters I was huddled under my small tarp beneath a giant hemlock tree. This was when I noticed, for the first time on a hike, I had a cold. It wasn't bad enough to go down so I decided to use my rest day there.

I had a week alone and It had to dry by day three or I wouldn't have time for the high lake and peak. Waterfalls were raging with water,  pouring through the forest and creeks. The trail is much slower going when it is so slippery. With sloping wet roots, huge moss-covered rocks and giant muddy pools of water hemmed in by prickly wet bushes, you have to carefully watch every step. So great to have my little stove and hot drinks. I don't like having camp fires for several reasons and just move around to warm up my feet. 

On day three the rain let up for a short while so I   headed up beyond the end of the trail, climbing over the big rocks, pushing and wiggling through the vine maples up to the mid-elevation valley.
 Grizzly country.

Drying time!

The meadows were flowing with green heather, low-growing bright red blueberries and stunted black spruce.  On day four, late in the afternoon, the glorious sun finally peaked over Mt. Ossa for a couple of hours. Camping is so much more easier when things are dry but I have learned to be comfortable with the rain. 

The headwall up to Sigurd lake was too wet and slippery so I reluctantly had to stay in the mid-elevation valley with the bears.

The decision to turn around when conditions are bad is the one that saves your life in the back country. This valley drops below freezing at night so I really had to pile on the layers to keep warm.  It helped reading about what some scientists had to wear working on mt. Erebus in Antarctica before I left. I can handle a bit of frost up here. The hot, dry trips earlier in the summer are a vague memory as I crunch open the tent late at night to gaze up at a beautiful full moon over the glacier.

 While packing to leave on day six I noticed that during the night or previous afternoon- when I was hiking- a bear came through my camp, leaving  a pile of pooh. I'll take that as a 'welcome to the neighbourhood'.  Time to head back down where sea level feels like summer again. What a difference.

Happy trails!

RWP

Sniffy the Bear had a cub

 This year my furry friend 'Sniffy the Bear' had a cub and I was very careful over my four day visit  to keep well away. Had she showed the slightest sign of agitation I would fled down to the valley. On all the wilderness hiking trips I am always very careful not to have food anywhere near my tent. On my first day of this nine-day solo hike I ran into a couple of men who have had years of Sasquatch encounters in the coast mountains. We spent a very enjoyable time sitting in the rain discussing this interesting topic. Having spent forty-five years doing solo hikes I have never seen anything to support the existence of this huge animal but that doesn't mean there isn't something happening.  There may be a spirit or something out there but from the viewpoint of cryptozoology it seems very unlikely. I will write more on this. Thanks to my new friends. For more about my pal 'Sniffy' click on 2016 entries over to the lower right. For more about Sasquatch watch my CBC interview on the upper right.

Golden Ears Peak

Golden Ears Provincial Park is located east of Vancouver, north of the Fraser river in Maple Ridge,B.C. There was still lots of snow up there at the end of June when I headed up but the sky was clear and sunny for several days. The view was great from my camp site high up on the ridge and I was happy to have my mosquito net. The mosquitoes and Blackflies were.......enthusiastic.
The hike requires proper equipment and preparation because the weather can change very quickly.
This time I edited the whole video and then composed the music one section at a time as I watched it.
Enjoy and have fun out there.

Creating a Ridgewalkpete video soundtrack

This short clip shows me playing a few of the tracks for my new video soundtrack.

Sniffy the bear

The two loud sniffs among snapping branches about four meters away were my introduction to sniffy the bear. I grabbed the bear spray and jumped up shouting " There's nothing for you here"-although my all my food was on the ground-and "I'm the apex predator here!", immediately grateful that it choose not to challenge either of these questionable notions. 

   It was day three of a seven day backpacking trip into the coast mountains. Over decades of solo hikes I have learned a lot about being prepared.

