Monday, John and I left from work with our packs. Hatchet, twine, tarp (as backup), water, food, lots of clothes, and a number of smaller itmes like first aid and a compass. We got picked up by the second car and taken to Cameron Lake. It was a pretty steep hike up but we took it fairly well. We were up at the lookout (not the same lookout that I've alrady gone too like 5 times this year, this one is much higher) around 9pm. Amazing view. I'd been their once before, but it was socked in. This is at about 1100m. The sunset was pretty crazy good. In order to fight the bugs, we chewed garlic to mush and spread it over our skin. Armpits, hair, everywhere. Then we ate a raw Walla Walla onion. good times. helped a bit for sure. He started scoping a shleter, while I started the fire attempt. The problem was that about 15 minutes before you get to the lookout, the vegetation changes drastically from low elevation forest to subalpine, so there was only gnarly-lookin pine trees around and lots of rock. So aside from the cruest and most pathetic of shelters, it was clear that the tarp and twine were the only practical solution. He draped the tarp of the line and folded it under, so that we would sleep on the tarp, and have it on both sides of us, but that both ends would be open. I cleared a spot for the fire, built a rock circle, prepped the tinder and kindling, then started to attempt the fire-drill method. Which looks something like this...
there's a piece of conk or shell between the vertical stick and the hand, to reduce friction. I found a decent bow and decent baseboard, but I ran into two obstacles. I found out that only a super straight stick can be used as the drill or the bow won't spin it. Also, the string has to abrasive enough to grip the drill, or it won't spin either. So using the bow was pretty clumsy. I enlisted John's help and he held the drill in place while I spun with my hands. We must've tried for an hour to get something to happen, but the wood was barely even warming up, so we gave up. We'd given it a valiant effort, it just couldn't be done in those circumstances. So we busted out the lighters, which we had both secretly brought. The fire got going too good though and started to spread over the insanely dry duff, so we had to put it out. So the fire quest failed, but I learned enough to be ablt to try again someday. After most light had faded and teh city lights had turned on, we were in for quite the treat. This was the ebst night-view I've had on the island. The lights were crazy. I could now see Powell River, Gillies Bay (Texada Island), Campbell River, Courtenay, Comox, Denmand Island, Hornby Island, Qualicum Beach, Parksville, Sechelt, and Vancouver. Nanaimo was blokced by a hill. We retired after midnight to a very long and cold night. I'd worn 3 paris of sock, my shoes, long underwear, boxers, shorts, and pants, 3 shirts, a hoody, and a jacket, a tuque, and two pairs of thin gloves. and i was still way too cold. I wore earplugs though, which made it was easier to pass out. Not much room too sleep and on uneven ground. I managed a few hours here or there. I got up when it was light out, but I had now idea how long it'd be till the sun actually came up, so i wrapped my towel around my head for extra warmth and passed out for another hour or two. John fared much worse, he was up at dawn, sitting, waiting for teh sun to warm him up. Morning was nice. The sky started clouding up, but it was still really nice. At one point, this little group of small birds came to eat a banana peel. I stuck out my arm and two brids landed on me. it was so COOL. I managed to repeat the feat for the camera too, so expect proof within a week. Breakign camp is so easy when all you have is a tarp, haha. We were on the trail by 9. Got to the old ski hill on Mt Cokely around 11:00. It's kind've eery, with some of the old t-bar towers still standing and cables just laying around. The summit was well socked in, so we kind've plodded on blindly, eventually picking up teh trail again. The vegetation now changed from subalpine to fulblown alpine in all it's rare mysticity (new word?). We started hitting snow patches, but within an hour, we had reached the summit without having to actually cross snow. The summit was pretty eery except for the microwave tower beeping at us. We could hear voices in the distance and yelled at them, but never actually saw anyone. Zero visibility, but still really cool. 1638m. We'd gained about 1400m since Cameron Lake. And then it happened. The mist started to clear in a few spots and I could see the bowl between Cokely and Arrowsmith. WOW. I was blown away. There's this releatively big lake (Fishtail Lake) and it was almost completely frozen over. Numerous waterfalls that we could see and now hear, and Arrowsmith just shooting straight up. So gorgeous. unbelievable. The clouds never totally went away, so I never saw down towards the ocean or even the summit of Arrowsmith, but I was content just staring into this bowl and brainstorming how to get down there someday. Apparently there's a plane crash down there too. After about and hour at the summit (and about 5 minutes of actual sunshine), we started to descend. We caught up to a father and his kids, who had driven up to the base of the summit from the Port Alberni side and talked to them for a while. Me and John had hiked 5 hours one way, and these guys had driven, then hiked an hour to get to pretty much the same spot. haha. there's a pefrect spot for a campsite right below the summit, so I think next time I might just drive right up myself and camp out. maybe alone. mwahaha. The descent was longer than expected,a ltough we did take a different route back most of the way through some really nice forest and along a picture prefect creek that had one really good established camping spot. We were back down to the highway and Cameron Lake by about 5:30. 9 hours of hiking and about 18km later. I jumped into the lake and we hitched back seperately, both getting rides really quick. John proved to be a very good companion, so I can defintiely see us making at least one more excursion this summer. I used the rest of that night to do some final research for my MEC shopping and to get ready for Warped. to be continued....
Just one of the many sunsets from Qualicum Beach....
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