first island summit and so much more

Yesterday, I went hiking alone to Father & Son Lake. Gorgeous weather. The trailhead is pretty remote, and half of the fun was not seeing a single other person all day. The hike in was super easy. The lake is between the size of Quartz Lake and Cedar Lake, probably about 400m wide. Nice color, but nothing too startling. Nice forests, lots of spiderwebs. I saw the biggest golden eagle (or at least got the closest view of one) I've ever seen. Huge. From the lake, I somewhat spontaneously decided to push for the summit of Mt McQuinnan. The lake is at 900m, the summit is 1500m. It was quite steep and about halfway up, I met snow. Lots. From there, I slwoly hiked on. Didn't sink in much, so it wasn't bad, just had to take care with my footing. It gradually got steeper and steeper. I decided I'd stop as soon as I couldn't safely get any further. I was quite intimidated, but I took it step by step, and even though the angle got to about 70 degrees, i managed to use my walking stick and patches of brush to help me up. There weren't many maneuvers that wer too tricky, nor any spots where I was fatally exposed, but it was still pretty intense. And the sun was just blasting at me from the reflection of teh snow. Iw as actually concerned about snowblindness. Thankfully I'd worn sunblock. A moment before I reached the summit, a huge helicopter came outta nowhere. Trippy. The summit was also covered in snow and trees, but I found a dry cliff edge to chill and absorb the view. I could see the Strait of Georgia and the Pacific, Arrowsmtich as well as a whole panorama of huge peaks from Strathcona Park, and i could look down on the lake where i'd come from. Good times. I wanted to smoke some mild salvia, but was afraid I'd start to trip out about the sketchy descent. I ended up smoking some anyways, and although it didn't do much, I think it actually helped calm me down for the descent. At first I couldn't find my return route, cuz my footprints had already melted. But eventually I figured it out and it really asn't too bad going down as long as I stayed focused. I mean, i certainly wouldn't just take anyone up there. It's definitely a challenge, but there's not really any spots where your overexposed. I shoe-skiied down the slope, which was pretty sweet, bottled some water whose freshness you'd be hard-pressed to beat, and made my way back down to the lake. At the lake, i got naked and laid on the rocks for a while, smoked some more salvia, imagined that all the tress were covered in ash (like after a volcano eruption, a la Dante's Peak), then went for a dip. Wasn't too cold. Nice. Definitely a place worth coming to if you were gonna fish, camp, or push for the summit. Lots of solitude, hence my nudity and the abundance of spiderwebs on the trail. On the trip back to the car, a bunch of brids flew out of teh bush and there was this creature there that I can't identify. At first,I thought it was a big fat brown bird flapping its wings really fast, trying to fly. But I swear I could hear it breathing, so I started to wonder if it was something like a really freaked out bear cub. I didn't stay to find out, but I'm gonna settle with descrbing it as a cross between a big grouse and a baby wolverine. As I drove out, i tried to find the shortcut back home, but got lost. I foudn Port Alberni's water supply, but no suitable road for a shortcut. At one point, I smelled something burning, so I got out of the car and the hood was smoking. I opened the hood and it was just a tiny branch that had gotten under the hood and caught fire on the exhaust manifold. Completely benign. Now that's funny. It was a good day. Pics to follow