Blog: I Think It's This Way» Wednesday Hike – Mt. Wells – Victoria, BC

Wednesday Hike – Mt. Wells – Victoria, BC

Kris — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 06:54:04 +0000

OMG, it’s almost August. OMG, I just said OMG. Ok, enough of that. It was Wednesday and we walked, this time at Mt. Wells. As usual with Mt. Wells outings, we started out from the Humpback Reservoir parking lot; no blackberries yet, much to the dismay of some of our group. Despite the lack of berry power, we seemed to make it to the top of the hill faster than usual. Once at the top we did the requisite loitering to enjoy the views, then we headed back down.

GPS Data: 3.0km – 1h18m – GPS route

A 3km hike to and from the top of Mt. Wells near Victoria. Click on the map to see detailed GPS data on the Garmin website.

It's the Humpback Reservoir, except it's not really, it's just a utility building or something at the reservoir.

Looking towards Langford partway up the trail to the top of Mt. Wells.

In the middle of the summer it's pretty dry on Mt. Wells, which seems to enhance the likelihood that one will end up on their ass due to the marble-sized pebbles on the trail. Ahhh, maybe that's why the put in the handrail.

Marbles aside (actually I didn't mind the marbles) the views from the upper reach of Mt. Wells are pretty good.

Looking towards Humpback Reservoir and Mt. Finlayson from Mt. Wells.

Another view from the top of Mt. Wells, this time to the south.

The group, minus one (me), at the top of Mt. Wells. Another great night for a hike.

Hike – Goldstream Park – Victoria, BC

Kris — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 06:54:45 +0000

It’s the weekend and I don’t work on the weekends, so what am I to do, but hike or bike ride. Today it was the former… a hike with Michelle, Corinne, and Sheena. We went out for an exploratory hike at Goldstream, at least it was exploratory for me. Michelle and I have been up and down Mt. Finlayson a bunch (also located in Goldstream), but I have never been over to the west side of the highway. As it turns out, I probably should have done a hike like this a long time ago, since it was pretty fun.

Hike highlights included: nice trails, a couple otters, and Niagara Falls (not quite like the ones in Ontario, but still interesting to look at).

GPS Data: 7.0km – 2h21m – GPS route

A 7km hike at Goldstream Park near Victoria. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

I like the forest, it's good. It was pretty warm today by Victoria standards, which when combined with lots of hills resulted in mega sweatiness.

A log crossing on the Prospector trail at Goldstream Park.

Can't remember the last time I posted a picture of an Arbutus tree. Well, actually, it probably wasnt' that long ago.

Michelle demonstrating parkour au naturel while taking the scenic route under the highway.

Oooh, a cave or tunnel or something. I'm not sure where which trail this was on, probably Arbutus Ridge Trail or Goldminer's Trail.

A note at the cave / tunnel entrance. Apparently, evidence of gold mining activity.

Railway trestle near Niagara Falls. Glad we didn't have to cross it; probably not supposed to anyway.

Heading downhill to the top of Niagara Falls. Slightly shady looking safety railings.

Niagara Falls and some other hikers/admirers.

The pond at the bottom of Niagara Falls in Goldstream Park.

My first underwater photo. You'd think with a waterproof camera that I might have tried something earlier.

Wednesday Hike – Cattle Point / Uplands Park – Victoria, BC

Kris — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:16:27 +0000

This week’s Wednesday hike didn’t come together until the last minute since Michelle and I didn’t get back from down south (Seattle/Portland) until Tuesday night. Consequently, I ended up choosing a pretty short route close to home at Cattle Point and Uplands Park. Despite the fact that it was not what you would call an epic hike, it was still pretty good. It’s hard to beat a nice sunny, summer night spent near the ocean.

The five of us decided to follow up the hike with a trip to Nostalgia, or was it Nostalgie, a Russian themed restaurant in Cadboro Bay. Russian? Yes, Russian. Maybe it’s just me, but I have not come across many Russian restaurants in my travels. As it turns out, Irina, one of my hiking cohorts is Russian, which seemed like a good enough reason to check the place out. I’ll spare you an attempt at a restaurant review since I have no business writing one, but I will say that I thought my Pelmeni (won ton like dumplings) and Michelle’s cabbage rolls were good. For what it’s worth, the food seemed to meet Irina’s standards as well.

