Four of us worked our way up the Chinese Mountain-Beech;s Mountain trail, claring deadfall and salal as we progressed. It turned out to be a beautiful clear fall day with great views.
(click on photos to enlarge)
| Activity | Hiking |
| Destination | Kw’as Regional Park, Cortes |
| Date | 30 Oct 2023, Monday |
| Trip Coordinator | Debbie Quigg |
| Contact Info | 285-3710 or dmquigg@gmail.com. Please contact the coordinator by Monday. |
| Description | We will hike through this lovely park, situated between Gunflint and Hague Lakes on Cortes Island. Along with great views, there is fine old growth, interesting geology and history, and a good variety of trails. We hope to include a bit of everything in the day’s hike. We will return on the 1:50 or 3:50 ferry. |
| Meeting Place | Heriot Bay ferry terminal to Cortes. Drivers will need to be early enough to be on the ferry. |
| Departure Time | 9:05 ferry |
| Difficulty |
Moderate. A few steep and undulating places, but mostly reasonable walking on good trails. The possible loops vary, but we may hike about 10 km. |
| Costs | Ferry costs; bring your ferry card. |
| Trip limits | 10 |
| Dogs? | |
| Notes: | Bring lunch and gear for weather. |
The forecast was fairly grim, with big wind and rain predicted, but five of us went ahead with the planned outing. We started at the Haig-Brown Heritage House, situated on the Campbell River, and enjoyed the tour and Marjorie’s informative talk. Centred in the family’s library and Roderick Haig-Brown’s office, we learned about the family’s history. We also enjoyed seeing the rest of the main floor of the house and a walk in the beautiful garden. More information about Roderick Haig-Brown, the family and the house are available here: https://www.haig-brown.bc.ca/haig-brown-family-history/
The second part of our outing took us to two pocket parks on the Campbell River: the Spruce St. viewpoint and the River Nook, both just a block apart. The river is beautiful, but Alex Witcombe’s driftwood sculptures of bear and fish, and his fish mural add a whole new dimension to these tiny, urban parks. Here is more information about Alex Witcombe and his work: https://driftedcreationsart.ca/
We walked across the bridge over the Campbell River and down into the paths on the north side of the River and its side channels. The fall colours were great and there were still a few salmon in the channels, but most were dead after spawning. We followed the quiet trail through this area, which has been restored from log dumping and milling. There is lots of Campbell River history here and there are interpretive signboards to document it. The rehabilitation effort has taken place over 25 years, with lots of money and volunteer work to make it happen. The transformation is quite wonderful. Here is more information about the rehabilitation of the Baikie Estuary: https://www.greenwaystrust.ca/projects/baikie-island-and-campbell-river-estuary/ (4.5 km; 1½ hours for the walk)
We retraced our steps back to the vehicles and then went for lunch at More Eatery. We had a lovely, social meal there before heading our separate ways. Amazingly, the rain held off while we walked, but deluged during lunch. We counted ourselves lucky.
(click on photos to enlarge)
Tour and Hike – Haig-Brown House and Baikie Estuary – 16 Oct 2023
The rain quit in the morning and three hikers enjoyed a beautiful sunny autumn day. We started up the mountain bike trail known as Dead Fish. There has been considerable work done on this trail. Mountain bikers have made new jumps and numerous banked corners. They have moved large amounts of rocks and dirt to do this. The small creek is now running again after the few rainfalls we have had. There were numerous multicoloured mushrooms that have just come up because of the rain as well. We crossed back over to the old Morte Lake Trail where Dead Fish turns and goes up the hill. We proceeded on past the two small lakes that are very low and to the east end beach of Morte Lake. It is very low as well, and a lot of new sand showing on the beach. Instead of taking the new mountain bike route that makes huge switch backs up the side of the hill ,we kept to the old trail, which is much shorter. It is in poor condition now, though, as it has quit being maintained.
