Save Mary Lake! last hike.

Jon, Marlen, Hillary, Mark and I falling head over heels in love with this place;
Victoria's future parkland.

This represents our last blog hike and the completion of our 52 week commitment. Even though it took us 55 weeks to finish I feel that we are better people because of it.
In the 52 occasions of our weekly hikes throughout the Victoria/Vancouver Island area we have been fortunate enough to hike some stunningly beautiful places. Some that have become my favorite spots on the island and a couple that I would not plan to travel to again. But most were saved and set aside for others by the tireless work of individuals and groups who love this island and all of the green space it offers.
We thought that it was particularly fitting that our final hike would be to a place that is up for grabs; Mary Lake.

Picture postcard perfection.

Mary Lake is 107 acres of Coastal Douglas fir ecosystem that has been privately held and lovingly preserved by a local family. It is now for sale and zoned for development. A click of the mouse will show you what happened to sacred First Nations land when the Bear Mountain development got underway. I have no doubt that the same fate awaits Mary Lake should this campaign fail.

Former Highlands mayor Bob McMinn, instrumental in helping to save Gowlland Tod, hikes #1 and #51, has permission from the family to conduct tours of the lake and surrounding area in an attempt to generate interest in setting aside this land as parkland. It would also serve as a wildlife and hiking corridor as it is perfectly situated between the Gowlland Tod and Thetis Lake parks. We joined Mr. McMinn and a group of like-minded conservationists for his Sunday afternoon tour.

Embarking on the Sunday tour.

Bob McMinn shows us the trail and lake system before we set out.

We all take off up the family driveway for our tour.

The first thing that struck me on this hike was that a family had managed to hold onto so much property in this age of development. It is such a gorgeous piece of land. I am grateful that it remained in private hands for so long. Locally we have watched the Vantreight family wrestle permission to parcel off a portion of their extensive property in order to continue farming the tillable portion. I read in the Times-Colonist editorial page that a simple solution would be for CRD to purchase the land in question and turn it into parkland enlarging adjacent tiny Quarry Park.

This slightly out of focus photo was taken by a fellow hiker  whose limited mobility necessitated  canes
but he still felt compelled to join the fight for Mary Lake.

The property has numerous bridges linking trails throughout.

I can add nothing to convey the loveliness of this future parkland.

Please go to www.savemarylake.com and let Bob McMinn explain the ways in which you can help to save a piece of this gorgeous island for future generations. There is a beautiful video of the lake and surrounding land. Click on the map and see our square metres by asking the map to find barbeann@gmail.com. We have purchased 6 pieces; one for each child including our new daughter Nicole. Hopefully by the time we have our next family reunion I will be able to take them to the Highlands and show them this amazing place. Donate $10 to set aside your own little piece of Vancouver Island paradise and we can all meet there in the future to celebrate this wonderful property and its place in the lives of future generations.

We will continue hiking the island but will no longer feel compelled to keep a blog record of our adventures. Please stay tuned occasionally to see some of the beautiful places one can hike locally. I promise to add information should I have the occasion to visit a place that hasn't been written about.
In the meantime, our quest for the year 2011/2012 is to host a vegetarian blog or website that will aid people in finding a way to embrace a more peaceful way of life. Cheers.

Gowlland Tod 51/1 week

Lovely friends too numerous to list.

Had I remembered that this was the park where we began our quest to hike for 52 weeks, I would have waited a week and made it our last. How appropriate it would have been to book end our entire commitment with the same park. It wasn't until we hiked through here that we realized this was the place that started it all. Mark and I were hiking here January of 2010 and discussed how embarrassing it was that we lived 5 minutes from here and had never hiked it. It is unfortunate that we are so busy in our lives that we live in an incredible area yet had not spent the time to explore it. So a commitment was born; to hike someplace in the area once a week for a full year.

Trail head of Gowlland Tod

The raging Tod Creek swollen from the rain.

I love this candid photo catching everyone doing something different.

