June 23 – Valentine Mountain and Lois Creek Canyon

ARRRGH!!!! And many more words a lot more vulgar than that. I’ll get the painful part of the day out of the way first.

They actually sank one of the breakwater Hulks right in front of the campground and we missed it. I had heard people say that they were going to sink one “someday” but no one said anything about today. I also didn’t expect them to tow it several miles down from in front of the mill to in front of the campground. I learned that they are going to sink 4 of them here as an artificial reef.

When we left for our Valentine Mountain hike we both wondered why there were so many cars parked along the highway. We figured that there must be some festival at the beach and we would check it out after we got back from the short hike.

We actually missed the sinking by minutes. After we got back and were in the RV getting ready to go down to the beach we heard a very loud boom. Someone walking by told us what was going on. From a nearby campsite with an obscured view we could see that the ship was only partially sunk so we hurried down to get a better look.

They sure sink fast. This is all we saw.

And then just bubbles.

I think the whole town came out.

It would have been so cool to see it in person. A drone video of the sinking has already been posted. Link here.

Meanwhile back to our regularly scheduled day. Valentine Mountain is just north of town overlooking the paper mill. You can drive most of the way up. Then it is a short walk up an old road.

For some reason a man and his daughter were hiding in the bushes waving these unicorn cut-outs around. I tried to see online if there was some significance to it but there was nothing. Kind of weird. I should have just asked them but they were trying to hide.

For the last bit up to the viewpoint you had to climb about 100 stairs.

Looking down at a family leaving.

The main viewpoint.

The photosphere.

The remaining Hulks.

Looking farther south we could see the ferry from Comox, on Vancouver Island, arriving.

On the horizon some of the mountain tops on Vancouver Island were poking out of the clouds.

The trail continued around to a somewhat less interesting viewpoint.

Back down to the car and then to our missed date with the sinking hulk.

After a sad lunch, there were a couple of places I wanted to check out before we leave tomorrow.

The first one I had read about in someone’s blog and I couldn’t find any other information about it. Lois Creek passes under one of the bridges on Hwy 101. The person had only stopped and looked down from the bridge but said that there seemed to be a way down to an interesting canyon so we really didn’t know what to expect.

It turned out to be a really beautiful place.

When I first went down, I realized that I had forgot my phone to take the photospheres that would be required in a place like this. So after retrieving it from the car, I first took some shots down from the bridge.

Straight down at Jennie.

And then a panorama including that shot, up from there.

The creek flows under the bridge from the right and then down a small falls into the big pool. Then, in the upper left near the standing people, it goes down another falls and turns a corner.

Heading back down.

The first falls are just to the right of the above picture

Looking over the pool to the next falls.

A photosphere from here. They are really needed in places like this where there is stuff all around you.

This guys stood on the far wall for a long time while his friends tried to convince him to jump into the deep pool.

The girl finally went up and and they went together.

He is far braver than I would be.

This next one is an 8 shot panorama that took my fast computer about 5 minutes to stitch together.

Looking back from the top of the second falls. It is about a 20 foot cliff.

The photosphere from here.

The girl that had jumped in the other pool came over and I asked if she had jumped off of here. She that she had done it once, before some major surgery, as a sort of bucket list thing. It looked REALLY far down.

Looking over the falls and down the rest of the canyon. The girl said that there was a trail to get down farther but it looked like it had some tricky climbing so no.

Jennie loved the way this red rock seemed to have flowed down the hill.

Another deeper coloured vein.

Eventually we headed back up to the car.

The same blog that pointed us at this place mentioned that there was a nice picture spot in nearby Saltery Bay Provincial Park. I am sure we went to the wrong place because all we found was another rocky beach.

By this time we weren’t in a mood to go searching so we just headed home.