Paddle Desolation Sound with a little advice
October 17, 2011
Elizabeth Kohler enjoys a close-up look at sea life in Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park.
Click on Flikr photo galley (home page) to view a portfolio of Louise Christie’s Desolation Sound images
Access: Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park lies 144 kilometres north of Vancouver on the Sunshine Coast. For details, visit the BC Parks website. In Lund, Terracentric Adventures offers kayak rentals, tours, and water-taxi service. Powell River Sea Kayak also offers kayak rentals and tours from locations in Lund and nearby Okeover Inlet. Detailed maps of the Desolation Sound region include a Sunshine Coast recreation map and activity guide on the Tourism Powell River website, the Desolation Sound and Discovery Island trip planner by Coast & Kayak Magazine and Desolation Sound & the Discovery Islands (Harbour). For information on transportation and accommodation on the Sunshine Coast, visit their website.
A sea-kayak trip to Desolation Sound engages all five senses at once: sniff ocean breezes perfumed by wild rose and salal blossoms; taste salt water on fingertips; listen as the sound of pure silence fills the air; touch granite walls curtained with seaweeds and oyster shells; and watch velvety mountain ridges rise resolutely through clouds to glaciers on high.
That’s just for starters.
Keep track of the bird life that catches your attention during an excursion and be astounded by the final tally: murrelets, kingfishers, hummingbirds, oystercatchers, eagles, mergansers, nighthawks, loons, and gulls framed against a backdrop of golden, moss-covered slopes forested with ramrod-straight shore pines and shimmying arbutus.
It’s enough to overload one’s central nervous system to the point of dizziness.
Whatever your skill level, floating on the Pacific in a sea kayak is always a giddy experience.
No matter how glassy the surface, paddling the inland sea that stretches between the mainland and Vancouver Island feels like resting on a quivering bowl of gelatin.
With practice, the sensation of imbalance gives way to one of gently swaying atop a slumbering giant.
On the rocking cradle off the northern Sunshine Coast, the only sounds that rise above the profound peace are snortings and sighings as an inquisitive group of harbour seals pops up for a better look at brightly coloured ocean craft.
A more magical place to explore while seated would be hard to imagine.
Tap your foot gently on a rudder pedal and glide among them.
With every paddle stroke, equilibrium comes more naturally.
Once you’ve completed a guided sea-kayak trip or two, confidence in setting out on your own grows.
That’s where Christine Hollmann, owner of Lund-based Terracentric Adventures, comes in.
Her water-taxi service offers just the sort of introductio needed by intermediate-level paddlers keen to explore Desolation Sound Marine Provincial Park’s 30 kilometres of rocky, oyster-encrusted shoreline.
It’s fair to say that 40-year-old Hollmann, who grew up in nearby Powell River, knows every cove, bay, island, and freshwater lake in B.C.’s largest marine protected area.
“The park is hugely popular in summer. September into early fall is when you want to be here. The water is bathtub-warm, campsites free up, and the bugs vanish.”
Hollmann’s local knowledge, from when shellfish are in season to the ideal spot to catch sunrise from the door of a tent, is indispensable.
Just because Lund anchors road’s end on the Sunshine Coast Highway doesn’t mean that the fun stops there.
Quite the opposite, especially for those willing to trade wheels for waves.
Pockets of islands provide boaters with a chance to witness what life off the grid truly looks like.
That opportunity drew Elizabeth Kohler and partner Wendy Holmes of Spokane, Washington, to the area.
After the experienced freshwater paddlers kayaked in the Strait of Georgia during a visit to Vancouver Island four years ago, they vowed to return.
We journeyed into the park aboard Hollmann’s water taxi as the duo marvelled at the rain-forest scenery.
With less than a week at their disposal, the one-hour ride into the park from Lund circumvented what otherwise would have been a half-day’s challenging paddle each way.
With help from Hollmann in choosing a campsite, all that remained was settling in and day-tripping to a variety of scenic locales within the park.
Holmes was particularly intent on viewing Homfray Channel, the steep-sided fiord that curves into the folds of the surrounding peaks rising above Toba Inlet.