GPS Data: 3.0km – 0h56m – GPS route

A 3km hike at Cattle Point and Uplands Park in Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see GPS details on the Garmin website.

Wednesday sailboat race spectating, or is it shop-talk?

Heading around the south end of Cattle Point towards Willows Beach.

Damn, foiled by the autofocus again. Oh well, could be worse I suppose. Nice flowers at the south end of Cattle Point.

I'm no tree master, but I think it's a Garry Oak. I know for sure that it resides in Uplands Park.

More sailboat action from a high point in Uplands Park.

Mmmm, blue sky. Uplands Park is pretty flat, but there are a couple slightly elevated, rocky spots like this one.

Sheena, one of the hikers in our group, was particularly interested in this statue for some reason.

War memorial in Uplands Park and more nice sky and clouds.

Yeah, more sailboats. Apparently, there are regular Wednesday night races out of Oak Bay Marina or one of the nearby ones.

As usual, it was nice to hang out near the water. There appeared to be a fog bank up towards Sidney.

What is this idiot doing? Looks like some kind of parkour, jazz-dancer freak. Oh wait... that's me... why's my delete button not working... ahhh, crap.

Wednesday Hike – John Dean Park – Victoria, BC

Kris — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 06:07:02 +0000

Some Wednesday hikes are different than others. For example, there was the one where an owl almost took our heads off — feathery bastard. Tonight’s excursion to John Dean Park didn’t involve any wildlife encounters, but did take some effort to do since it’s a bit of a drive out and back. I guess that doesn’t really set it apart from other hikes in any truly notable way. I guess what does set it apart though, is the fact that John Dean Park is pretty damn nice, with a great view point at Pickels’ Bluff.

Our journey started at the main parking lot, which is conveniently located near the top of Mt. Newton. I think the trail sequence went something like Lily Pond Trail, View Point Trail, Woodward Trail, Montfort Trail, Slektain Trail, and then Thunderbird Trail and the road up to Pickels’ Bluff. Overall, kind of a counter-clockwise navigation of the park with an extra excursion up to the viewpoint at Pickels’ Bluff, which is well worth checking out at some point in one’s life.

GPS Data: 6.5km – 1h59m – GPS route

A 6.5km hike at John Dean Park near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

Kind of shady in the forest today, literally. Consequently, not many trail photos except for this one taken near the end of the hike while heading down to Pickels' Bluff.

Meh, nice view, but not a great photo. I think that's the West Saanich Road observatory hill in the distance. Definitely looking south.

A view to the east from Pickels' Bluff towards Mt. Baker.

Looking east towards James Island and Sidney Island from Pickels' Bluff at John Dean Park.

Not sure if Trevor owns any running shoes or hiking boots, but he seemed content hiking in the Crocs, although he did mention that he should have perhaps brought the ones with the strap on the back.

Wednesday Hike – Partridge Hills – Victoria, BC

Kris — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 06:35:34 +0000

Back in May I did a mountain bike ride that included some of the Partridge Hills near Durrance Lake and thought to myself: “I should do a hike here.” Apparently, it takes me about a month to act on thoughts I have while bike riding – I guess this doesn’t apply to all thoughts while riding, otherwise I probably would have ended up in a ditch through inaction by now. Tonight, exactly one month after thinking about doing it, I did a Partridge Hills hike.

Nice trails, nice forest, nice water views… not much else to say.

GPS Data: 6.1km – 1h43m – GPS route

A 6km hike at Partridge Hills near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

I'm not usually a fan of out-and-back hikes, but in this case it was all good because I do like winding, rolling, interesting trails.

Nice view north towards Bamberton from the top of Partridge Hills. I think pretty much any outing, hike, bike, or whatever, is better when you get a viewpoint like this.

Arbutus trees were fairly plentiful on the way up to the top of the hill. I won't complain, because I like Arbutus trees.

Oops, another Arbutus.

The rest of the Wednesday hikers on the way back down the hill from the summit.

It's like an Arbutus attack. Actually, I think I stuck this in because I liked how blue the sky was.

Sunlight through trees in the forest is pretty much alway cool looking to me.

Back at Durrance Lake at the end of the hike. There were a few Bald Eagles flying around making a bunch of noise, but I failed miserably in my attempts to take a picture of them.

