Destination: Douglas Channel

There's been a boat living in our driveway for the past five or six years but I've only had one tiny little trip down the Douglas Channel.  It wasn't even a trip, more the smallest itty bitty hop to the nearest small bay five years ago.  The husband resolved to get-me-on-the-channel-come-hell-or-high-water before summer was over and by golly he-did-it!!
The view above gives you a look down a small section of the north end of the Channel.

The water was calm enough that we were able to dash about and cover quite an area.  Here, we're looking intoKildala Arm which meanders endlessly to the east.  Would be fun to really explore it right to its terminus.

This fellow was the piece de resistance! The husband noticed a plume exhaled from quite a ways off so we roared over to the general area so we could get a better look at this young Humpback whale.  We drifted closer to shore to watch him from afar when...suddenly he rose to the surface between us and the shore, exhaling a curtain of drifting mist, only 20 feet from our boat.  He's obviously comfortable around boats and people (had to be rescued from a fishing net the week before) so we bobbed quietly enjoying the peaceful rhythm of his breathing as he leisurely surfaced, exhaled, inhaled and slipped back below the ripples until he decided to head farther out into The Channel.

Bye-bye whale!  

Wednesday Expedition

If this is Wednesday, it must be Hike Day and here we are trekking through the swamps of deepest darkest Hirsch Creek rainforest. Note the dainty picking our way through slipperey, icky places pose? It's surprisingly common; I've taken several photos depicting this very position featuring a variety of people from several excursions.  The large leaves belong to Skunk cabbage, the surest sign of a wet patch around here.

We're pretty certain we disturbed a bear from it's salmon, that's how fresh it appeared. Unfortunately my camera wasn't co-operating and this turned out rather fuzzy.  Nice to be in a larger group when following alongside a major salmon stream at this time of year.

 Puny humans beneath a mossy deadfall, beside a fallen sitka spruce!  The last part of the hike was rather cool because a youth group had gone in this summer and turned a few of those blown down trees into rudimentary but navigable pedestrian walkways slightly above the undergrowth.

Little Lost Girl

Both TwinA and TwinB had major meltdowns over the past few days with a distraught phone call from each yesterday so when TwinA went sort of incommunicado (smashed her phone Saturday night) this morning I was overwhelmed with apprehension.  She's by far the more implulsive one and in the past has joked about taking 'a vertical exit'.  As I was in the midst of texting her partner I received a call from her on his phone.  And there she was.  Just fine.
I still feel shaky though.

Wednesday Morning Hike

What great adventure awaited us today??

The rushing waters and moss clad cliffs of Humphries Falls.  I'd heard of them - TwinA actually visited there with friends once - and today I finally got to see them.

Here's one of our grey and grizzled group, leaning over to capture the best angle. Won't find me there.
Nuh-uh.
They can be the daredevils and I'll get a photo from them. 
I don't think I've seen a more perfect waterfall; the deepening greens of the water, the weathered rock dotted with ferns and moss and then of course the series of falls all added up to a masterpiece of natural design.
Of course everyone expects to see the resulting paintings from these hikes!
Oh...and the mushroom du jour:

These babies.  Never seem 'em before.

Vision Check

Okay; let's check our eyes:
Which one's better...this?

Or this:

This:

Or this?:

It's been cold and dull and miserable. We had an inch of rain yesterday, though I must admit today it's quite a bit brighter.  Why,some of the clouds are even a very light shade of grey!
Met Scarlett from Oklahoma this morning.  She and her husband just arrived on Tuesday for an 18 month stint on the smelter rebuild. 
Scarlett packed only summer clothes, therefore Scarlett is very cold.
She'll get the rest of her stuff in 2 weeks so I urged her to get over to the second hand store and grab something warm because I doubt anyone could 'tough it out' very well here with nothing but a light sweater for that many days.
As I sit here in a heavy vest over my sweater...

Outdoors Galore

In a manic effort to enjoy our six days of summer and avoid smoking, I was physically active for about five or six hours from Tuesday through Wednesday afternoon.  Tuesday evening I tried paddling in a dragon boat...though 'paddling' hardly begins to describe the exertion nor does this idylic view of Minnette Bay:

It was the most perfect of all evenings to be on the water though I had to leave my camera behind since it would have gotten thoroughly soaked.  Always nice to grab a glimpse of our sometimes bee-hee-ootiful surroundings.

Wednesday morning, I went on a 3 hour hike around upper and lower Clearwater Lakes and their connecting stream.  The light was perfection so I snapped over 80 photos hoping to find a painting composition or two in the batch.

We discovered newest Biggest Mushroom I've Ever Seen, with my bruised and wrinkled hand in there for scale.  The way this year is going I expect that record's liable to be broken weekly.

Bonus spectacle!!  When we returned to Onion Lake we noticed tadpoles the size and colour of black olives swarming by the shore.  We surmised that this was for the dual purpose of stirring up silt to feed and soak up some warmth from the sun.  They gradually gathered around any branches or rocks sticking up out of the water; the early maturers equipped with their complete set of legs perched right on top and below them, various stages of development descending into the water, looking like an evolution chart.
Those big kids with their legs, they get all the cool stuff!

Monster Mushrooms

It's been wet this year which is light years different from the past two summers where the woods became dusty and even the moss turned crispy and dry.  I find this weather far more reassuring though we're all relishing the warm sunny weather of the past 3 days, which so far represents our entire summer.
Mushroom season has arrived early and it probably shouldn't be a suprise that I encountered what may very well be the biggest mushrooms I've ever seen.