The night before, I had attended the inaugural BITS (Bowen Island Trail Society) meeting, and had gotten super pumped about the possibilities of "building and maintaining a well-integrated and interconnected community trail network for the trail users of Bowen Island." This volunteer organization would be able to perhaps bridge the various groups already working hard on trail development and maintenance on-island, and be able to liaise with private land-owners as well, to secure right-of-way easements that didn't fall under the provisions of BC or federal Parks. (Remember my discussions about that here and here?)
Instigated by the organizers of the Handlogger's Half Marathon, I was happy to also see the Grafton Lake Lands developer in attendance, as well as representatives from the Bowen Island Rotary Club (whose projects include bowentrails.ca, the printed Bowen Island Trail Guide, and the Mt Gardner Trail Project), the Bowen Island Museum Board, the Parks and Greenways Advisory Committee (who were working on their new Parks and Trails Master Plan), Camp Bow-Isle, and the Maggie Cummings Fund. Not to mention many private citizens. All were keen to work together to create a successful trail network. It was quite inspiring!
I also found out about the "Schedule E" map, which has been like a guiding star on my hiking journeys. Just a note: it should not be relied upon as an accurate map. It's more of an enticement to explore the island and discover what might be there. You might notice, it doesn't even have all of the ROADS shown on it. Also, as is mentioned on the map itself, "Some of the parks and trail networks represented on this map are proposals only and do not [actually] exist on the land."
All fired up and ready to go exploring, Colin and I decided to take the Cates Hill Trail through to the Singing Woods Nature Reserve to the Mt Apodaca Eco-Reserve. The Schedule E map showed a trail leading from Singing Woods through Crown Land and joining up with the Valhalla trail. We somehow mis-remembered that as going straight into the eco-reserve. Here's a screenshot.
So, of course, everything was fine until we tackled getting to the eco-reserve, at which point I was not totally sure where we were at any given time, even though I was using my GPS. We zigzagged up the North slope of Mt Apodaca until we hit the reserve boundary. Here's an approximate map of our route (in blue), superimposed upon a screenshot of the Schedule E map.
The beginning of our hike was identical to the hike I did with Rory, so I didn't take new photos of that section. Here are a couple from the earlier walk, as a memory jog.
After we got to the junction of the trail with Cates Hill Rd (across from house address "621"), we stayed left and headed towards the Singing Woods Reserve.
At the clearing next to the little pond, we took the right hand fork. Very soon we saw the first sign showing us the boundary of the Singing Woods Reserve.
According to the Island Trust, The Singing Woods Nature Reserve was established in 1999, with the subdivision of Cates Hill. It was just over 22 acres (9 hectares) of second-growth forest. The Reserve contains the Davies Creek and the Dorothy Creek headwaters. (Dorothy Creek is a tributary to Terminal Creek.) It is "open to the local community for light recreational use, such as walking and nature appreciation" as long as people stay on the trails and dogs remain on-leash.
Over the little bridge, we followed the same footprints of the man and his dog that Rory and I followed last time.
It was at the sign "Pond ahead with flightless ducks," where Rory and I took a wrong turn and got lost last time, that Colin realized the trail led BEHIND the sign!
It wound around the far end of the pond, and over another small creek, before exiting onto the gravel lane, exactly where the two ladies had pointed me, last time.
Pleased to have discovered the correct path out to Minnow's Lane, we retraced our steps to the sign, and headed towards the pink ribbons I had seen last time. This time, I had a little background:
The Island Trust noted that: "Property boundaries of the [nature reserve] are difficult to locate. Currently the eastern, western, and southern boundaries have been flagged with pink ribbon. Legal survey iron pins are situated at each corner and have been flagged with pink and orange ribbon."
It really seemed like there was the remains of a logging road there... but a large log had fallen over it, where it joined the footpath we had been on, and so it was difficult to locate, at first.
Using the GPS, we chose a trail heading east right around where we thought the trail "should" be. It led up to a creek, and what looked like more logging road, running uphill to the south.
Colin charged up confidently. I started up more slowly, as the road was pretty steep, and we were walking on the fern-covered high right-hand side of the "road," which plunged down drastically away from the road on the right side. I panicked, frozen, afraid I would fall. I went down on my hands and knees and crawled up towards a flatter area up ahead.
At a very large cool twisting tree, the road hairpinned back on itself and headed north or north-west, still heading uphill.
We noticed that someone had come out here and placed wire mesh around young trees.
The Island Trust report mentioned that: "An old logging road crosses into the subject property approximately at the toe of the slope. It meanders through the property with a switchback and then ends at the clear-cut. [...] Some portions of the road are overgrown, although a trail does exist. It is recommended that public use of this trail be eliminated as it allows for access into Ecological Reserve #48 and portions of the road have been eroded at ephemeral stream crossings."
