July 13 – Telegraph Cove and Little Husan Cave

We spent the last two days in and around the RV, just relaxing and decompressing after our busy time up on Haida Gwaii. They were rainy and gloomy days anyway so we didn’t feel too guilty.

It was supposed to be another rainy day but we needed to get going. It turned out to be bright, sunny and warm while we were at Telegraph Cove. At Little Husan Caves Regional Park it clouded over but that was actually better for pictures. It only started to pour down as we drove home and while we ate dinner in the RV.

Telegraph Cove is a picturesque little village that is almost entirely in stilts all around the edge of a cove with a large marina in the middle.

It used to be the base for a large sawmill, especially during the war but now it is quite touristy. All the buildings are either restaurants and cafes or rental rooms.

Since we don’t like to fish or kayak and we didn’t want to go on a whale watching trip, there wasn’t much for us to do so we just walked around the boardwalk and enjoyed the scenery.

All the houses had plaques on them describing what they had been used for.

This was the old boarding house.

This boat was for sale.

There was an RV park on the point with lots of large RVs in it. It must have been a fun ride in one of them because the road in from the highway was pretty bumpy even in the CRV.

Lots of rental kayaks.

Some successful fishing charters. A halibut for the little girl.

And a nice salmon. The guy with the clipboard is from the department of fisheries. Anytime someone came in, he was there to record their catch for a survey.

This boat dominated the marina.

Around to the other side.

You can see the hotel, right on the cove, just over Jennie’s head.

There are always gift shops for Jennie to check out. She likes to look for ideas for things to do with all the shells and rocks she has collected.

 

We had our lunch at a picnic table overlooking the marina. We brought our own lunch and resisted buying one even though the smell from one of the places was very good. We have eaten out too much recently.

And the required photosphere

Telegraph Cove Photosphere

On the road in from the highway there is a large log sorting operation.

The logs arrived by truck and train. They are sorted by grade and then put into booms to be floated to the mill. There wasn’t much going on as we passed by. Just some scrap logs being dumped into a huge chipper.

 

We did have to wait a short while for a train load of logs to go by.

On the way to the caves we almost hit a buzzard on the highway. At least I think it was from the ugly head. It flew up from the side of the road and didn’t have enough speed to make it across in time. If I hadn’t braked hard, it would have been through the windshield. We have a dash cam but I searched through all the footage and can’t find it. It is a cheap one and seems to glitch a lot. Time for a new one.

Husan Caves Regional Park is described as a place to get easy access to some caves and karst rock features. To reach it you must take 9 km of dirt road from the highway. The road started out quite wide as it eventually goes to the village of Zebailos. Following the signs, each time we had to turn on to a new one, the roads got narrower and narrower. They were also logging roads so you had to give the logging trucks the right of way. Thankfully we never saw any.

At one point we passed by a long section with berry bushes right next to the road. You could reach out and grab them. They look like raspberries but didn’t taste like them.

 

The road got so unused looking that I wondered how many people actually came here. Yet, when we got to the parking lot there were 4 other vehicles there, even a truck with a camper on it.

We ended up only seeing one cave that wasn’t really a cave but a tunnel. A river had eroded its way through a soft rock cliff that used to be at a sharp bend in its gorge.

The trail in is very short and there is a wooden boardwalk as it follows the old creek bed to the cave entrance. Jennie had her bug net on because the mosquitoes were rather thick.

An overhang that Atluck Creek wore away before it created the tunnel.

The “cave”.

You could climb in a short way, to the rocks over Jennie’s head, above, and see out the other side.

Looking back out to where we were standing.

My turn.

I took a photosphere from where I was standing.

Husan Cave Photosphere

And a warped panorama. A very cool place to explore.

We left the cave and scrambled a short way upstream.

The creek does a S turn around the rock I was standing on. This is the view farther upstream.

To the left in the picture above, the creek is starting to make another cave as it has to make its sharp corner.

Another photosphere

Atluck Creek Photosphere

We moved on to the trail taking us down to the viewpoint at the other side of the tunnel. We were amazed that these mushrooms didn’t get trampled.

Here they just had a viewing platform because the gorge was too steep. You couldn’t see much.

I did see a lot of scrape marks on the log in the picture below, so I imagine some people go out there.

Next we took the short trail to the spot marked “Collapsed Arch” on the map.

We couldn’t see the arch but we could see the log jam as the water enters the creek from Husan Lake.

This is the view downstream.

From the cave I had seen some people standing on the rock at the corner of the creek, middle right above. To get to it you would have to go down to the left of the logjam, scramble over it and then around the point we were standing on, over the logs below.

 

We declined.

We had had enough for today so it was time to go home. As I said, the rain started on the way home and continued to well after dinner. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice though.