All summer long, every week; good weather on the Wednesday hike with my work friends. Well, fall is here, and as noted in my previous Wednesday hike blurb, the weather has definitely changed to be somewhat less inspiring. No tornado/hurricane this week, but apparently monsoon season has arrived.

Three of us headed out this week to the University of Victoria area and hiked about 6km through Mt. Tolmie and Mystic Vale. It was dark and rainy, but you know what, I thought it was a pretty fun outing. I suspect we humans might have some instinctual tendency to stay inside in inclement weather, and I was certainly feeling some of its influence before the hike; I’m glad we got out.

For those who are interested, we saw rabbits, moths, and deer, as well as a raging river in Mystic Vale (exaggeration perhaps?) Since it was a night outing the aforementioned beasts, save the moths, exhibited the famous red-eye as we observed them with our headlamps.

You can click on the following map image to see our route and GPS data on the Garmin website. Additionally, and in the absence of real photos, I have prepared an artist’s interpretation (oh wait, I’m not an artist) of our view of some deer in Henderson Park near the end of our hike.

Wednesday hike route at Mt. Tolmie and Mystic Vale near the University of Victoria. Click the image to view GPS data and a map on the Garmin website.

Forgot camera, which probably wouldn't have worked so hot in the dark anyway. In lieu of a photo, I have painstakingly reconstructed this scene of some deer we were looking at with our headlamps in Henderson Park near UVic. I may have added a few tree-dwelling beast eyes for added effect.