Coastal Trek

We are having a most magnificent time.  I can’t believe this place isn’t booked to the gills.  I guess because it is new and people don’t know about it, but oh my!

The hikes here are amazingly beautiful.  I can’t believe that I’ve lived in B.C. most of my life and didn’t even know some of the places we’ve visited existed.  Every day a new hike,  that blows my socks off with the grandeur of this planet we live on.  I mean, why go all the way to the other side of the world when such heart-stoppingly gorgeous landscape is here on our doorstep?

I want to bring my family here, to eat this healthy, delicious food that Kathy and Andrea make, and take them on these walks.

It’s not just for fancy, hot-shot hiking extremists.  Seriously. 

The first two days, Mike (the guide) broke it up in sections.  A nice little hike.  A shopping excursion.  Another nice little hike and then a visit to a local stoneworker/sculptor, because I had admired the beautiful fireplace that he had made here in the Coastal Trek lodge.  Another little hike.  And we only had to do 8 kms total.  Very doable.

I mean, it was a cinch.  The hikes are tailored to the guests that are in the lodge at any particular week.  So, if there are people that want to go straight up for 8 hours straight…that can be arranged.  And then there are people like me and Dawna, ages 48, and 52.  We no longer are interested in being the fastest and the first.  We just would like to get in better shape and not have a heart-attack doing it.  And that is exactly what we are doing!

So, today, because our confidence was up from the last two days, we ended up doing 13 kms through Strathacona (I spelt that wrong) park and we even managed to hike until we were up really high and then back down again. 

There were creeks with spotted brown trout and one with a red stripe down it’s side and polka-dots.  The Alpine meadows were in full bloom, and to me, fancy gardens can’t even come close to to matching their beauty.  Natural ponds with water lilies.  Delicate little flowers, wild heather, purple and white, wild orchids, pale pink flowers with delicate petals and nodding heads, stunning vibrant ones in many colors, but everything with such a subtle touch.  Nothing heavy handed.  And that tender soft green of new growth that always seems so hopeful, and even though it’s well into July, that’s the way it was way up there, because the snow had just finished melting. 

We were hiking in first growth trees, but I never would have known it if Mike hadn’t said so, because they were one zillionth the size of trees we have seen in the last few days.  Yet they were as old, or older, just stunted by being encased in snow for most of the year.  The streams and lakes were unbelievable clear.  How I remember they used to be, when I was a girl.  And then we would be out of the meadow, who was so peaceful and serene and confident of her beauty and then there we were, trekking through shaded woods, up muddy and rocky paths with Mike regaling us with stories of days gone past and the lakes and streams got their names, and a million other things. 

And the water falls that we visited yesterday, and the rain forest the day before, with wild berries abundant on the bushes and more ferns that I have ever seen in one place at one time.

And the food here is delicious and everybody is so nice.  Truly nice.  Not just pretending to be.  I am so glad I came and I want to come here again and again, because I will only be able to see a tiny spoonful of all that there is to see. 

So, I’m really glad I came, that I didn’t get scared off.  Because, and I know this is going to sound weird, but it’s real peaceful here.  I feel nicely tired, not dog-ass tired.  See the thing is, Mike makes everything sound so exciting that I don’t even notice I’m hiking my butt off, I just want to see more, and more and more.

Posted by Meg Tilly on Monday, July 28, 2008 in Chewing the Fat