What Else We Did in September

Leo celebrated his birthday. After Sunday walk We had friends over for birthday cake.  Alas, too smoky to sit on the deck so we ate inside.

We walked down at Scout Island where we saw this handsome buck

And a beaver family.

Closeup:

Bears are wandering around the neighbourhood again looking to bulk up for winter..  We picked all our (eight) apples in time this year so the bear didn't get them but we found this deposit on the lane and somebody got into a neighbour's trash can.

Quarter included for size comparison. Diet consists mostly of choke cherries.

We went to the Hearth restaurant for lunch. Every year they plant sunflowers around the building.  Look at the enormous head on this one!

Two women included for size comparison

 

Harvest

 My garden grew like gangbusters this summer. And it wasn't all sunflowers.

I have lots of very large spaghetti squash, some butternut squash, lots of carrots and potatoes.  I've been harvesting peas, green beans and zucchini since July, and my pole beans are just coming on now.

Yesterday's harvest. Kale, sugar snap peas and pole beans. No I did not grow the grapes.

Three Days at Horsefly Lake

After Labour Day seniors' rates at p-rovincial parks are discounted by 50% so we had to take advantage.  Also there are no reservations so we snagged a waterfront site at Horsefly Lake Park.  We were joined by our friends Mark and Mark.  Mark's wife Leah was working but drove all the way out in the evenings to join us. (She saw 4 bears on the way to work one morning!)

The weather has definitely taken a turn toward fall.  We only swam once after our morning run.  It was chilly in the mornings, but we were able to have a campfire in the evenings after a spell of cool, rainy weather..

We did the usual stuff, hiked up to the viewpoint:

Look Ma, no smoke!

And we played numerous rounds of bocce ball.  We watched the squirrels and chipmunks cavort about.

Spot the chipmunk in the fall foliage

We also hiked up to Viewland Mountain.

At the summit.

Pretty good views despite the clouds.

The Marks went home after 2 days but we stayed another night.  We were rewarded with a sunny day.  We pumped up the inflatable and paddled around the lake for a bit.  

We walked up to the viewpoint again.

Familiar view:

Still no smoke

I just love the hike through the birch forest.

 

Leo Backpacks to Garibaldi Lake

 

At the end of August Leo went on a backpacking trip to Garibaldi with his friend Mark and Mark's two sons.

On their way to the park they stopped in Pemberton where they spotted this black bear strolling through the residential district.

The locals didn't seem very concerned.

They camped at Nairn Falls and the next morning they hiked up to the backcountry campground at Garibaldi Lake.

There are 50 campsites at the lake, all occupied, plus day hikers so you can imagine how busy it was though these photos make it look like they have the lake all to themselves.

The next morning they hiked up to Black Tusk.

Leo and Mark stopped at this saddle while Tristan and Kai continued on up.  They didn't go all the way to the top because they were told that people above were making rocks fall down onto people below.

Nice views all around.

Here's Kai below the Tusk.

And here's the intrepid mountain climbers.

Leo and Mark were very proud to have kept up with the youngsters.  And thinking of ways to reduce the weight in their backpacks for the next trip!

Murphy Lake Road Basalt Columns

Man with hat shown for scale

For Leo's birthday we drove up north of Alexandria (south of Quesnel) to check out a hike Mark had heard about that leads to the Basalt Columns shown above.

Giant's Causeway

If you go a little further you can climb up on top of the columns.  Mark was quite excited and will return with his climbing buddy.

We continued along the top of the columns until the formation came to its end and then followed an old irrigation ditch to the Alix Creek Falls.

That golden glow is from the wildfire smoke.

 There was barely a trickle in the creek so we didn't bother scrambling down to get a look at the falls.

Afterwards we stopped at Fort Alexandria cafe for pie.  A  giant piece of excellent rhubarb custard pie!

I made a birthday cake but we waited till Sunday when we had the Sunday walkers over.  We were hoping to have a deck party, but the smoke was really bad so we invited everyone inside.

Summer Camping

 

We didn't get out camping till Barkerville in the beginning of August, but we made up for it the next to weeks trips to Horsefly Lake and Big Bar Lake. 

Unfortunately  I lost my camera at Horsefly Lake (it may have fallen into the outhouse!)  so there's not many photos available. (Check out our almost identical camping trip last year for similar pictures.)

According to Leo's camera the most important events were:  Lots of fun bocce games,

A giant hornets nest in the woods next to our site,

A chipmunk hopping around in the thimbleberry bushes picking berries.

We walked up the short trail to the viewpoint several times a day so Leo could train for his backpacking trip later in the month.

Connie, Rick and the 30 lb pack at the viewpoint.

After every hike we went for a swim.  On the second day it started getting smoky so we headed home the next morning hoping things were better at home. Nope.  Then the fires in the Shuswap and the Okanagan started to blow up.  The Central Cariboo, however remained a oasis of calm in the midst of fires all through the province.  We've been lucky to have a gullywasher of a thundershower almost every week.

The following week we headed down to Big Bar Lake again for a few days (Sunday to Wednesday to avoid the weekend crowds.)  This time we pumped our boat up as soon as we got there to be sure to get out on the lake.

It worked!  We got 2 paddles in.

Every day we hiked the very lovely 1-1/2 hour Otter marsh trail.  Leo had to get his backpacking practice in.

Leo, Mark and Henry rest and take in the view.

Same bench, another colder day.

It was too smoky to do a major hike in the Marble Mountains so we decided to drive up to the Jesmond Forestry lookout.  We were hoping we would be above the smoke but no luck.

Xx

The lookout was very well maintained.

Nothing to see here.

Coincidentally, there was a BC 4-wheeling association calendar propped up and open to August 2022, featuring a photo by our nephew Chris.

Yup, pretty smoky.

The views from our campsite we not great either!

The next day we hiked around the marsh again.

The loneliness of the long distance hiker

We love walking along the giant esker above the lake.

The chipmunks in our campsite were very bold.   One of them ran right up to Henry the dog and sniffed his paw.  He just watched it.

We drove over to Little Big Bar Lake to check out the rec site and play a little x-country bocce.

There are lots of sopallallie bushes growing along the lake; we saw not one single berry.  A bad year for bears and Indian icecream afficionados.  One the other hand, the junipers were loaded with berries.

A good year for Townsend's solitaires and gin distilleries!