Explorations in this amazing landscape – the view from Bowen Island
The theme for Bowfest 2011 was ‘Under the Sea.’ Here is a collection of video shots and images of the day. On August 27 the day began with the Run for Rwanda, and then the Bowfest Parade down the main street of Bowen Island. The festival grounds were in Crippen Park adjacent to Snug Cove. It was a sunny mild day. Your reporter spent most of the day at the BowenLIFT Pavilion.
As we approached the end of the Roe Creek Rd. and had our first glimpse of the slopes we'd climb, we saw we'd be on snow most of the time
The guide book, Scrambles, by Matt Gunn described the logging road up Roe Creek as a horror. Water bars begin at 6.8 km, and at 9 km a washout makes it impassable. The last 2-1/2 km must be walked. And then the hiking begins with a bushwhack down to the creek, followed by a reported hair raising boulder-hop across the torrent. Last Sunday (Aug 7) we decided to reconnoiter. The good news is: the whole road is easily navigated with a 4×4. The washout has been graded and the water bars are gone. The whole road is probably passable with a 2-wheel drive. The images are thumbnails — please click to see full size.
We parked just past the last cut block. We chose that because the trip down to the creek seemed shorter than the end of the road.
It was easy to find our way up Roe Creek to the snow
After some thrashing around, we found a very helpful path at 50º 02′ 09.6″ N 123º 13′ 24.6″. It leaves the road just past a little bridge and heads down through the old growth forest to Roe Cr.
The flow on that side of the main Creek was fairly benign, and all we had to do was rock-hop until we found enough snow to support us. Most of the rest of the hike was on sometimes-steep snow. Lovely, and no bugs.
Lunch Rock below Cypress Peak, view of Black Tusk
Reclining Balance Rock enjoying the view
When we turned back we were only about 1000 feet below Cypress Peak. The top would have been a fairly easy destination if we’d started earlier.
Even without climbing to a summit, it was an enjoyable day in a beautiful location.
Walking towards the North-East facing cliffs of Cypress Peak
A couple of last comments. I see that I now have posted 301 blog articles at this site. And, since this blog was meant to be a short-term experiment, I never imagined that I’d leave a trail that is this long.
I’ve been to Cypress Peak before. My story of a ski trip to that mountain, with an approach from the other side, is here: Tabblo essay.
If you live around Vancouver, you might think that Cypress Mountain is a hill on the North Shore. Actually, there is no such mountain by that name. There is a resort that calls itself Cypress Mountain because it is within Cypress Provincial Park. This is the real nearby Cypress Peak.
Yesterday, as part of its program to promote Bowen Islanders offering lifts to pedestrians the BowenLift crew was talking to Wil Hilsen, the municipality’s manager of engineering and operation, about car pullouts — where hitchhikers can expect to be picked up. Here is how it would work.
There is already a potential Lift Stop at the bottom of Cates Hill
If there were a culvert for the ditch above Senior Road, this might be a pullout
Several locations were visited and discussed.
Daphne Laureola - 11 Bundles - RIP
After a week there is still Daphne here. But…
There wasn’t nigh as many as there was a while ago
Celebrating the holiday scraping moss off my roof
Mini-blog (Twitter)
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