Father’s Day Hike and Bike

Kris — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:22:57 +0000

Happy belated Father’s Day! Belated as in, most of the day is done as I’m writing this. I suppose I could regurgitate some Father’s Day Wikipedia information, but I’ll keep it real and blab about my Father’s Day activities with Michelle. Due to some geographical challenges, Michelle and I only had access to one father today… Tim, who joined us for a hike at Mt. Finlayson this morning. This afternoon a road bike ride and some virtual father interaction with Jim, not Tim, by way of the telecommunications (phone).

The Mt. Finlayson hike got off to a bit of a slow start thanks to my failure to turn off the headlights in the car last night. Minor additional delay came as a result of an impromptu fashion show involving father Tim… new shorts, new shirts, new man – ok, maybe not, but somewhat entertaining none-the-less. The route up and down Mt. Finlayson was pretty much the same as it always is except for our choice to take the older, steeper way up just below the tree line. Not sunny unfortunately, but it was good despite the clouds and lack of entertaining / frightening examples of ill-prepared human beings that we sometimes see along the way.

Our afternoon bike ride was delightful spinneroo through Central Saanich under somewhat clearer skies. Michelle, Heather, and I ended up doing about 60km, the first half and a bit at the end was nicely assisted with a tail wind and the remainder involved some minor headwind battling.

Hike GPS Data: 4.13km – 1h57m – GPS route

Road Bike Ride GPS Data: 59.3km – 2h33m – GPS route

A 4km hike up and down Mt. Finlayson near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

60km road bike ride through Central Saanich near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

The top of Mt. Finlayson on Father's Day. No rain, except for the sweat drops falling off the brim of my hat - yeah, I'm a sweaty bastard sometimes. That's Victoria off in the distance on the left.

Of course a Father's Day post wouldn't be complete without a touching pic of Michelle and Tim, her vader (no, not Darth Vader - father in Flemmish and some other languages).

Some other ants, errr people, enjoying the view from the top of Mt. Finlayson.

Saw this little elderly dude / dudette begrudgingly following its master up to the top of Mt. Finlayson.

Heather and Michelle traversing some Central Saanich farmland on the road bikes.

End of the road bike ride and heading back into Victoria on the Selkirk Trestle (part of the Galloping Goose). Looking along the Gorge Waterway towards downtown.

Wednesday Hike – Francis King Park – Victoria, BC

Kris — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 06:40:19 +0000

The Wednesday hike this week was an outing at Francis King Park. After some recent urban-oriented hikes it was nice to get back to some forest action and all the trappings associated with the non-urban action (dirt, rock, ferns, creeks, slugs, deer, etc.) Hmmm, next week, who know where we’ll end up.

GPS Data: 5.2km – 1h15m – GPS route

A 5.2km hike at Francis King Park near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see GPS details on the Garmin website.

Most trails in Francis King are pretty smooth like this section near the Elsie King loop.

Road Bike Ride – Central Saanich – Victoria, BC

Kris — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 04:59:34 +0000

It’s Sunday, the end of the weekend has arrived. I got in some decent mileage this week on the bike (about 280km), saw some interesting sights, and managed do some other stuff too. Since this is a road bike ride post I suppose it would make sense to mention that I did a Victoria – Central Saanich loop of about 60km today. It was pretty relaxed in terms of pace given my lengthy-for-me ride yesterday, but as most rides go it was good.

GPS Data: 64km – 2h17m – 28.0km/h – GPS route

A 64km road bike ride through Central Saanich near Victoria, BC. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

This stretch of Martindale Road is kind of a standard feature of most Saanich Peninsula road rides. Lately I think it's been contributing to my allergy symptoms

Seems like about half of the rides I've been on lately have included a deer sighting. Finally, I managed to get a picture of one. Maybe sometime I'll get a shot of something more exotic like a sasquatch.

Post-ride trip to Clover Point to watch some wind waves and other looky-loos.

Road Bike Ride – Victoria – Salt Spring Island Loop – Half of 300

Kris — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 06:10:24 +0000

Half of 300 is… 150. Today I rode a 150km loop that included part of Salt Spring Island. My usual response to questions like ‘how was it’ often tends towards the ‘it was alright’ or ‘it was adequate’; I feel fairly justified in saying that my ride today was great / awesome / dope. For starters the weather could not have been much better, plus my timing meant that on the way out and the way back I was getting some nice tree shade along the side of the road. Secondly, the secondary roads on the south island, where I spent most of my time, are frickin amazing. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I didn’t blow an hour into the ride like last week. In fact, four to five hours after the start I was fairly comfortably cruising along between 30 and 35km/h with only a wee bit of leg cramping at the very end.

