Bonnie and I have been looking for a good place to take walks – our dream is to walk one hour in the morning and one hour in the late afternoon. The sunrise is later here at the Shuswap and the sunset earlier. By 4 pm it is dark, so it is hard to get in those 2 hours of walking in the daylight and have a nap in between, should the first tramp in the woods have been too vigorous.
I asked Glen the best place for a walk, a real walk. Bonnie and I could only stroll up Pilling Road to Bernie, for we had to watch for the difference between the gravelled places, the crusty ice which is also good to walk on and then places where ice would make having skates on preferable.
Glen said it would be possible to take a chain saw and clear a place across our land that would join up at the walking / biking trail that takes advantage of the Old Sicamous Road Trail.
“Then I am in for the day,” I said. “I will pull the branches out of the way, and Matiram Poon would love it too.”
“OK," he replied, "but first let us check out how the trail is." We drove to the old lookout point, parked the car and walked back, past the barrier to the place where you can pick up the trail from the road.
I walked this community maintained trail for the first time this summer. So did all of the children who were more than eight years old, some of them doing it twice. The walk turned into a science lesson today for I was with a B.C forester and a Nepalese Himalayan base camp doctor.
We looked at a specimen of a young cedar tree, we crushed its needles between our fingers, getting a sense of the smell of the tree as well the feeling of the needles. “Mmm, smells good for curry,” said Mati.
Glen pointed out the difference between the Hemlock and the Douglas fir.
“The needles of the fir twist around the branch, while the hemlock needles are flatter, more on the same plane,” he explained. “As well, look at the height of both trees. The Douglas fir reaches for the sun, and looses its lower branches. The hemlock grows under the forest canopy, keeps it branches. The hemlock treasures all of the light that comes to it."
"Smell the needles of the Douglas fir,” he continued.
“Mmm, would be good in curry,” said Mati, again.
I am not quick to differentiate the color and textures of the tree trunks, not good at identifying the tree by just seeing its bole.
“How could I tell this is a birch?,” I asked.
“The trunk is not white, until it gets more mature. Birch trees can grow out of the same root. They don’t need to grow from a seed, he continued. “Look at the difference in the tree boles,” he said, stroking the side of the tree. “See this burnished orange color here, and the deep ridges in the bark as opposed to the trunk of this tree here,” he said again, pointing to the hemlock.
The deciduous trees are bare now, their leaves on the ground. “I can’t tell if this is a western maple or alder by the trunk,” he continued. “But I know how to tell.’” He bent down to retrieve a leaf. “Look, this is no maple leaf so it must be an alder."
Water had puddled in the ruts of the trail.
“Where does this water come from,” I asked.
“If I had a shovel I would go up the hill and be digging to see,” said Glen. “The earth is made up of layers, sometimes as many as seven strata” and he continued, listing them for us. “The first is hummus created by the deadfall and the last, bedrook. Water seeps between some of these layers and you can see that when the original road went through here, a big cut was made in this hill. The water wouldn’t be here, if the layers were still in tact, but they are exposed now and somewhere between some of the layers there is a small amount of water seeping and it is puddling here.”
At one place on the walk there is a barrier of rocks, a double barrier, the boulders incased in large wire boxes so the lines of the barrier are clean and square. “New,” said Glen, “for the technology for this is only 20 years old.”
I wondered who had erreted the barrier.
“Maybe highways,” he mused as he looked way up the hill. “Maybe the CPR,” he continued as he looked down the hill. “There are some liability issues here, and I suspect that highways has done the barrier, for they are the ones who created the problem that could become a slide ... on that might end up on the tracks.
We veered off the path, swung around a tree and a few steps later were beside a large culvert that water was still running through.
“There must be an enormous amount of water going through here at spring runoff,” I said. “And how did you know this water was running underneath the path,” I continued.
“No,” said Glen, “to the question about a lot of water running here. Take a look around the upper couple of feet around the edges of the water here. If there was a lot of runoff you would see vestiges of it up high, but there is nothing here. As to the second question, I heard water running as we were walking along the path and slipped down here to see if the stream was moving well. If it wasn’t, I would have alerted someone in town. No, that is not my job to take a look at this, but since I am here, I wanted to check.”
When I took this in the summertime, I couldn’t see the camera that is taking pictures of the wild life along the trail. Glen saw the markings for the camera on a tree: one foot high arrows about 8 feet high, painted on the tree tunk. These are cameras to capture the movement of the wildlife along the trail.
The wax berry bushes are decorated, professionally it seems, with the small white clumps and single berries hanging on their grey branches. The wax berries hang in clusters everywhere: on the bluffs by the railroad track, fronting the ramp camp, along the roads.
The rose-hips twin the beauty of the wax berries, only using the colour red. Mati and I stopped to eat one – the flesh now soft, the pulpy red texture of the berry hanging onto our fingers.as we cast off the seeds.
Glen left us to go check the water system. Mati and I continued along the beach, look at the small stream which have fanned out into huge patches of ice.