The road crossed over a creek. On the other side were more trees protected with wire. We didn't want to cross that area, as it looked really treacherous, with running water and loose rock at a steep angle. We imagined ballsy loggers driving over that creek and cringed.
Looking to the right, we saw the road also continued on our side of the creek. It also had many protected young trees. It occurred to us that the extra trees might have been planted so that, in time, this logging road would not be distinguishable from the rest of the forest.
We crossed a couple of tiny creeks by easily stepping over them.
The second creek turned and the road continued up, next to it.
It was then that we saw another pink plag! At the time, we took it as a trail flag, but in retrospect, it might have been marking the edge of the Singing Woods Reserve, and the beginning of the Apodaca Eco-reserve.
On a little side-note, at one point the whole island was known as Isla Apodaca, to the early Spanish explorers. In 1791, Captain Jose Maria Narvaez named it, in honor of the Mexican town of Apodaca, which was named after Bishop Salvador de Apodaca y Loreto.
We followed the wire-wrapped trees and more pink ribbons.
That took us ever uphill. Up Up Up until I could see a sign on a tree in the distance.
We climbed up to it. It read: "Ecological Reserve" and advised us that "camping, hunting, fishing, cutting trees, or using motorized vehicles is not permitted."
Nearby was a very small clearing with a beautiful lookout. Feeling accomplished, that we had reached the Eco-reserve, we turned back.
It turns out that we lucked out with the view, since the Warden's 2011 report noted that: "This ecoreserve is fortunate to be relatively isolated due to being surrounded either by private property or steep topography, and the absence of existing roads or trails. Also, there are no panoramic views on any summits within the reserve. As a result, visitation is limited to infrequent recreational hiking by nature enthusiasts, and human impacts are very low. [...] The reserve is not being used for research: it remains as an untouched reservoir of relatively low elevation maritime inland flora and fauna that can serve as benchmark or control for comparison with other areas in the lower mainland."
We took a slightly different path back, following different wire-wrapped trees, but we ended up rejoining our previous route after not long.
We easily stepped over the first of the two small creeks.
On the way back, it appeared as if another logging road led off to the left, however, it quickly ended in a marshy pool. We went back on the right-hand road, and followed it back down to the bigger treacherous looking creek. There, we dropped down and hairpinned back to the logging road we had climbed up on.
At the corner where it hairpinned again, I tried to be "artistic" with my photos of the strikingly shaped tree. A large branch, as big as a tree in its own right, had fallen down off and sat at its base. I wondered what these big ancient trees felt about standing guard over a logging road.
The deciduous giant seemed at first like a regal and imposing monster-creature...
... then morphed into a lithe dancing figure.
I had a lot of fun playing with angles and the light, until Colin urged me onward. I finally admitted that part of my motivation in staying so long at this corner was the panic atttack I had on the upcoming section, on our way up. Colin was surprised: he had no idea I was so scared on the way up.
He suggested that we walk in the depressed centre of the road, instead of the raised side above the plunging cliff.
I was still a little trepidacious, but made it down without totally freaking out or crawling. Victory is mine!!
Near the bottom, Colin found this cool bird's nest.
At the big log, we turned left and went downhill away from the creek.
We decided to take the trail past the pond to Minnow Lane.
We turned around and walked the length of Minnow Lane back to Cates Hill Rd. At the road, we turned left, just to check out the end of that road as well. It turns out, THAT is where the famous Twiggleberries was located! I had looked for it in vain, on my previous hike with Rory, and here we were, standing in front of it. The lands and gardens were quite beautiful.
The pond at the corner of Berry Rd was frozen solid.
We kept on straight at the intersection with Village Dr. The corner had been completely flattened, in preparation for more housing, as part of the next stage of the development. The large green sign describing the development was on the ground.
On the way up Rivendell Dr, we stopped by the Labyrinth, to see if it was any more visible than our last visit here.
It was only mildly so. But we scraped off the inner circle with our shoes, and got a glimpse of the stone and wood underneath.
We continued onward to Elrond's Court, where we turned right and were brought face to face with the neighborhood's amazing views.
We headed downhill, stopping along the way to admire stunning view after stunning view.
At the end of the road, we took the stairs down to Seaview Place. The tree about half way down the staircase featured a lovely pileated woodpecker! We stopped and took photos, and noticed several neighbors out doing the same.
We turned left onto Seaview Pl, and followed it around a hairpin down to its intersection with Village Dr.
Village Dr offered more great views, including one of the eco-reserve that we had just come from.
Arriving home, we had "cheese time" with an ash cheese I had recently picked up. (Thanks, Robban, you changed my life with you introduced me to this type of cheese!)
Then I started a batch of focaccia Colin made a massive batch of chili while I took a nap. ;)
Some really beautiful photos in this post. You put a lot of work into this - really appreciate the information and your story-telling.
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