   Food is the big attraction for critters.Bears and cougars can get very close without a sound. For that matter add ants and mice. Whenever I am preparing food I just take out what I need at the time and keep putting things back into a zipper nylon bag. I can pack things up quickly if need be.

  Sniffy scampered off into the dense bush. It all took about thirty seconds but left quite an impression. I tied up the food and then sat on the other side of the lake for a few hours to see if it was still around. If so, I would pack up and go back down to the lower valley.

   After an hour after seeing the bear I was quietly sewing a button on my shirt when suddenly a helicopter flew low over the lake, circled, then landed for about 10 minutes out of my sight. Biologists? Sightseeing? The noise really rattled me. On the way out it flew low and slow then disappeared down the valley. All was quite for the next three days as I did some day hikes up higher. On the day I attempted the peak through some very dense bush up a steep ridge I suddenly was hit with a bout of 'beaver fever' Giardia. 

   When deer are drinking water in the creeks they defecate and release these parasites into the water. [yum!] It is not fatal but can be serious. It was enough to make me stop and abandon the peak. Back down to camp.

It seems I share more than just hill and dale with the crepuscular ungulate.

    On day five I made my way down to the lower valley. At my low camp it felt like summer again. I like to walk around looking at muddy or sandy areas for animal tracks. Spotting many fresh deer tracks, I was thinking how unusual it is for me to actually see them in the open areas.

    

The next morning I found more fresh tracks but this time with fresh cougar tracks over top. A bit more looking and I found what looked like a splash of blood. It looked watery and I wandered if it was from giving birth or a cougar slash. This made me on guard watching to see if there was a fresh kill in the area, in which case I must leave immediately. I decided to stay.

     A couple hours later I was walking down to the creek to get some water when I noticed two deer, a two-prong buck and a young one. I froze and tilted my

head down, watching through my sunglasses. We had a good long look at each other before they had a drink of water then slowly wondered into the forest.

   This is the third time on my past two hikes where I have been sewing then an aircraft flew low over me. If I ever need emergency help first I'll use my emergency locator and then whip out the 'ol needle and thread.

Seal Birth

On a warm summer day I was paddling in a quite bay when I spotted the Seals.

The big males were the guards so I gave them lots of room as I drifted into a channel where I could see the females on shore. It is really important that I don't disturb them so I just stayed in the kayak and shot some video, hand held in the bright sun. It was so bright that I couldn't see what was happening, just that the seals were wiggling around and some had pups feeding



 At one point one of the males swam up the channel nearby and gave a low grunt so I knew it was time to move on. It wasn't until I watched at home that I noticed the seal seems to be giving birth.The video is authentic hand-held with a  digital zoom with some of my original music.

Tantalus ridge walk

                                                                 
The moon was in full eclipse as it rose over the mountains while I watched from my camp 1500 meters above my starting point that morning. Most of this trip is beyond the trail and over the years I have tried to find an easier way up to the high lake. Still haven't found it but the nasty stuff is easier to take, knowing how open it is above the tree line.

The old growth forest is great to pass through on the way up with that cool air and the greenery. There was this mushroom about the size of a plate that looked like a painting.

I like to get up as high as I can above the tree line, where the bears don't go................... very often.

This is the first time that I didn't see any bears in the mid-elevation valley and only saw scat once. A few times in the past I have been cooking in a dense forest area when a bear has crept up to have a sniff. It always amazes me how this big animal can walk along without even snapping a twig. Usually I notice them because I see a shadow move from the corner of my eye.  After dozens of encounters with those critters over the years I continue to treat them with greatest respect. You never know if the next one will be injured or cranky. It always makes me nervous when the food is out, so it feels a lot more comfortable to be looking down over the valley.

Keeping watch over Glacier melt.                                    

Sept 28/2015

Oct. 9  2006

The bug net only came out once on this trip but somehow I'm sure all the biting insects will survive another season without chomping on my hide. 

It's funny how a few minutes of those rare, natural open meadows help you forget about all the gnarly brush in-between.