There still is not a lot to say about this park that I haven't already said. Except that it is a such a popular one that there are always hikers and walkers here. The day that we hiked actually felt rather crowded and the trails were packed with people. This is never a problem since its hard to be on a hike in beautiful British Columbia and be in a bad mood so everyone is pretty jolly.

On this hike we traveled a secondary trail that wound alongside the creek. It was on this portion that we discovered an interesting archeological collection. An enormous amount of junk was lined up on a wall; fragments of pottery, old shoe leather, pieces of rusty tin.

The display of junk that has been found in the park.

We marvelled as we filed by.

A rare partial ice-over of the inlet.

Mark snapped this close up of the crystals of ice on a bridge.

This is an old United States Postal jeep that we were excited to see.
We were even more excited to see the license plates from our home state, Illinois.

Marlen preparing one of the many pizzas that evening as we ended our adventure with food.

Thetis Lake 50/2 weeks

Our fairly large group at Thetis Lake.

Hillary and I planning our trail attack before the group's arrival.

What a glorious day for our 50th hike of the year. It was a brisk cold day but just cool enough for the work out that awaited us as we headed around lower Thetis Lake. We were joined by Marlen, Hillary, Wayne and Pauline as well as Bernie, Alisa and our new friend Jeremy. We were a large enough bunch on trail to raise comments from passing hikers and when I looked back it did seem as though a tour bus had dropped a group off for the day.

Since I am behind on the 52 week challenge this ended up being the first hike of the new year and I couldn't have asked for a better day, or a more beautiful location nor a better group to share the morning with.

One of the beauties of a large group hike; we get to split off for small group conversations.

yes, we all belong together...and then some.

Beautiful Thetis Lake looking out over the island.

It was a vigorous enough hike that hats and gloves were removed during the walk but a cool enough day that we donned them again if we stopped for any length of time. At the tip of the lake where the water is more shallow, Mother Nature was working on some lovely ice patterns as she prepared a half-hearted icing over of the water. It was an unsuccessful attempt but we enjoyed seeing it none the less.

The tip of lower Thetis where the ice tried to move in.

The lovely ice patterns. We listened to its eerie call when it was stressed by weight.

Marlen came up with a clever means of conveyance should any friends peter out.
(its just a stick)

The worse part; having to say goodbye.
The best part; deciding to head to the Asian Noodle House for lunch!

East Sooke Park 49/3 weeks

A cold and tired dog, Mowgli

This hike was a rare occasion when we were joined by our youngest son, Dane. He is at the age of doing very little with us as a family; in fact the only reason he came on this jaunt was because of Hillary.

We decided to give East Sooke Park a go since we have not hiked this place in years. This is also the only week of our 52 week challenge that we land in Sooke. Having already hiked here before we chose to go on the Coast trail because it was new to us and we also wanted to be on the water.

Sounds 'coastal', doesn't it?

Sometimes these maps can be slightly misleading.

Mowgli is so happy to be hiking with Dane.

East Sooke Park is a gorgeous example of what Vancouver Island has to offer when it comes to being outdoors, hiking and parks. You could be days hiking this one place and never travel the same path twice. The forest is wet and the air is thick with mist; just like one would imagine a coastal park to be.

The problem with this one trail is that it didn't run along the coast as we thought it would. We were all chomping at the bit to get ourselves near water and after over an hour on the trail and three or four false alarms we finally turned around and headed back to the parking lot. Yes, East Sooke Park was the first trail of the year that we bailed out on. Had we continued along our path we would have ended up at a trail head that looked out onto the beautiful Juan De Fuca strait and the Washington mountains beyond. Unfortunately, we would have even had the chance to see ancient rock paintings at the water's edge. But it was the water's edge we were after; we wanted a trail that wound around the water and kept it in our sights for most of the hike. Being the spoiled rotten brats we are, we decided to give it up and head back.

An idea of how thick this forest is...

I usually snap pics of the reishi-like fungus but I doubt this park allows for  the dry variety.

Hillary taking a break and Dane looking like the Sasquatch film.

So after over two hours on the trail we crossed the road from the parking lot and got ourselves into proximity to the water just like we wanted. And just as the heavy rain began.

The view of the bay.