Beautiful.
Wish you all could have been on the walk.
Maybe next winter.
Arta
I asked Glen the best place for a walk, a real walk. Bonnie and I could only stroll up Pilling Road to Bernie, for we had to watch for the difference between the gravelled places, the crusty ice which is also good to walk on and then places where ice would make having skates on preferable.
Glen said it would be possible to take a chain saw and clear a place across our land that would join up at the walking / biking trail that takes advantage of the Old Sicamous Road Trail.
“Then I am in for the day,” I said. “I will pull the branches out of the way, and Matiram Poon would love it too.”
“OK," he replied, "but first let us check out how the trail is." We drove to the old lookout point, parked the car and walked back, past the barrier to the place where you can pick up the trail from the road.
I walked this community maintained trail for the first time this summer. So did all of the children who were more than eight years old, some of them doing it twice. The walk turned into a science lesson today for I was with a B.C forester and a Nepalese Himalayan base camp doctor.
We looked at a specimen of a young cedar tree, we crushed its needles between our fingers, getting a sense of the smell of the tree as well the feeling of the needles. “Mmm, smells good for curry,” said Mati.
Glen pointed out the difference between the Hemlock and the Douglas fir.
“The needles of the fir twist around the branch, while the hemlock needles are flatter, more on the same plane,” he explained. “As well, look at the height of both trees. The Douglas fir reaches for the sun, and looses its lower branches. The hemlock grows under the forest canopy, keeps it branches. The hemlock treasures all of the light that comes to it.""Smell the needles of the Douglas fir,” he continued.
“Mmm, would be good in curry,” said Mati, again.
I am not quick to differentiate the color and textures of the tree trunks, not good at identifying the tree by just seeing its bole.
“How could I tell this is a birch?,” I asked.
“The trunk is not white, until it gets more mature. Birch trees can grow out of the same root. They don’t need to grow from a seed, he continued. “Look at the difference in the tree boles,” he said, stroking the side of the tree. “See this burnished orange color here, and the deep ridges in the bark as opposed to the trunk of this tree here,” he said again, pointing to the hemlock.
The deciduous trees are bare now, their leaves on the ground. “I can’t tell if this is a western maple or alder by the trunk,” he continued. “But I know how to tell.’” He bent down to retrieve a leaf. “Look, this is no maple leaf so it must be an alder."
Water had puddled in the ruts of the trail.
“Where does this water come from,” I asked.
“If I had a shovel I would go up the hill and be digging to see,” said Glen. “The earth is made up of layers, sometimes as many as seven strata” and he continued, listing them for us. “The first is hummus created by the deadfall and the last, bedrook. Water seeps between some of these layers and you can see that when the original road went through here, a big cut was made in this hill. The water wouldn’t be here, if the layers were still in tact, but they are exposed now and somewhere between some of the layers there is a small amount of water seeping and it is puddling here.”
At one place on the walk there is a barrier of rocks, a double barrier, the boulders incased in large wire boxes so the lines of the barrier are clean and square. “New,” said Glen, “for the technology for this is only 20 years old.”
I wondered who had erreted the barrier.
“Maybe highways,” he mused as he looked way up the hill. “Maybe the CPR,” he continued as he looked down the hill. “There are some liability issues here, and I suspect that highways has done the barrier, for they are the ones who created the problem that could become a slide ... on that might end up on the tracks.
We veered off the path, swung around a tree and a few steps later were beside a large culvert that water was still running through.
“There must be an enormous amount of water going through here at spring runoff,” I said. “And how did you know this water was running underneath the path,” I continued.
“No,” said Glen, “to the question about a lot of water running here. Take a look around the upper couple of feet around the edges of the water here. If there was a lot of runoff you would see vestiges of it up high, but there is nothing here. As to the second question, I heard water running as we were walking along the path and slipped down here to see if the stream was moving well. If it wasn’t, I would have alerted someone in town. No, that is not my job to take a look at this, but since I am here, I wanted to check.”
When I took this in the summertime, I couldn’t see the camera that is taking pictures of the wild life along the trail. Glen saw the markings for the camera on a tree: one foot high arrows about 8 feet high, painted on the tree tunk. These are cameras to capture the movement of the wildlife along the trail.
The wax berry bushes are decorated, professionally it seems, with the small white clumps and single berries hanging on their grey branches. The wax berries hang in clusters everywhere: on the bluffs by the railroad track, fronting the ramp camp, along the roads.
The rose-hips twin the beauty of the wax berries, only using the colour red. Mati and I stopped to eat one – the flesh now soft, the pulpy red texture of the berry hanging onto our fingers.as we cast off the seeds.Glen left us to go check the water system. Mati and I continued along the beach, look at the small stream which have fanned out into huge patches of ice.
Beautiful.
Wish you all could have been on the walk.
Maybe next winter.
Arta
Great pics Arta but more importantly, how was Mati's curry? I am thinking he should make some with pine needles in it. Let us know when that happens.
ReplyDelete