Old Sicamous Road Walk, Part 1

Old Sicamous Road

Knowing that the most important job of every day is for me to have my exercise, and also knowing that I love those early morning hours, and want to use them  for intellectual endeavours, rather than physical exercise, I decided to take hold of myself and walk first thing in the morning, whether I want to or not.

 ...so glad I bought the  heavy duty stroller for the woods ...

I slipped into the Bates House to find a walking partner, hoping that Zoe or Charise would be up, but any house that stays up until 2 am every night playing family games, is not likely to have too many people wandering around at 6 am, wanting to walk before their day begins again.

“This couldn’t be true of a house where there is someone under one year old,” I thought, so I went over to see if Landon Hicks had woken anyone in his house.

Laynie was up, but not the baby, and though Glen encouraged her to take the run with me, the baby was awake by the time his mom had her running shoes on, so Glen suited up and off to the trail we went
Glen pushing the baby along the Trans Canada Highway until we came to the Walking Cycling Trail that follows Old Sicamous Road right into town.

The walk was equally enjoyable the next day.

Art bought me a telephoto lens for my birthday

Marcia joined us. 

I learn something new every time I walk the trail – and especially with an old forester.

Here is my laundry list of new things I saw along the way and new hints that Glen gave me to help me truly enjoy the forest. 

Art and Teague, fishing at 6 am

One is that if I take the walk early in the morning and look down, way down to the water, I might see Teague and Art in a boat, their fishing lines out on a beautiful morning.

You can see them in the lower left hand side of the picture, barely a dot on the water.

We stopped again to look at the barrier that Highways constructed about 20 years ago. 

There is a potential slide area, one where the rocks could come down and cover the railroad track.

highways slide barrier

Since there would be liability from highway construction involved if such a slide happened, highways constructed this barrier.

Stopping at this point to look up to the highway and then down to the water is well worth the time spent there, getting an idea of where the slide comes from and how it could impact the railroad below.

One of the signs that I have missed along the way is one that is high on the highway side of the trail, instead of down low, at eye level as the other signs are.

goat's beard

“You can see it up there, a little higher than the goat’s beard,” Glen said, pointing to where the sign was nailed, high in a tree.

Sure enough, the 3 kilometre sign was hidden way up where I would have never seen it.

We had a long lesson on the difference between step moss and pipe cleaner moss.

“I could remember the Latin names with a little refresher,” he said, “but you get the idea with the common names.”

step moss

The step moss can be separated into steps when you pick it up and try to see the real shape of it.  We stayed there for a while, trying to get a handle on the pipe cleaner moss that sticks straight up, comparing it to the step moss that separates out in layers.

We paused for a minute to take pictures at a place where someone has built a small wooden bench on a look-out that gives a good view up toward The Narrows, a place where all three of us had our cameras in hand.

The Indian Pipe was in large patches along the trail – not hard to see, if one would just look down, which is where I was looking most of the time, to keep my footing secure.

Look up.  Look up.

“Foresters are always told to look up”, said Glen, and indeed, he taught me how to see the difference between the cedar cover and the more mature Douglas Fir cover in the forest as we walked along, a new learning for me.