 Ridgewalkerpete

Sullivan Station

                           

One summer day while bobbing around in the kayak on boundary bay I started to wonder about all those pilings sticking up in the bay. Through the local archives I learned that there had been an oyster plant here during the first half of the 1900's. Blackie spit is located on a large flat area slightly above sea level. 

I decided to write a love song set here in 1911 just before all the changes that started in 1912. The man is working at the oyster plant while renting a room at the Crescent lodge. He missed out buying a lot by the beach so instead he plans to clear some land  and build a cabin in the dense forest along the Nicomekl river. He has sent for his sweetheart in Halifax to join him so they can build a life together by the Boundary Bay. She will be arriving on the other side of Panorama ridge at the Sullivan Station.

Nicomekl river

   



The Coast Salish people harvested shellfish at this site for thousands of years. Walter Blackie, for whom Blackie Spit was named, was the first white occupant of Crescent Beach. He was New Westminter's first blacksmith.

He had paid $50 to Royal engineer J.B. Musselwhite in 1871 for 150 acres. The land was left to Blackie's widow, who in turn sold it to Charles Beecher. When he died it was sold to a group of four land developers. Northern The Great Railroad came through in 1909 which led to local development. When it came time to name the train station it was agreed that Crescent Beach sounded better than Blackie Spit. In 1912 the first hotel was built by Captain Watkin Williams, who also ran a boarding house [Crescent Lodge ]with his wife Bessie. 
I hope you enjoy this trip through time as I put together more hiking videos.
 

    This painting of The Sullivan Station is by Peter Sawatzky.

Although closed for many years it looks like the Sullivan station will rise again as a light rail transit stop in the near future. What's old is new again.

 

                             

That Old Fossil Fuel

   'The old fossil fuel' takes place decades into the future with a Granddaughter asking her Grandfather to tell her about the days when the world relied on a seemingly endless supply of fossil fuels. With forecasts and evidence of  more extreme weather events, melting glaciers, polluted aquifers as well as acidification of the ocean,  it's time to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and escalate the transition away from burning fossil fuels. The cost of not facing our changing climate is too great to ignore any longer.
     Our economic system is not sustainable and currently we lack political leadership but I look forward to creating a more stable economy with regard for the health and safety of the planet beyond the next fiscal quarter. It's time for sustainability. 
We have an obligation to try and make the world better for those who follow.
                                                       What have we got to loose?

   My thanks to Zara for singing the Granddaughter part. It took about two hours to write and quite a bit more time to arrange and record the intro and outro. This was one of those rare times where I knew that if I stayed with it I could finish composing it that day. The first version was in a higher key. After doing several instruments I decided to scrap it and start again, lowering the key, making it  better for Zara.     I tried several guitar tunings with the mandolin before I settled on the Dulcimer with the keyboard. The rhythm guitar kept getting in the way and I kept pulling it out of the mix before I did a new part with more restraint. The drums and bass guitar were really fun to do. 'That old fossil fuel' is a bit over-the-top....but from the heart.

Above the Gun

Click on this picture to see my latest video 'Above the Gun'.

Some roots of the family tree have led me to another beautiful part of British Columbia near Gold Bridge where I got to check out the view for myself. My great friend Bob knows the area well and drove me way up some logging roads [ and picked me up] where I accessed one of the ridges on Mt. Penrose.

The peaks are high above the valleys here and it is very dry but there are still a few pocket glaciers feeding some high alpine lakes. This September day was perfect hiking weather. Always happy to leave the rain gear IN the pack.

    Music: Notes 4 Hal
This song started one morning when I decided to write a chord chart that would be more interesting for my friend Jay than the usual simple stuff I would ask him to play. I had some guitar ideas but after we played it a couple of times Jay already had a bunch of ideas. I just went over and played the drums while he played the electric piano part. Then he improvised the organ solo. 