I suppose this was kind of a cheater 150km since I got to take some big breaks while riding the ferries on and off of Salt Spring, but I’ll take it. I wasn’t the only one enjoying the day; it was a bit of a gong show in downtown Victoria at the end of the ride (tourists, naked bike ride, coppers busting beach drinkers, etc.)

GPS Data: 151.3km – 5h03m – 29.9km/h – GPS route

151km road bike ride on the southern part of Vancouver Island - Salt Spring Loop. Click on the map to see GPS details on the Garmin website.

Heading out of town on the Galloping Goose with like minded folk. Judgemental perhaps, but I suspected by their gear etc. that they were not planning on doing 150km, otherwise maybe we could have ridden together.

View of Portage Inlet near Victoria from the Galloping Goose Trail. I made an effort at the start of this ride to avoid the highway as much as possible and was reasonably successful.

Sort of a re-run of a photo from last Saturday's ride, but it's still good.

Cowichan Bay. I know attracting the tourists is important, but are so many goo-gaws really necessary?

More Cowichan Bay with a view of Mt. Tzouhalem. Really nice construction fence to boot.

Ahhh, more dandy scenery while on the way to Duncan from Cowichan Bay.

A wee church near Providence Farm in Duncan, and a nice chainlink fence to boot.

My Italians (shoes) deserve special mention for getting me through five hours of riding with nary a hint of discomfort.

The Crofton ferry terminal. I caught the 12:10pm ferry, which gave me enough time to get to Fulford Harbour for the 1:50pm ferry back to Victoria.

Old school house near the ferry terminal in Crofton.

The Howe Sound Queen arriving in Crofton to shuttle me to the next leg of the ride on Salt Spring.

Getting close to Ganges on Salt Spring. For the moment I get the downhill and this guy gets the uphill, but that will soon change on the the way to Fulford from Ganges.

Ganges Harbour on a great Saturday in June.

Yummm, dandy roads for bike riding and practising peeling (note peel marks on road).

Looking south towards Hope Hill / Mt. Tuam on Salt Spring. Pretty much all downhill to Fulford Harbour from here.

The Skeena Queen arriving at Fulford Harbour.

Gilligan heading out in search of Ginger or is it Mary-Ann.

Close to Swartz Bay and the final leg back to Victoria.

Mt. Baker... it's nice to look at.

Back in Victoria amongst the downtown, weekend mayhem. By the way, sweet Trans-Am dude.

Ahhh, my eyes. Thank god this is photo is blurry. Apparently about a hundred people saw fit to participate in a naked bike ride; I haven't decided yet if this was a good or bad thing to see at the end of my 150km ride.

In case your eyes still hurt from the previous pic, maybe this will help make them feel better.

Wednesday Hike – Inner Harbour – Victoria, BC

Kris — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 06:37:22 +0000

This week my Wednesday hike excursion involved a short loop of Victoria’s inner harbour. The weather wasn’t the greatest, which may have contributed to some initial hike apathy, but we headed out anyway. To start we headed along the south side of the inner harbour towards Fisherman’s Wharf with the intention of getting on a harbour ferry and boating it to West Bay Marina. Unfortunately, our timing was off and we didn’t have the patience to wait for a ferry that was heading where we wanted to go; we cut across the harbour and saved ourselves a couple kilometers. On the way back through town we chose to distract ourselves further by stopping at the Tapas Bar for some food. Good food, so so hike.

GPS data: 3.5km – 1h02m – GPS route

A 3.5km hike around part of Victoria's inner harbour. Click on the map to see detailed GPS information on the Garmin website.

Looking out on Victoria's inner harbour from the south-east corner. Kind of gloomy.

The British Columbia Legislature, or part of it.

Totem pole with a lip injury in Victoria's inner harbour.

Heading west along the boardwalk towards Fisherman's Wharf.

Floating houses and an approaching harbour ferry at Fisherman's Wharf. Sylvester the hamburger eating seal was nowhere to be seen

Our harbour ferry heading back to Fisherman's Wharf after dropping us off on the north-side of the harbour.

An outrigger canoe heading towards the Gorge Waterway in Victoria's inner harbour.

Fertilizer machines near the Johnson Street Bridge.