We stopped at the north west beach to have lunch. Someone has cleared many of the rocks into piles so it is a very sandy beach with the water so low. We enjoyed the sun here and the lake before going on around the lake. We kept to the old route all the way back to the cars. (11 km; 3½ hours moving time)
| Activity | Hiking |
| Destination | Morte Lake Loop |
| Date | 11 Oct 2023, Wednesday |
| Trip Coordinator | Les Hand |
| Contact Info | lhquadra@gmail.com or 285-2029 |
| Description | We will do the classic around the lake hike. May do some small adjustments depending on the group. |
| Meeting Place | Heriot Bay store parking lot |
| Departure Time | 10:00 |
| Difficulty |
Easy |
| Costs | none |
| Trip limits | 10 |
| Dogs? | OK, but must be under control and not run back-and-forth through group |
| Notes | Sorry for the short notice for this hike. I thought maybe some of us would like to work off some of the turkey, LOL. Please contact one or two days early to sign up as only those who have signed up will be contacted in case of postponement or cancellation due to weather. |
| Activity | Work party |
| Destination | Chinese Mountain |
| Date | 25 Oct, Wednesday |
| Trip Coordinator | Norris Weimer |
| Contact Info | norris.weimer@ualberta.ca or 3710; please contact the coordinator in advance of the outing. |
| Description | The Chinese Mountain system is not in bad condition, but there is some deadfall that needs to be chainsawed and the annual brush cut is due. If there is time and energy, we may work on the trail to Beech’s Overlook. The Trail Committee provides tools. Bring your own gloves, and your own tools if you prefer them. We will have lunch at a scenic location. |
| Meeting Place | Heriot Bay store parking lot to organize tools and carpool to the trailhead |
| Departure Time | 10:00 |
| Difficulty |
Moderate work |
| Costs | None |
| Trip limits | 10 |
| Dogs? | No |
| Notes: | Bring lunch. |
| Activity | Tour and Hike |
| Destination | Haig-Brown House and Baikie Estuary |
| Date | 16 Oct. 2023, Monday |
| Trip Coordinator | Debbie Quigg |
| Contact Info | dmquigg@gmail.com or 3710. We need to RSVP for the tour, so please contact the coordinator by Friday, Oct. 13th. |
| Description | We will have a tour of the Haig-Brown house at 10:30, lasting about half an hour. Roderick Haig-Brown was a fly-fisher, a conservationist and an author. https://www.haig-brown.bc.ca/haig-brown-family-history/ From there, we will walk the short trail through the Baikie Estuary. This is a flat, out-and-back walk of about 6.2 km. The following link will help you understand the extent of the restoration which has occurred in the estuary: https://www.natureconservancy.ca/en/where-we-work/british-columbia/featured-projects/salish-sea/campbell-river-estuary.html Major work on the estuary has continued up to and through the summer of 2023. https://www.greenwaystrust.ca/projects/baikie-island-and-campbell-river-estuary/ We will check out the River Nook, with its Alex Witcombe mural and sculptures (https://driftedcreationsart.ca/public-art/) before heading to More Eatery for lunch. |
| Meeting Place | QCove ferry terminal or by arrangement |
| Departure Time | 10:00 ferry to Campbell River, by car or bicycle |
| Difficulty |
Easy |
| Costs | We will give a donation to the Haig-Brown House for the tour. Other costs are ferry and lunch. |
| Trip limits | 10 |
| Dogs? | No |
| Notes: | This outing is a window on conservation in Campbell River. There are three separate parts: the tour, the walk and the lunch. The lunch is entirely optional. |
Six of us were fortunate to have a truly beautiful autumn day for this highly varied hike. The group decided to do the hike as a loop, which is more challenging than out-and-back. We walked along the Mine Lake shore to Homewood’s Woodsman Camp and then steeply up the trail to the foot of the bluff. The exposed section of the route was fairly dry in spite of the previous day’s rain. Views of Mine Lake, the Quadra high plateau, and the Vancouver Island skyline made it all worthwhile. We explored much of the bluff perimeter, with impressive cliffs on the east and west sides, before settling down for lunch at a sunny viewpoint. We picked up the trail down the north side and under the impressive cliffs we had just been standing on. After visiting some of the periphery of the camp we followed the path out to the first campsite, at the corner of Mine Lake and the narrows. One person swam before we headed back along the lake to the vehicles. We enjoyed this leisurely hike to so many beautiful spots on a wonderful fall day. (6.6 km; 4 hours)
Six of us hiked this loop starting from North Gowlland Road. The recent welcome rain made the bushes wet and the day humid. We hiked North Gowlland Trail up to Rousseau Ridge with a short break for elevenses and to enjoy the view.. From there we descended the mossy bluffs toward Gowlland Harbour Rd, with a few short steep sections into the forest and back up on the ridge. Each ridge has great views of Discovery Passage and the Vancouver Island mountains, which were in cloud for us. We stopped for a leisurely lunch on the third and lowest bluff. We continued our descent to a logging road heading east and then picked up a route over lower, but still open bluffs taking us back to North Gowlland Trail. We enjoyed the three very old Douglas firs, the Three Sisters, on the way back to make our loop. Since we did this loop about 15 months ago, the flags have been removed, making the route finding trickier. 6.8 km; 3¼ hours.
(click on photos to enlarge)
| Activity | Hiking |
| Destination | Mine Lake Bluff |
| Date | 20 Sept 2023, Wednesday |
| Trip Coordinator | Debbie Quigg |
| Contact Info | dmquigg@gmail.com or 3710; please contact the coordinator by Monday night. |
| Description | We will hike through the Camp Homewood site on Mine Lake and then through the forest to the scenic bluff. We can decide as a group whether we want to do this as a loop or out-and-back. |
| Meeting Place | Heriot Bay store parking lot |
| Departure Time | 9:30 |
| Difficulty |
Moderate if we do out-and-back. Some challenging spots with exposure if we do the loop. |
| Costs | none |
| Trip limits | 10 |
| Dogs? | no |
| Notes | We will not do this trip in wet weather and maybe not even in poor visibility. |
Quadra Island Outdoor Club 