Hello everyone. Yesterday Spencer and I went out for a hike, because the weather has been gorgeous here for a few days (for late October, anyways). We hiked from a beach at the back of a bay near town out to the headland and lighthouse there, and then back. It was 20 kilometers or 12.5 miles round trip. That's my farthest hike ever in one day! This was facilitated by the mostly flat terrain, a light pack, and a pretty good trail. Although considered a coastal trail, we only got to see the ocean a couple of times during the hike; it was mostly a forest scene for us. The trail is in a national park, so it hasn't been logged in a really long time, and we saw some very large cedar trees:



Local history lesson: The West Coast trail (which we were on) is a long (47-mile, 75-km) and well-maintained trail on the southern coast of British Columbia. It starts at Pachena Beach near Bamfield. In the days before GPS, it wasn't entirely uncommon for ships heading north along the U.S. to Seattle or Vancouver to miss the right-hand turn into the Strait of Juan de Fuca (between Vancouver Island and Washington), and crash into the island. Because of this, they ran a telegraph wire along the coastline there, and created this trail so that 1. people who survived the shipwrecks could get onto the land and hike out to towns on either end and 2. rescuers who were repsonding to shipwrecks could better access the coastline via the land. They could also send signals at telegraph sheds along the way. So, that was its original intention, and now it's a hiking attraction. People come to backpack the whole thing in usually 5-7 days.

We also saw some impressive areas of blowdown-- patches of trees that were knocked over two winters ago when the really bad storms (100 mph winds) came through. We were on the lookout for mushrooms (saw some but not tons) and the cougar (seen a number of times this year), but we didn't see it. The lighthouse was cool (see new lighthouse list to the right on my blog). It was fun to go see another one, since we've spent so much time at the Cape Beale lighthouse. We only got to stay for about 20 minutes though before we had to head back in order to make it back before dark. We succeeded with that, and got back at 5 with plenty of daylight left. Then we wished we'd stayed at the lighthouse a little longer! Max Power had a great time on our hike, of course. We think that every day he gets up and waits for us to do that sort of thing with him-- "Ok, today let's do a really long hike in the woods! Woooo!" He was pretty excited about it yesterday. He always gets extra excited when we go somewhere he hasn't been before, too. It was a long day for him as well, however. On our way back from the lighthouse he didn't walk in front the whole time, and he actually laid down on some ferns when we stopped to rest at kilometer 14. Today we all feel our age with sore joints and feet. For the first time ever for me, all of my post-hike pain is joint pain rather than muscle pain, which is kinda weird.

So that's the story of our hike. We had a very good time. As usual, you can see more photos at my photo gallery.

And I know you've been waiting for this-- a photo of the big spiders that eat the big crickets (mom, don't look)!:


I caught this one on the outside of the house, but I relocated it to the woods as a precaution. I think if its legs were spread out it would be about 4 inches across! Sorry I don't have a more close-up photo for you, Kim. If I can I'll try next time. And the one you're thinking of in Australia and New Zealand is a Weta. Our crickets aren't that big in their bodies for the most part, but I think ours have longer legs.

Okie dokie, that's what I know today. I hope you all had a nice weekend as well! More later!