WELCOME TO SUMMER ON THE PLATEAU
In this Issue:
- GENERAL NEWS & UPDATE ON CONDITIONS IN THE PARK
- JULY SCHEDULE NOW POSTED
- NEXT WEEKEND’S EVENTS
- A VERY IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENT on JULY 19th
OUR RESIDENT URSUS AMERICANUS
GENERAL NEWS
The SPWC is now officially open – seven days a week, staffed by our CSJ summer students and volunteers. On June 28th we held our annual Volunteer Appreciation Tea attended by many of our trusty cohort of volunteer staffers and hike leaders –gifts this year were a choice of 30th Anniversary Mug or our new Marmot T-shirts. And the cake this year was decorated with the Marmot motif.
On Sunday June 29th we inaugurated our programme of interpretive walks and hikes, with a walk around Paradise Meadows to see the outstanding show of subalpine flower in bloom. Good warmth following the 2-metre snowpack over the winter has resulted in a spectacular array, from the earliest marsh marigolds, western bog laurel and Jeffry’s shooting stars to the globeflowers, heathers, violets and now just opening Davidson’s cinquefoil. The sequence of flowering times seems to have quickened, with the pink heather overlapping the various pink shades of the western bog-laurel and shooting stars – all a must see before we advance into summer.
Snow has been disappearing fast from the Plateau, with the snow line rising above 1250 m on Mts Elma and Brooks. The snow patches at Circlet have now disappeared; tent pads are clear. For more information on trails see the Parks Trail Report updated as of June 30th .
Tim’s photo at the head of the newsletter, as well as the one below, shows a healthy patch of Avalanche Lilles in bloom on the knoll to the south of Croteau Lake, taken on June 19th.
The flowers start to open from beneath the snow as it starts to recede, so there were only a few flowers open in this patch, still semi covered, on June 5th. On each occasion the observer had to trudge through soft snow on the trail past Lady Lake up to Croteau and onto the knoll. The old snow, together with the “watermelon” algae, has now all but vanished from that level of the Plateau, although it will still be present on the ridge above Circlet and above the 1400m level in the Buttle area.
JULY SCHEDULE NOW POSTED
Our full Schedule is posted on our website home page, or here below ( which you will need to enlarge on your screen!)
NEXT WEEKEND’S EVENTS
Next weekend our public events include a Presentation on the Comox Valley Search and Rescue organization on Saturday morning and a guided hike around the Battleship- Helen Mackenzie loop trail led by Janet Beggs on Sunday.
JULY 12th : Comox Valley Search and Rescue
Time: 9:00 am – Noon
Location: Ruth Masters Nature Hall,
Strathcona Park Wilderness Centre, Paradise Meadows
Limit of 25 Participants
Registration would be appreciated – email strathconawilderness@gmail.com
Presenter: Win Koch, assisted by Scott Ballhorn.
Following on our successful Back-country Safety Workshop held on June 22nd we are hosting a presentation on the organization of the SEARCH & RESCUE Emergency Services that play such an important role in the community, focussing on our own Strathcona Provincial Park, but also across Canada. This will be followed be general discussion on some of the hazards to be aware of as you venture into the Backcountry.
About our Presenter:
Win retired to the South Cariboo after 33 years in the Air Force, where he began a second career in 2002, volunteering for Ground Search and Rescue in 100 Mile House and the Civil Air Search and Rescue Association (CASARA) in Williams Lake. Moving to the Comox Valley in 2007, Win joined Comox Valley SAR, became a SAR Manager, Team Leader Instructor for the Justice Institute of BC and Advanced Tracking Instructor for the BC Tracking Association. Current activities include maintaining and instructing on the Incident Command Post SAR mapping and task management systems, training communications operators and new Members in Training. He is leading the introduction of a new Disaster Evacuation mapping system, and the introduction of drones as another valuable tool for Comox Valley SAR. Win has over 3,000 hours dedicated to SAR and been involved in over 200 SAR incidents.
Scott Ballhorn will also be joining Win for this presentation. Scott is one of the original members of Comox Valley SAR beginning in 1974. A former ski patroller, he is also a SAR Manager, Rope Rescue Team Leader and instructor. Scott has over 8,000 hours dedicated to SAR in over 400 incidents.
