Monday was a beautiful day, neatly fitted in between the rainy days and the snowy days.  Most of the usual suspects were elsewhere on vacation, but three of us had a great and productive work party, clipping salal, clearing deadfall up the North Chinese Mountain trail.  At the top we made a new side trail to a great viewpoint facing north and west.  We removed some deadfall and brush, smoothed some rocks and  then enjoyed the 180° view, with some cloud over the mainland mountains.  After lunch we descended, discussed the old bridge and then climbed up to South Chinese Mountain for the view.  We then worked our way down the south-side trail, improving the newish section that avoids a water and deadfall damaged part of the old road.  We removed several obstacles on this new section and then built up some rock work to make it easier to cross a stream.  After that we explored an alternate route which avoids a steep eroded stream bed.  A future project will be to reroute this section somehow.  Then back to the vehicle.  (5 hours, 5.2 km)

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Work party – Chinese Mtn – 26 Feb 2024

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.

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Work party – Chinese Mtn – 25 Oct 2023

Five hardy club members started early Monday morning, May 15, braving the unseasonal extreme heat to show our community pride by participating in Quadra’s Beach Clean-Up. We began at Big Beach in Open Bay where Les and Neil hauled two heavy piles of already collected debris from the beach-side trailhead back up the steep trail to our large collection bag. This pile turned out to be the most garbage we would see for the entire clean-up. The three beaches (Big, Redonda, and Valdes beaches) have obviously been well cleaned in the last few weeks, by other Island teams and/or the geology students from VIU.

Kudos to Debbie and Norris who made a valiant effort at Big Beach to remove the tires/styrofoam/wood remains of an old dock.  Too heavy and bulky to wangle up the steep hill, it was finally, regretfully, left at the beach above the high tide line.

Small amounts of debris were found at Redonda and Valdes beaches, dutifully packed into the big white bag for later disposal at the Beach Clean-Up event on May 27.

The heat on the exposed beaches precluded any socializing afterwards, so we all headed back to find our cool spots at home. (about 2.5 hours; about 27° C)

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Beach Clean-up – Open Bay – 15 May 2023

In between many days of rain we had a beautiful, autumn day for this work party on the Chinese Mountain network of trails. Nine people helped and accomplished a lot branching out to the different approaches to North and South Chinese Mountains.  We cut back brush along the trails, improvised a repair on a bridge railing, and cut out a tree lying across the trail.  After about an hour and a half we came together for a lunch break at the South Chinese Mountain viewpoint, which was perfect on the lovely day. The fresh snow on the mainland and Vancouver Island mountains made the views even better. After lunch everyone continued to work on their way back to the vehicles, except for three who carried on up the Beech’s Mtn trail, doing a bit of brush cutting along the way. Time and distance were variable.

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Work party – Chinese Mtn – 2 Nov 2022