Training Log Archive: blairtrewin

Back in action - Achilles sore for the first 10 minutes or so but otherwise OK. A loop through Campbell River, starting out through downtown while I was waiting for it to get light (on a morning of low cloud and drizzle where it wasn't completely obvious that it was daylight until at least an hour after sunrise), then on a trail behind the suburbs which I presume, from its consistent gentle gradient and the odd cutting, was a rail trail. Moving reasonably well by this stage, although it was a little annoying that the elevation I spent 3km gaining was all lost in a few hundred metres - like a lot of western North American towns, Campbell River's street grid doesn't pay much attention to the topography. Definitely felt better for having done this.

The morning plan was to go out to Strathcona Provincial Park and do the walk to Lady Falls - the low cloud definitely made it a waterfalls day, not a views day. This fell through because there was snow on the ground out there - not so much a problem with walking itself, but with the trailhead lot uncleared and snowbanks along the roadside, there was nowhere to park. In other circumstances a 120km return trip to that might have been annoying, but I still saw some nice country, and it meant I had enough time to see two very impressive falls on the way back (I thought the Elk River falls would be worth seeing when a sign at the start of the track warned that flows could be up to 40 times normal).

Got the ferry back to Vancouver this afternoon. One thing which caught me by surprise was how many people use the bus to connect with the ferry terminal - which meant standing in the bendy bit of an articulated bus with a full pack. Not the most comfortable trip I've ever done.

C • Elk Falls 2

Noticed coming back into Nanaimo that it was carpeted with election signs, whereas nowhere else had been. Some post-visit googling revealed that there is indeed a by-election coming up here, and an important one at that (with an effective majority of one, the BC government will probably fall if they lose here).