The best place to accomplish that turned out to be from the shelter of Prideaux Haven, characterized by sailor and author Laurence Yeadon-Jones as the crown jewel of easy anchorages.
Together with his wife, Anne, the couple returns regularly to Desolation Sound to update their series of Dreamspeaker cruising guides.
“Rocks don’t move, ” Yeadon-Jones commented. “Everything else damn well does.”
In the early 2000s, Yeadon-Jones said the Broughton Archipelago off the northern tip of Vancouver Island had become the place to sail.
However, with the rise in fuel prices, Desolation Sound has regained popularity, though it’s no longer the party place it once was.
Boaters seem more conscientious about noise, especially in places like Prideaux Haven, as equally special as it’s ever been since the pair first explored there in the early 1990s.
“Generally speaking, Desolation Sound is a peaceful and respectful destination.”
When viewed from the water-level vantage point of a kayak, the sound’s maze of islands blends seamlessly with the mainland.
To make sense of the landscape, detailed charts are a must.
In advance, consult as many sources as possible to prepare yourself for Desolation Sound’s dizzying natural impact.
Original Article
Text CR Jack Christie
Photo CR Louise Christie
Vancouver parks offer a little adventure for Free
October 12, 2011
In Vancouver, parks are us, big-time.
Unrivalled by any other Canadian jurisdiction, this city is blessed with an abundance of municipal, regional, and provincial parks, plus several wildlife sanctuaries.
Thanks to tax dollars and private donations, admission to most of these green spaces comes free of charge—except for parking fees, of course, though those were thankfully rescinded in B.C. provincial parks earlier this year.
Thus, in the category of “best free features in local parks”, the restored free parking in West Vancouver’s Cypress and North Vancouver’s Mount Seymour provincial parks ranks those spots right behind the top three finalists.
Hands down, the winner in this category has to be Lynn Canyon Park’s suspension bridge, just east of Lynn Valley Road on Peters Road.
Don’t confuse this with Vancouver’s top tourist attraction, the Capilano Suspension Bridge, located farther west on Capilano Road.
Unlike its counterpart, Lynn Canyon’s swaying walkway allows access from both banks, between which Lynn Creek tumbles.
Each year, between 750,000 and one million visitors cross the free bridge, which originally opened in 1912 in one of the North Shore’s first public green spaces.
Earlier this summer, we met District of North Vancouver ranger Tyler Perrier-Ehrlick midway across Lynn Canyon’s 40-metre drooping span.
The first-year Capilano University student said he had the best job in the world, one that dovetailed perfectly with his studies in outdoor-recreation management. “Four hundred people applied for this job,” the 19-year-old recounted. “I was lucky enough to be chosen. Now I’ve got summer employment for at least the next two years while I complete school.”
Perrier-Ehrlick’s boss, Andy Robinson, is North Vancouver’s head ranger and sole full-time park patroller.
Born just up the road from Lynn Canyon Park, the 45-year-old gives credit to the half-dozen seasonal staff members who assist him in the “pretty vast” job of supervising the district’s 152 parks, beaches, and greenbelts.
“We really focused on Lynn Canyon this year, offering public information and safety tips on what to see and where to go,” he said by phone, “especially as the suspension bridge is the best gateway in Metro for adventure tourists.”
That’s no idle claim.
What Robinson referenced is a massive 10,535 hectares of wilderness and semiwilderness that not only encompasses Lynn Canyon Park’s cliff faces, gravel bars, and densely forested trails but also takes in the adjoining Lynn Headwaters Regional Park and Lower Seymour Conservation Reserve.
Asked to pinpoint his picks as the best corners of Lynn Canyon Park to explore (beyond the bridge), Robinson listed 30 Foot Pool for openness, Twin Falls and Corner Pool for serenity, and the boardwalk-covered Varley Trail that follows Lynn Creek into Lynn Headwaters Park for colour.
“In fall, the water is crystal green where the creek has worn native rocks smooth over the years.”
As for the best places to walk dogs off-leash, he suggested south of Twin Falls, where a trail leads past Corner Pool toward Inter River Park.