Both Win and Scott are Lifetime Members of CV Search and Rescue.
JULY 13th : Hike around Battleship/Helen MacKenzie Lakes.
Time: 10:00 am – 3:00 pm
Place: Meet at the Wilderness Centre, Paradise Meadows
Trailhead, Strathcona Provincial Park.
Distance: 8.6 k round trip; elevation gain approx. 125 m.
Pre-registration would be appreciated –
email strathconawilderness@gmail.com
Leader: Janet Beggs
Experienced hike-leader and past VP of the Comox District Mountaineering Club, Janet Beggs will lead this easy, early season hike at a leisurely pace around the 8.6 k loop, past Battleship Lake and stopping at Lake Helen MacKenzie for lunch and a possible swim. As always, have study footwear, and carry plenty water and be prepared for changeable weather in the subalpine.
FMI and to Register, email strathconawilderness@gmail.com.
A VERY IMPORTANT UPCOMING EVENT
JULY 19th : SWI’s 30th Anniversary Celebration
Time: 1:00 pm – 4.00 pm
Place: Strathcona Park Wilderness Centre,
Paradise Meadows Trailhead.
The Strathcona Wilderness Institute would like to invite the public and all those who over the past 30 year have contributed to our successes, to a special 30th Anniversary Celebration on Saturday July 19th from 1-4 pm in front of the Strathcona Park Wilderness Centre at the Paradise Meadows Trailhead. There will be short presentations to acknowledge our founding directors, three of whom will be present: Betty Brooks, Steve Smith and Rob Wood. We hope that as many of our supporters, members of Friends of Strathcona Park and Comox District Mountaineering Club will join us for refreshments, including a special cake and of course lots of good conversation, with some live music to enliven the occasion. We will also take this opportunity to hold an official unveiling of the new 3-D map of Strathcona Park that now hangs on the west wall of the SPWC.
Betty Brooks
Steve Smith with Ruth Masters
Rob Wood
A little background history : SWI was officially registered as a nonprofit Society in 1995, the idea emerging from a Symposium “Where the Wild Things Are”, hosted by the Friends of Strathcona Park in 1992, with keynote speaker Elizabeth May. At the end of the conference there was general agreement that public education on parks and wilderness was vital. So out the political actions of the Friends of Strathcona to protect Strathcona Park in the late 1980s emerged a group dedicated to educating the public about the Park with a “mission to inspire awareness, appreciation and stewardship of the natural world through research, education and participation”. Through the work of the Founding Directors – notably Steve Smith, Betty Brooks, Rob Wood and Les Carter and later board members from 1995 onwards – SWI as you know it came into being. As Steve Smith put it in his article “The Birth of Strathcona Wilderness Institute” in Phil Stones Exploring Strathcona Park, in 2000, since no one else was doing it, SWI voluntarily started offering information about the Park to visitors at the Paradise Meadows Trailhead , at first using one of Strathcona Nordic’s “Warming Huts” and as of 2009/10 the Strathcona Park Wilderness Centre with its “Ruth Masters Nature Hall”, which was to become the focal point of SWI programmes. So many of the objectives of the long-term vision of the founders have been realized – outreach to the public through interpretive walks and hikes, lectures, workshops, publications and website.
For more information please email: strathconawilderness@gmail.com
OUR RESIDENT URSUS AMERICANUS
Many of you may already have seen this black bear meandering through a territory that includes the slopes of Mt Washington, Nordic Drive, the Parking lots, and Paradise Meadows. He has been around now for three years and seems to be unperturbed by the increasing numbers of visitors frequenting the area. MWAR has removed the large garbage dumpster from the Raven Lodge parking area so that there is no longer that source of garbage to distract the bear from its natural diet – grubs and berries, roots, shoots and even fresh dandelions, not to mention an occasional rodent.
Thus we make this request : PLEASE follow the PACK OUT WHAT YOU PACK IN principle of “Leave-no-Trace” and encourage your friends to do the same. We would not want to see this local resident suffer the fate of the so-called “nuisance” bears.
