Bear, Fish, Fish, Moose, Fish, Bear, Bear, Bear, Bear (Fish)

Short Version:
We ride in the forest, get clean, and have wildlife encounters.

Long Version:
Williams Lake has networks of cross-country mountain-bike trails on all sides. The bike shop mechanics had recommended hitting all of them, which was no help when it came to picking which to ride first. They did give me a hand-drawn map of the Southside trail network access points though, so we decided to start with that one, and two and a half hours of some pretty nice, slightly too-wet dirt base trail riding later, we felt pretty good about the choice. Nothing too steep - although the options were there if we'd wanted them - and lots of technical challenges, mainly involving tight turns around trees, off-camber traverses, and some tough but rideable switchbacks. One broken chain repair (success!) and one instance of sitting on ground instead of on bike (FAIL!), and then back to the van, where we ran into our Lake Tyax camp-neighbors (Hi Doreen and Robert!), who'd stopped to shop at the big Canadian Tire store before hitting the long road homeward to Bella Coola.

We made our way to the big Recreation Centre, with grand designs on swimming some lengths, soaking in the hot pool, and showering, but they'd closed all pools and shut off the hot water for month-long maintenance activities. Bastards. The folks at the local gym let us use their showers, though, and being clean felt really really good as we hit the road out to the highly-recommended free campground at the Blue Lake. Which was closed.

So we made our way to the campground at Forest Lake, where we found unheralded and surprising loveliness. The place was near-deserted, and we nabbed an isolated spot at the northern extreme of the camping area, right on the lake shore and surrounded by trees on three sides. The lake level was down from normal here as well, but not as markedly as at Brunson Lake (and certainly without the noxious odour!). Looking lakeward we had views out across the main body of water and the forests on the far side filling most of our field of view, with a small arm of the lake in to our left. The woods on the far side of this cove provided the first of what would prove to be many wildlife sightings at Forest Lake; a young black bear prowling the tree-line in the last of the sun, then swimming a 20m loop before hauling herself out of the water, shaking herself off, and disappearing into the trees. In what was to become standard fare for the place, fish - some of them huge - were leaping with abandon, some of them hugely. A moose appeared, near where the bear had wandered away, and spent some time standing in the shallows, drinking from the lake. Mooses are big.

We were sitting at our site's table, reading, when at the same time Lovely Wife heard, and I smelled something new and interesting. We turned as one to see a BIG black bear twenty metres away, on the fringes of the dense woods, and heading our way. We stood, waved sticks, and made noise, which had the desired effect of causing it to wander off, but not before its equally-large companion appeared and looked at us curiously. With the sun gone from our side of the lake, the temperature was dropping fast, and we were near packing it in for the night when we spied yet another bear, heading our way along the shoreline from about ten metres. He had his head down, intent on the ground in front of his paws, and seemed to get a heck of a fright when we used our big voices to tell him he should go elsewhere. He was already running when Nene clapped her hands, but when she did he put on a suprising burst of speed and disappeared into the forest after a couple of what looked very much like disapproving backward glances.

Encroaching darkness was reducing our confidence in our ability to spot bears before they got closer than was comfortable, so we locked ourselves away in the Reaper and huddled up against the cold.