“In spring and fall, it pays to keep your dog on-leash and out of the water. The swift-flowing current has carried more than a few away. There was nothing the owners could do to save them.”
Robinson particularly regrets that Lynn Canyon Park, including the bridge, is not wheelchair-accessible.
“Unfortunately, it’s hard to even carry strollers on the trails, as you have to always keep an eye on your footing. That being said, this is a great family park. There’s so much to see, looking up into the forest canopy, spotting wildlife, enjoying nature. This is the best of all worlds, so look after it. We welcome feedback. It’s great to hear from people. Speak up for your community.”
One person not shy to pipe up about the best free feature in East Vancouver’s Kensington Park (33rd Avenue and Knight Street) is Wee Wong, proprietor of Auto Repairs R “Wee”.
The long-time skateboarder proudly points to Kensington’s year-old skatepark, informally known as Carver Bowl, as one of the top three destinations for skaters in Metro, along with Bonsar (or Metro) Skatepark in Burnaby’s Metrotown neighbourhood and Hastings Skatepark on the Renfrew Street side of the PNE grounds.
“This is a world-class destination,” Wee told us at Kensington after work, “the first of its kind in North America. It’s a small park but it has everything you’d want in a pool-style design, including a ‘death box’ [a replica pool filter] that’s fun to grind over, but you have to be careful not to get your trucks hung up on it, or you’ll go flying into the deep end.”
Kensington, an instant hit with local skaters, is the latest in a series of Vancouver skateparks, all located on the city’s east side.
To Wong, this poses the question of when a similar facility will be created in an oceanside setting such as Jericho Park.
Meanwhile, the 47-year-old self-described old-school skater is happy to mentor a group of local youngsters, including his eight-year-old son, Rylee. “These kids have improved so much over the past year with this new terrain to practise in. At the annual Jaks competition, held recently in the China Creek Skatepark, all our riders came first in their categories.”
As proof, Wong pointed to the new athletic shoes worn by his “Wee Boys” riders, prizes garnered by their award-winning performances.
In addition to its drop-dead-gorgeous location, Kensington’s skatepark boasts a number of unique artificial features, the foremost being a jumbo likeness of a vinyl LP, complete with grooves and bent at a 45-degree angle, a tribute to Don “Mad Carver” Hartley, who died following a collision with a fellow skater two years ago.
“Don wore his helmet 99 percent of the time,” Wong related. “After a competition, he decided to do one more run, didn’t put his helmet on, and whacked his head. The tiles around the rim of the bowl were painted red, gold, and green rasta colours to honour his talents as a reggae DJ.”
The LP, positioned to frame skaters against a panoramic backdrop of the North Shore mountains, has quickly proven its worth, offering money-shot material for action-sports photographers, gratis.
Nothing reveals hidden wonders of the natural world better than a free bird-watching tour with Al Grass at the Maplewood Flats Conservation Area on North Vancouver’s Dollarton Highway.
The renowned naturalist always draws a crowd.
Thankfully, Grass’s expressive voice carries on the breezes that waft across Burrard Inlet east of the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing.
Whether or not you own binoculars, head there on the second Saturday morning of each month. Come prepared to be astonished at the avian life that appears as if on cue.
Grass felt October’s jaunt may well be the best of the year.
“October is one of the most excellent months, especially if the weather is in our favour. It’s the height of the fall migration, when warblers arrive in waves together with shore birds and raptors.”
Often accompanied by his wife, Jude, Grass leads extended rambles along the extensive network of wheelchair- and stroller-accessible trails at Maplewood Flats.
Spotting telescopes provide close-up looks at osprey nests built atop wooden pilings offshore.
Grass’s keen eye is all that’s needed to spy tiny green tree frogs sitting motionless at the centre of broadleaf maple leaves.
Grass said that sitting still is one of his favourite pastimes, particularly on a bench overlooking the mud flats at Osprey Point adjacent to a butterfly garden, “the best place to feel like you’re away from the hustle-bustle of urban sprawl”.
And, just like the sun, it’s free.
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