Rocky Mountain Road Trip Day 8

We left ahead of low tide to get to Botanical Beach and Botany Bay in order to get the best viewing of the tidal pools. We followed part of the Juan de Fuca trail to get to first the Beach and then the Bay. The tidal pools were amazing, full of anemones, crabs, and other things I don't know the names of! There were barnacles EVERYWHERE. It made it difficult to walk as we tried very hard to not step on anything living and it felt like the whole beach was living!

Botanical Beach trail to get to the beach

We found it, low tide, lots of pools full of life.

Being careful not to step on things

A new surface to climb on!

I get a feeling even the flora doesn't know which way it up

Another bonsai tree

Nourishment breaks are key

We started to be concerned about how fast the tide was coming in and it was not an easy place to climb to. We went back to the hotel to access the wifi (no cell service) to make sure of our directions for our afternoon adventure North of Port Renfrew.

Our next stop was into the logging country to see Big Lonely Doug. This thousand year old Douglas Fir is 66m tall and almost 4m wide. The rest of the area was clear cut in 2011, but this tree was marked to not be cut down. The juxtaposition of the second largest Douglas Fir in the country with the rest of the clear cut lot has sparked a lot of discussion, activism, art, and tourism. It is not easy to get to, essentially one must take a logging access road that is not maintained. As we were in a rental car, I was less nervous about some of the effects of driving over rough terrain, but some of the surface looked like we could actually get stranded in! We decided to park the car and hike in the last 2km to the tree. About 1km in we felt very happy of our decision. A stretch of "road" was so bad it almost look like it had been hit by artillery fire. Small artillery, but still. A number of vehicles were pulled off to the side at this bit.

Long single lane bridge.

The drop down from the long, single lane bridge with guardrails at a tripping hazard height...

Big lonely Doug from the road. Again perspective is everything. This is a 66m tall tree, equivalent to a 25 story building.

At the base of the tree. Laying hands on the tree was pretty emotional. It is estimated that this tree is around 1000 years old. It was a sapling when Lief Erikson arrived on the East coast.

We continued on to Eden Grove waterfall and infinity pools, just another couple hundred meters down the road.

Waterfall

Infinity pools

Back down the road

You can still see the stumps of some of Doug's fallen comrades

On the way back down the loose gravel, bumpy road, David and Michael had gotten ahead of us. Just before the single lane bridge we heard a car careening down the road at high speed. It seemed out of control. The adrenaline rushed as we all yelled "look out" and prayed that the kids weren't in the middle of the bridge. Luckily we heard no crash. The kids had stopped before the bridge and had moved to the side when they heard the car coming and our yells. The car had stopped briefly on the bridge before continuing on its way. In the middle of nowhere, it is still the dumb humans who are the most dangerous threat to safety!

Once we made it back to our abandoned car, we returned towards Port Renfrew with a pit stop at "Avator Grove" On the south side is a boardwalk through old growth forest, on the north side is a trail to "Canada's gnarliest tree". 

After a 3 hike day, we had earned our pub dinner!