The magazine of outdoor recreation and adventure on Vancouver Island and coastal British Columbia
|
The magazine of outdoor recreation and adventure on Vancouver Island and coastal British Columbia |
|
|
||
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|||
 |
Select another article by activity:
|
Select another article by location:
|
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
|||
|
|
|
|||
 |
By John Kimantas / April 2007 Curses to the storms of 2006. One of the best times to travel the island is quite often in April. If you can get a break in the spring weather with a sunny weekend you can escape the crowds and mosquitoes by getting an early start to the camping year. The main question is where to go. This year the choices were vastly limited due to the winter windstorms this past November. Nature's propensity for chaos was forcefully demonstrated as carefully built and groomed trails across the island were decimated. One of the hardest hit was the West Coast Trail in Pacific Rim National Park. The famous Logan Creek suspension bridge was reduced to a twisted ruin. Several thousand trees were downed, obliterating the trail. The Klanawa Creek cable car was lost at sea. Parks Canada worked hard to open the trail several weeks later than usual, but many of the provincial counterparts won't be so lucky. The Juan de Fuca Trail remains closed, as do numerous other areas Schoen Lake, Marble River and the Bedwell Creek Trail in Strathcona Park, as a few for instances. With the first sunny weekend of the month coming in the last weekend of April my partner, Leanne Chetcuti, and I decided to head to a region I had yet to explore the Nahmint Valley, one of the last unprotected valleys on the island with unlogged old-growth rainforest. As such it's become a rallying point for environmental groups petitioning to protect the region. The effort has yet to pay off. The valley is part of MacMillan Bloedel's old Tree Forest Licence 44. The valley is rated a special management zone; it is logged at a reduced level, but logged nonetheless. The Nahmint Valley is located southwest of Port Alberni below Sproat Lake. The watershed is bordered by some impressive peaks, particularly Klitsa Mountain to the north. At the west end of Sproat Lake, Klitsa is a snowcapped sentinel south of Highway 4 as you drive to Tofino. In the Nahmint Valley it is a magnificent backdrop once you're out upon the lake. The lake itself drains into Alberni Inlet through Nahmint River, which twists its way through some impressive waterfalls to Nahmint Bay on the inlet, the former principal home of the namesake First Nations tribe. It was a highly disputed region and the site of many attacks from the neighbouring Yo:lo?il?ath over the huge Chinook salmon that spawned in the river. Today it remains a valuable chum salmon river, though the Chinook salmon populations has declined at a steady rate in recent decades. The pink salmon is almost extinct. Our plan was to head south of Sproat Lake via the Stirling Arm logging road, then down the Nahmint Main to a little forest recreation campsite on the northwest end of the lake. But those plans went astray almost as soon as we left the paved road outside Port Alberni. We turned onto the Stirling Arm Main only to see a Road out, 1 km sign at the turn. I pushed on, hoping the sign was several years old, but sure enough just ahead a bulldozer was busy digging through what appeared to be a massive landslide. Curse those winter storms, I thought once again. After reviewing the logging maps we decided on a longer route by taking the Macktush Main along the west shore of Alberni Inlet to Nahmint Bay, then the Nahmint Main north along the river up to the lake sort of a circle to get to where we wanted to be. An hour's drive out of Port Alberni turned into several, and we stopped at a large forest recreation site at Macktush Creek for lunch. The gate to the park was locked springs trips do have some drawbacks but a walk through the park showed it was an open RV-style campsite with little of the wilderness appeal that we find attractive.
Our first view of Nahmint Lake came courtesy of Grizzly Pass, a high point over a ridge into the valley. We stopped to soak in the view and take a few pictures. Bounded by low, rolling hills the area didn't appear too badly scarred by logging. It wasn't pristine, but we couldn't complain about the logging at this stage. The core seemed to still be intact. No other cars were on the logging road that day, but once we found the Nahmint Lake campsite we were surprised to find a half-dozen cars and a camper clustered near the boat ramp. We wandered the empty camp area and saw that the storms had taken their toll here as well. A chainsaw had been used for some remedial work to clear the trees down across the access road, but campsites were still filled by blowdown, including one that had crushed an otherwise stout picnic table. Rather than camp among the crowd (assuming the vehicle owners might stay the night), we decided to search for a beach on the lake, and so set off in our kayaks under a blazing blue sky a rarity at that point in the spring. We found the perfect beach not far down the lake on the west side. We set up camp and soaked up the sun, taking a moment to explore a small cabin someone had built just inside the forest cover. Again, the storm had taken its toll. One large tree had fallen alongside the cabin, and another had impaled the roof. The storm had clearly cut a swath behind the beach, an indication that this beautiful spot wasn't quite so wonderful a place to stay during a winter storm.
Dinner ended up being packaged food. On the Sunday we decided to explore the wider region. The Nahmint River continues north of the lake, where a short canyon is crossed by a logging road. We stopped to clamber on the rocks by the canyon, then pushed north to see how far the logging road would take us upriver. We stopped several times to clear fallen logs, then gave up when one was clearly too large to move. No matter. The trip brought us to one good waterfall at least. Sunday lunch was spent high on the hill above Nahmint Lake. We had passed through some old-growth on the way. It seemed amazing it had been passed over by the loggers, as it was adjacent to the logging main. Easy targets are usually the first to go. Somehow much of the valley had been spared. But how much longer? Heading back, four other vehicles on the Macktush made the return trip actually seem busy. Of course, that's just a matter of perspective. There are still times and places where you can get away from it all. The Nahmint Valley remains one of them. This article originally appeared in More Living Magazine. |
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
|
|||
|
Select another article by activity:
|
Select another article by location:
|
|
||
|
|
|
|||
Love or hate the logging, it was the logging roads that would take us in to enjoy Nahmint Lake for the weekend.
Good intentions are everywhere on the coast, but unless they're maintained they tend not to last (nature's propensity for chaos, once again). One such good intention was an interpretive trail through a reforested area on the south end of Nahmint River. We headed down a logging spur and found the trailhead by way of a couple of old fading signs detailing the reforestation project. We then headed along the trail that was perhaps a logging road at one time, but was now just a narrow mossy clearing through a young forest. It wasn't long before blowdown and general neglect allowed the trail to peter out. If it ever went to the river's edge, the trail was certainly a difficult trip now. We turned back. Strike another one for nature reclaiming its wilderness.
With a new fishing license in hand we decided to try our hand at trout. The fishing regulations called for single hooks and no barbs in Nahmint Lake, so after sifting through the box of lures we decided we had no idea what we were doing and picked one at random. 