MANZANITA TO MALASPINA ROAD.


 
This is an important post in some ways: Malaspina Road is a major paved road and an easy intersection point for evacuation or resupply.  If you are already in trouble at this point I have nothing but despair for you.  From Sarah Point to Powell River is essentially just a warm-up.



Just to remind you of where you came from.  From Sarah Point to here there are only two guaranteed watering holes. The next water source is about a kilometer south at the bottom of a steep winding trail. After that there is about 5 kilometers of hiking, some of it in the blazing sun, before you find Fern Crossing. Fern Crossing is NOT dependable.  I've seen it dry at least twice.  Then you are in for a 4 km hump over the ridge until you get to a dependable water source.

I still don't understand how Arbutus trees survive without any visible bark. Maybe the ticks feed them.





Open concept architecture; pretty much 5 star when it comes to hiking

But the luxury accommodations do come with a killer view; especially if you walk too far west.

 
Leaving Manzanita, the trail drops relatively steeply (as compared to the first 15.7 km) towards a barren logged valley.  You will find the Spire Exit about 2/3 of the way down, marked clearly, and you will find the watering hole a few minutes later, marked with a big sign.  In the wet months it's probably dependable; in the dry months not so much.

A series of switch backs snakes down the steep hill.  Get used to switch-backs: they don't seem to be calculated into the kilometer count...and they are everywhere along the SCT. There are really only two hills along the SCT: uphill and downhill. Over and over and over.

At one time the trail was straight through this area; then logging happened.  The trail path changes fairly frequently as the logging activity migrates with the tree growth.



At the head of the Spire Exit; you have to be willful to the extreme to miss the signage on the SCT.






Nobody can say it wasn't marked.


But they might claim it was oversold.  This is August, typically a very dry month




The trail winds along the edge of a relatively recent clear-cut.


And through some mildly swampy areas using boardwalks and stepping stones.


My partner decided to test my heart and the hearing of this harmless Garter Snake by screaming as I stepped over him.  I had to remind her that I am 100 kilograms and that she would have to drag my dead carcass several kilometers before she made it to help.  No claiming life insurance without a body.



One of the famous feral squirrels that haunt the Sunshine Coast.  Beware the hapless hiker with peanuts in their pack.

Woodpeckers are amazingly difficult to photograph. Weary little guys.

The red berry in his mouth gave some color accent.  It's a challenge to find wildlife out on the SCT: wildlife do not necessarily like us humans. 


As you hike southward, you will cross a still active logging road and into a relatively recent clear-cut. On a sunny day the heat will be a bit oppressive and there is no shade to hide in.


Looking East from the trail climbing through the cut: the Bunster Range on the far side of Okeover.




Looking northwest to the beginning of the Copeland (Ragged) Islands. Taken about 7:30 am last August.





North, Manzanita Bluffs in the foreground and likely some mountains surrounding Desolation Sound

Fireweed and ferns line the trail as the hiker gains altitude heading up to Malaspina Road. Fireweed and ferns were a treat last August.









The trail winds up onto the summit of what is still the Gwendoline Hills, then drops down on the eastern shoulder with periodic views of Okeover Arm.


I hiked this trail last summer solo.  My constant search for wildlife led me to make some very foolish choices.  Little hint: when you hear large feet crunching in the woods, don't run toward them hoping for a close up photo of Smokey.  The heavy footed crunching was likely a bear and when they stopped crunching he probably was hunkered down hoping to not to meet me as much as I was crunching around hoping to photograph him.  Bears don't like humans or cameras. You think I would eventually learn: let sleeping bears lay.

Off the summit at the top of the logged area, the trail snakes across, around and down a steep and rocky descent.  The faulted granite is covered in moss and trees perch precariously on nearly absent soil.

Okeover Arm is caught in glimpses through the thick trees, a mixture of Arbutus and conifers.


A year earlier at mid-day under the noon-day sun: no Dr. Livingstone was found. (Moody Blues reference for the younger crowd: we are all looking for something).





Emil had good taste.  I think the view was better a few years back immediately after the logging below was completed. Mother Nature was filling in the vacuum as she tends to do after we pillage her wealth.



The end of the trail to Malaspina is a mixed bag: some immature forest following old logging trails. By now the hiker will have learned to recognize the logging trails: wide, reasonably straight and usually gentle of grade (as apposed to logging roads which definitely speaks to the lack of sanity of many log haulers)




At the Pryor Road exit that allows locals a short-cut to the trail.  Stay heading south to Malaspina.



As you approach Malaspina Road, the forest matures again and you will be back into a coastal rainforest with conifer giants.  Dig in and keep walking: you are burning daylight hours and you are still a ways from assured water.








And here we are at the trail-head on Malaspina Road.  There is plenty of parking here for the day hiker or for the kindly family waiting to evacuate an exhausted hiker running from hungry squirrels.  The trail-head is easy to find: Malaspina Road climbs relatively straight off of the highway, and then takes a hard right south before curving tightly north again. The Trail head is found at the base of that tight dogleg right.  It's hard to miss since it is about the only open space for parking along Malaspina Road.



I have finally learned to look for and appreciate the small things in life.  Seeing through the lens of a camera sometimes makes you see more because you actually look for beauty.  It's a simple thistle, usually something only a good Scotsman will cherish. 

Adfyg a ddyg wybodaeth, a gwybodaeth ddoethineb:  Adversity brings knowledge and knowledge brings wisdom.

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