An Accidental Hike

Short Version:
Eat, run, meet, kill, ogle, eat, drive, walk, walk, walk, make yellow snow, walk, walk, walk, talk, cook, eat, talk, drink, sleep

Long Version:
Having eaten an incredible amount of delicious Chinese foods the previous evening, starting the day with a run seemed like an appropriate thing to do. Right up to the point where we had to go out of the warm house. Still, we completed 7km without meeting anything that wanted to eat us, and were hungry again when we arrived back at the farm.

Breakfast was both copious and delicious, and we we set off into town pleasantly stuffed. We stopped on the way at the Dunster General Store, where we met some more locals* (Hi Stu and Danielle!) and then harvested a squirrel on the way to Beaverdam Falls, where we saw two golden eagles soaring in circles above the river and a bear on the far bank. By the time we made it to town at noon we were well ready to try the Mennonite cinnamon buns we'd been hearing about all morning. Mennonites are a Christian Anabaptist group, who espouse non-violence and adult baptism**. The women we saw were dressed like they were living in the 19th century, which indicates that they're members of a conservative branch of this proto-Amish sect. Not sure how much any of that contributes to the deliciousness of their cinnamon buns, but they're certainly blimmin good. We ate one each, then headed off to hike to the natural rock arch high on the shoulder of Beaver Mountain.

First, though, there was a stop at the liquor store, where both the woman at the counter and another patron gave us things to add to our travel itinerary, including a quick hike to a worth-seeing waterfall not far from where we were. The directions to the trailhead were comprehensive and accurate, and the only thing missing was an instruction to ignore the "No Trespassing" sign, which was an unfortunate omission as it meant that instead of parking at the bottom of the hill, we drove on up it. Several kilometres. Our suspicions about having missed our trail were confirmed when we reached the Halfway Viewpoint and Cabin, where we made our second Believing Signs error; this time a "Steep, 4x4-only road from this point" sign had us parking the van on the flat and walking the 5.5km of entirely-driveable dirt to the turning bay at the end of the road. From there it was a 45-minute scramble over steep rocky terrain to the summit, with marmot and pika sightings along the way and a stop to eat sour dinosaurs at the old fire lookout. We were well above the snow line by the time we reached the peak, and some locals we met on the way back down said they'd had two dustings of fresh snow in the last couple of weeks.

They also told us that Christchurch had been hit by a significant earthquake, which was ungood to hear, but it was reassuring to be told that no-one had died. A quick stop at the closed Beanery*** for internet access and then we were on the road back to Stefi and Archie's, where we found a fire lit in the woodstove insdoors, and another under the grill outside. Archie had this one pretty much perfectly placed to start cooking Buffy, the recently-deceased cow, and so soon he and I were standing around sizzling chunks of bovine while enjoying a delicious beer or two.

A bout of serious weather rolled in just as we started eating, bending the trees a long way over, shaking the house with thunderous thunder, and lighting up the growing darkness at ever-decreasing intervals. The rain was torrential, but it was wind v trees which ended up knocking the power out**** and forced us to finish eating Buffy by candlelight. We kept Stefi and Archie up well past their bedtime, drank a coupe of drinks too many*****, and then went to bed to the sound of the driving rain. Which was really rather nice when heard from inside a warm, dry house.


Buffy was delicious.







* = Not actually permanent locals; rather, they were woofers, which means that they travel about the place, working on organic farms for 4-6 hours a day in exchange for food and a place to sleep. The Robson Valley, which houses both Dunster and McBride, is a hot-bed of woofing, much like the Nelson region of NZ, only without the Asian-bashing skinheads. In this instance, we'd met a British graphic designer, and a chartered accountant from Calgary. Just before we arrived, Stefi and Archie had farewelled an Australian woman, who'd taken a 19-hour bus to the ferry terminal at Prince Rupert (it's something like a 17-hour ferry trip from there to Vancouver Island), and they'd not long before said Auf Wiedersehn to a pair of German frauleins, who'd apparently had more than a few of the local lads trying unsuccessfully to get past the (occasionally usefully obfuscatory, it seems) language barrier

** = As opposed to the practise of dunking infants, which Anabaptists contend is rendered meaningless by their non-choice in the matter

*** = Closed wifi-enabled cafes are a grand source of free, unlimited, no-purchase-required internet access

**** = We found out the next morning that the storm had knocked out power not only to the whole valley (1100-odd people), but also in a number of sizeable patches all over the province. Several thousand people affected, power still out through to late morning for us, later for others. Mainly trees down on powerlines, apparently, and the response to one local's call to report exactly that indicates why it took so long to rectify: power company said call 911, who said call power company. Eventually a call to the Forest Service got some action, but they were surprised to be hearing from a private individual, rather than from either the power company or 911 folks. Meanwhile, the tree was causing arcing across lines, and was on fire.

***** = May have just been me, as no-one else seemed any the worse for wear the next morning.