Vancouver Island: At last we found some Bears!

One last inside passage picture. (I liked the blue and orange together).

Our first bear siting. The cab driver slammed on the brakes and missed the bear by a foot or so. Poor guy probably still has back pain from my knee in his back. The bear is under that brush somewhere.

… next day as bomb cyclone arrives. Definitely a spot worth coming back to.

It just doesn’t get much better than this.

We knew we were not going to be on the island very long but we also knew this was our highest risk area for bad weather. We decided this would be a recon mission so we knew where to come back to on future trips.

Beautiful restaurant with a great singer/ guitarist that we hope comes to LB ….

The food was outstanding (Humboldt squid)…

Though the seating in the lobby seemed slightly primitive

We had a perfect spot in Ucluelet and immediately if felt like home back in Northern California. We thought we would want more time and we were right, but we were also right about the weather. In fact, places were closing early for the arrival of the bomb cyclone (which I think meant they wanted to go surfing).

A writer said the ocean is most beautiful when it’s the same color as the sky. I agree

Just hard to beat a beautiful hike along the ocean. Hikes were well marked and we left with more than a dozen unexplored.

I think this was an 800 year old tree, but I know the red chairs were wet.

A self mulching forest . I took lots of pics of rainforest but find it difficult to convey the vast surrounding of moss, ferns, and trees.

Impressive that the wildlife knows how to read here in Canada

I was doing this hike all by myself (I kept saying it’s a RAINforest people… what do you expect?) I heard some thrashing in the shrubs, picked up my pace, then saw this and laughed….

The truth is we managed to work in some hikes, and auto exploration before a perfect dinner. At dinner, travelers from the Netherlands recommended we stop at Stamp Provincial Park. It was recommended to them to go for bear watching when their orcas trip was canceled (bomb cyclone you know). It was on our way (sort of) . And we opted out of the logging road this time!

Okay so the rain poncho I bought in Jasper for nine dollars (and fits in a tiny capsule) is really just a garbage bag, but it did keep me slightly dryer and I got it back in that capsule!

We were fortunate to be looking for bears with a local couple. For some reason the man could quickly and easy pick them out of the same forest I was staring at and saw nothing. (Yet in Prince Rupert we both screamed (sorry Brant) when a big guy emerged head first from a steep embankment with very curly frizzy brown hair. ) Good thing I didn’t have bear spray! After bear watching, which I get really addicted to and begin thinking everything is a bear, we headed to Telegraph Cove.

Apparently ok to hike during a bomb cyclone

We were on one side of the gorge and the bears were on the other. (At least that’s what I tell myself)

So this young bear, was trying his best to figure out…..

(Poor guy kept looking over the edge of the cliff)

….how to get down the steep gorge walls to get the salmon below.

Because of the increased flows due to the bomb cyclone (love saying that), the salmon could not jump up the river and instead they were resting in the pools below. (The day before the bears were out in the river fishing).

For those salmon wanting safer simpler passage, they may use the ladder which we could watch on videocam

A friend in Vancouver recommended it as a nice spot. The bomb cyclone was just finishing up so kayaking was out. Actually the whole (tiny) town appeared to be closing done for the season. It was reminiscent of a Maine harbor (minus the lobster rolls).

I think everyone with a dog here has a dog raincoat. This guy is watching his owners eat. Without the jacket could be mistaken for a grizzly. We ate here because it was the only restaurant in the area, fortunately it was good . Our waiter was leaving in a couple days to watch the polar bears.

We got to the airport a bit early but that’s okay because I like to talk and so do Canadians. The gentleman taking our rental car is an amazing gardener. He showed me pictures of his vegetable garden that were outstanding and was kind enough to write down the names of which seeds to use. (He used my favorite seed company, Baker, and enjoyed my story about visiting the homestore bank vault in Petaluma… heaven on earth we agreed ).I was impressed by the towers of green beans that were over 8 feet tall. (Brant wandered away after a half hour of this … I think right after we started on soil ph). A short but prolific growing season. We also met a nurse working in one of the First Nations communities that was only accessible by boat or plane but had access to the newest clot busters for heart attacks. He was headed back to his home in Australia. Now that’s a long commute. And of course, we met another La Ventana kite boarder.