    A few days later Tony Gallo arrived early for rehearsal with our Motown band 'Muchmo' and kindly agreed to play a saxophone solo after only hearing it once. We had 15 minutes to record his track. Next I played the bass and all that was missing was the guitar chord at the end. Though the recording happened so quickly and I felt I hadn't finished writing it, I am really happy with the energy in the tracks.
Working with Tony and Jay is like letting thoroughbred horses out of the barn. I was expecting to go over the song several times to develop the parts but they were leaping  far ahead so the producer in me just pressed record.

Sasquatch revealed at last?

   A few days ago I noticed that the Myles Lamont video of a possible Sasquatch sighting had a huge amount of activity so I decided to contact CBC news Vancouver to help clear this up. The next day Belle Puri and Robb Douglas came down to interview me for the evening T.V. news and I also did as a couple of radio interviews including the 'Jack FM' morning show. 
CBC news contacted Myles after my story and you can hear what he has to say about it.:



                                                        Click this link to see CBC news interview

                                          

That snappy owl shirt was made by my wonderful mother. I love you mom. I didn't even have to operate the camera this time. Big time show biz!

 This story has been going around the world and I was told about some discussion on other bogs including one in Italian. It is great hearing from people from so far away who enjoy this.

                                                    

                                         The truth getting out there.

  

            Some comments on other blogs:

Bonus points if you read Italian for this link

 Doubtful news website

I haven't yet finished the video I shot on Tricouni in 2011 because the story felt incomplete. I didn't get to any of the peaks,wondered around the snowfields and small patches of forest for 6 days taking photos and video as well as looking for my lost water bottle [see 2011 blog entry ].
Now, at last I have the rest of the story.

 Important update by the ever-clever Steve Tennant.

Sasquatch Sighting?

                

  On May 3, 2014 I was reading a story on the news about some hikers who shot some video near Squamish, British  Columbia. Having done several hikes and peaks in that area I clicked the youtube video. They are on a  mountain hike looking down where, far below something is walking across the snowfield . They are unsure what it is but due to the location ["remote"] and the way it moved, they suggest it may be a Sasquatch.   As I watched, he mentions that he is on Tricouni mtn., it is 2011 and he does a quick pan across the valley. That was when my jaw dropped and eyes opened wide. I stopped it right away and looked back at my hiking photos. Sure enough, I was up there during the last week of July 2011 gathering video and still photos for another episode of Ridgewalkerpete. There was a huge snow pack left over from the winter that year. It was sunny and warm way down at the bottom by the high falls and well up the trail until you got to the higher elevation where suddenly it goes from grassy with plants to one meter of melting snow.

   I was extremely concerned about avalanches so I stayed away from the steep slopes and after a few tries decided not to go up to the peak. My main objective is get back safely, particularly so the nay-sayers who think you can't go solo without disastrous consequences don't get a big 'I told you so'.

For about six days I was walking all around exploring the valley, stubbornly holding that altitude even though there were summer conditions lower down the mountain. On my 2011 blog entry I told the story of my lone water bottle sliding off the cliff where I was camping. It took several searches over a few days to find but as I think back it was good to have a task, something to take my mind off not going to the peak. Tricouni mtn' will be the next video. I have most of the editing done but have not worked on the music. Now I have more for the story and have a better angle to cover.

           Sasquatch today?

Something I think a lot of people don't realize is that for a large critter like Sasquatch to survive today it would have to have a viable breeding population which would require a lot of food, year-round water , housing, paths to get around and they would tend to live on the valley bottoms where humans are likely to go. During several decades of hiking around in the back country as well as working in the bush I know that there are all kinds of people who poke around  the nooks and crannies of wilderness looking for minerals, oil, stands of trees, archeological artifacts, accessing climbing walls or just enjoying some of the last bits of old-growth forest. Somebody would have discovered a colony or a dead one. I am aware of the theory that  those who see a Sasquatch are viewing something from another dimension but I'll leave that for others. I will keep an open mind, continuing to watch out for whatever crosses my path.

If it was during the last week of July 2011, that critter might be me!