Our recent hike in Minnekhada Park was just perfect. Not too hot, not too cold, not too difficult, not too easy, not too long, not too short. As we were preparing to leave in the morning, Black Jack tried her, "if I stare long enough, Bill should come through with a snack for the road" approach. That didn't yield immediate results..
so she went to heavier artillery. I'm fairly sure that was successful.
Several King Fishers were flying near the starting point of our hike, and this one spread its lovely wings for us to admire.
"The High Knoll" was our first lookout point. Facing south, we could see the lower marsh and the Pitt River flowing past farmland. There are descriptions of the trail here.
It was a grey day so we couldn't see Mount Baker. The new Port Mann Bridge can be seen (very faintly) in the distance.
This post has way more photos of me than I would normally show, but Bill has begun to rebel just a tiny bit at being the only one to have pictures taken during our outings. (I think this is the "Low Knoll" viewpoint.)
We then realized that standing up is okay. However, we decided on a new tradition - a stooped down shot for every new hike - a sort of "trademark" (or something) photo.
At the bottom of the trail is The Lodge, a heritage home that we hoped to visit, but it was closed. I guess we'll make that a future destination. There were beautiful flowers and lots of these orangey dragonflies to admire in the garden.
We had to ask directions a few times, and once we were back in the parking lot, Bill checked out the maps that we had neglected to pick up before starting the hike.
We saw some Cedar Waxwings as well, and this one posed beautifully.
Back home again, and walking by English Bay the next evening, I liked the way..
the tree's shadow was reflected on a cement pillar of the Burrard Bridge.
And, on yet another evening walk (one benefit of living with a dog in the city),
Black Jack did her best to show Bill where the skunk lives.
I'm not sure if Bill was totally convinced of her skunk-finding ability, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt :)
A few days later, she proved her point, fortunately, without a spraying to punish him for doubting. Can you see it by the hedge near the centre of the photo?
I followed it carefully, trying my best not to upset it. The light was gone and this photo is poor but indisputable proof that a skunk lives under that hedge. Its tail was raised.. hm..
We did another hike in new territory last weekend. It is in West Vancouver and called Brothers Creek Loop. It was a little longer and a little tougher than Minnekhada, and we silently whined a bit at the end of it. (We only confess our whining episodes after we are back in the truck and headed home.) Still, we were very happy to have done it and are already beginning to plan some future hiking adventures.
There were many, many slim trees, I guess grown up to replace the ones logged. I loved the way the light and shadows played among them.
These cuts, made by loggers, left a face in the trunk of what must have been a magnificent tree. i couldn't help but wonder if it cried out in pain.
Bill was the one to spot this old railway nail. He put it carefully back in the spot where he found it, thinking that it had probably lain there for a great many years.
We were both curious about these red berries that formed a perfect cone shape. No time to research, but help identifying them would sure be appreciated.
We hiked to a couple of beautiful little lakes and I will show those in the next post. This dragonfly was by the first lake. There were hundreds of them, buzzing like little helicopters. This was the only one I managed to capture. Quite the challenge when moving.
Two more shots of me and that's the end of the solo ones for this post.
and practiced our "stooped over" pose.
This was quite a lovely little waterfall, and we challenged ourselves to do the climb down to get a bit closer to it.
