It’s amazing to me how something can be so tough and yet so fragile.
I’ve always just called them dandelions, but I know they aren’t, at least not in the lawn-weed sense. Today, after our 9.5 km walk, I finally looked them up.
Sow thistle.
They can grow almost anywhere and thrive. Yet when their yellow petals fade and the soft pillow-like seed heads are left, a simple touch and they disintegrate into little parachutes to be carried off to parts unknown.
My hike preference is always “up” first. That way when I’m tired, it’s mostly all downhill to get home. But….today Kirk was leading, and he tends to go down first. He really should know better, because when I get tired on a walk I get whiny, and cranky, and then he has to listen to me mutter away.
The other day, when I had to work off some frustration, we did an 11.5km hike into the Upper Mosquito Creek area. Today we entered the forest at the same point along the creek, but we went down.
In this regard, Kirk is smart…when I lead and go up…hikes tend to keep going up until I run out of up, which can take a long time. In North Vancouver, down means eventually you will hit a major road, or the ocean. So the walks tend to be a little more finite.
The Lower Mosquito Creek has trails that run on both sides. The west trail is perfectly groomed and stays at the water’s edge most of the length of the creek. The east side…not so much. Definitely the path less travelled and it involves a lot of delicate steps across small mud bogs. It also doesn’t have the nice bridges that one gets on the other side… this side has the odd plank dropped across the water trickling into the main stream.
About halfway down, the trail runs underneath the TransCanada Highway and I’m always impressed by the height of the concrete structure soaring overhead in the gloom.
One can tell that school is out. The underside of the bridge and the pillars below are freshly decorated in graffiti, some of which was amusing.
Something that did amuse us was the fact that, part way down, there was a sign rather non-strategically placed overhead, indicating that the trail was apparently closed, which it rather clearly isn’t, at least not very well. I certainly walked right underneath the tail closure sign that was hanging about eight feet off the ground, mostly because I was busy trying to not trip over roots. Much farther down the trail, near the bottom, was another overhead sign, but at least that second one was supported by a fence that partially blocked the trail from below.
I guess more people come up than go down.
There is no shortage of fabulous creek walks on the North Shore. I am lucky to live in such a fabulous part of the world, and I am grateful for that luck.
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