But it’s changing a little faster this year. To be fair, this is just the eventual outcome of the past four or five years of stress on this forest. The Lower Mainland forests suffered a four year plague of Western looper moths that decimated trees, particularly younger hemlocks. And then that was combined with a couple of exceptionally dry and hot summers, and so many trees were killed.
Stanley Park is being logged and close to 200,000 trees are being felled.
I walked/hiked/ran these trails for three years on an almost daily basis and a lot less so the past year, so the change is particularly drastic as I defamiliarize myself with my routes through he forest on main and secondary trails…and a few goat trails that only a few people use with any regularity…such as it is.
Last fall I was hiking this spot and two parks staff were marking trees with flagging tape and noting them on a clipboard. As I walked past I asked if they were marking the live ones…or the dead ones….there are just so many dead trees that marking live ones almost seemed easier.
A few months ago the crews started the work of felling the worst and most dangerous trees. And it’s opened so many areas up in such a drastic manner. Spots that used to feel so closed in and deep now feel so open. It’s a forest, and forests do change, and it’s a park so in many ways it hasn’t been permitted to undergo the natural cycles and when something takes a toll…it’s a really big toll.
I’d hiked on Sunday and had used one of those goat trails to cross between two main trails and get down tot he Cable Bridge. When I came off the side trail I was confronted with the stairs down to the bridge, but they were under reconstruction. Being a Sunday there wasn’t anyone working on it and I remember thinking to myself…awfully dangerous to leave the stairs int his manner….framed in but not yet filled with gravel….anyone could really hurt themselves. Surprising they didn’t block the trail.
As I came to the bottom and rounded the corner I was confronted with a barrier which, on the other side, said “Trail Closed, No Entry”.
The people on the bridge gave me a dirty look like I should be ashamed of myself for ignoring the signage….I was one of “those” people at that moment.
Today, I used the same goat trail to shorten up my hike and get back to my desk within the time I’d allowed myself for a late lunch…but this time I knew the park staff were working int he area as I’d seen their truck and pile of lumber set up on the service road above…..so I turned right instead of left as I re-entered the main trail.
But here’s the thing.
It “did” occur to me that the trail had to be closed “somewhere” so that people didn’t end up on the wrong side of the barrier that was protecting people from the safety hazard…..
Yup, I was on the wrong side again, at the other end. My little tertiary trail was clearly an oversight on the part of the parks staff.
Three other quick stories from my wanderings in the woods, to and from work down in the hatchery.
First story:
The week before Christmas I was walking home on Pipeline trail, in the pitch blackness, with my flashlight guiding me past any tripping hazards and in my peripheral vision I saw something flutter towards the ground.
“A big leaf” my brain suggested.
Seemed rationale….but I didn’t actually see it land.
Odd.
A few more steps and another ‘big leaf’ slipped in and out of my peripheral sights…..and didn’t seem to land anywhere.
I stopped and thought ….”A leaf doesn’t even make sense. I’m not in any part of the forest with any maple trees, everything around me is a hemlock or a cedar….no leaves to fall…and there shouldn’t be any anyway, it’s late December and the trees are bare.” So what the hell is flickering in my peripheral vision?”
I had a hunch I knew so I raised my light just a little bit and kept my eyes up as I continued to walk, and then it flashed by me again…..a bat.
As I continued to walk and switched to a sidetrail to get off the straight and boring trail the bat ket pace with me, flying inane out of the edge of the light beam where the light dribbled into the forest. Perhaps the light attracted a few insects that I couldn’t see, there aren’t many these days, but there are ‘some’. I don’t think I’ve ever seen. bat this late in the year, but it was pretty cool having one escort me part of the way home 😊
Second story:
More of an observation actually…. Because, at this time of year, I walk these trails largely in blackness, I don’t see much of the forest unless I go for a hike/run during the day to take a beak (which I am trying to do again!). With all of the tree carnage from the years of moth and drought damage, I’ve noticed a significant increase in polypore fungi growing on the trunks of trees. There is so much dead wood for the saprophytes to break down. But the thing is, I don’t really notice them during the day. I mean, clearly there are lots of them and if you just “look” they are everywhere, but there is so much else to see during the day that they aren’t really the thing I pay attention to, except that they are “everywhere” because there are so many dead and dying trees to grow on.
But it’s in the dark…so long as you have a flashlight, that they REALLY stand out! It’s like a million white eyes are looking at you from everywhere int he darkness….low, high, and all levels in between. It’s really kind of cool! You don’t even have to shine the flashlight “on” them at all, their white undersides pick up the light so amazingly well!
Third story:
Walking these trails almost everyday means that you recognize the locals who also love to walk in the forest. Yesterday not he way home, near the end of my loop and almost to the park road, in the misty evening…not yet total blackness…I could see a white labrador wearing a light around his neck that was changing colours. It was striking..the white dog, the coloured light, in the mist. The dog was accompanied by two women, one older, one probably a few years younger than me. I smile and said hello and the younger woman stopped and said “What’s your name?“
It was abrupt and pretty forward, and kind of funny. I think she realized all of that and followed up with “We pass you in here all the time and it would be nice to know your name so we can say hello properly.”
I told them my name and she said “I’m Megan, and this is my mom” The older woman smiled and said “I’m
Leticia”.
I said “Nice to meet you both…and who is this?”
“Solo”
We chatted for a bit, I said I was on my way home from work, they said they assumed that because I always have a backpack and am generally walking with purpose. The mother lives in one of the handful of houses on the park road and then I realized that I’d said hello to her many times during the summer months when she was in her driveway …. context is everything. The daughter lives a few blocks away.
The people who spend a lot of time in this forest do take note of each other, and there is a sense of community hat one develops. There is “Tilley hat guy” (his name is Paul I learned when he stopped me last year with the exact same “What’s your name anyway?” type of question. I learned that he has a granddaughter with the same name as mine. And then there is “Abby’s Dad”. I’m ashamed to say I know the dog’s name but not his. There are a number of runners and walkers that are regulars…not anywhere to be found on weekends when the non-locals flood the forest.
___
And as I came down the steps and returned to the hatchery after my hike I stopped for a moment because there was an insistent high pitched noise…a bird…but not…? And then I saw the maker of said noise…semingly infuriated by my presence…
And then it was back to the office to see how far my new work computer had made it in the updates that have plagued me for two days now…but that’s another story.