Ammonite Falls - the hike of a thousand steps

Okay, it wasn't a thousand steps (as in, steps on stairs) but it was over 900 total - yes, my hiking partner counted them!  Throw in some very slippery slopes, and a pretty ordinary waterfall compared to many we've seen, and this won't be a hike these two seniors are likely to repeat.  At least, not from the new Weigles Road parking lot.  

Let me begin at the beginning.  Ammonite Falls was on my bucket list of hikes I wanted to do while living here on beautiful Vancouver Island.  I'd seen it talked about on numerous blogs and Facebook hiking pages.  While the photos were not as pretty as those from some other hikes, the hype from people who "loved it!", thought it "spectacular" and made it sound like a short stroll in the park ("easy peasy!"), had my adrenalin pumping.  

Ammonite Falls is so named because of the many fossils found in the area, as well as in the layers of sedimentary rock around the waterfall itself.  The largest of the ammonite fossils - almost a meter across - was found by two hikers in 2012.  Ammonites were snail-like creatures that were common in the Paleozoic and Mesozoic oceans 400 to 65 million years ago (sources: Nanaimoinformation.com; Timescolonist.com).  According to www.abitsalty.ca, ammonites may look similar to snails, but are more closely related to the modern octopus, and became extinct around the same time as the dinosaurs. The history alone was enough to make me want to hike there. 

The only thing that made me hesitate to do this hike, until now, had been the mixed ratings on various popular social media sources, official parks pages, and hiking books and apps - from the 'easy peasy' mentioned previously to 'easy-moderate', to 'moderately challenging', to 'moderate-difficult'.  From what I gathered, the majority of the trail was a gentle up and down, and therefore easy (or easy-moderate because of roots on the trail and some mud in the rainy season), and the difficult or challenging part was once you reached the falls.  Sources prior to this year indicated that only the top corner of the falls would be visible unless you were capable of shinnying down a very slippery long and steep slope, assisted by a rope or two, to reach the bottom for the full view.  So, knowing that my hiking partner and I, both in our seventies, would not be doing the rope acrobatics, we opted for other more rewarding trails. Until this year.

During covid, I kept reading reports that the Regional District of Nanaimo was making improvements to the Benson Creek Falls Regional Park, in which Ammonite Falls is located, with a special focus on making the falls more accessible.  A large parking lot at the trailhead, a bridge over Benson Creek to replace the existing log, and a set of steps down to the bottom of the falls, all made the trail sound doable and rewarding for us.  So once we heard the project was completed, off we went. 

What I didn't realize was that the large parking lot was not in the same location as the more commonly used trailhead that 99% of those rating the trail used.  In fact, Nanaimonewsnow.com stated  the improvements included "a new trailhead, kiosk and 40-stall gravel parking lot near the currently undersized lot", and that the new parking lot was "located 100 meters past the existing lot" (emphasis added).  Perhaps there was a trailhead to the park from that area, but it sure wasn't the primary trailhead to the falls and nowhere near the Jameson Rd trailhead used by hiking sources and reviews. It is, in fact, in a network of extensive mountain bike trails, with warnings to hikers at cross trails. 

While meant to relieve the pressure from the Jameson Rd neighbourhood whose street and driveways were blocked by inconsiderate hikers, the new parking lot for forty cars on Weigles Rd took hikers to the falls from the opposite direction, a trail where the middle third is designated 'difficult' - in fact, after hiking for 20 minutes or so, we came to a large sign highlighting just that and warning that it may not be suitable for all hikers.  Perhaps that sign was always there for those who came in from that approach prior to the improvements, but the only previous mention that I had found of the hike to the falls being 'difficult' talked only of the roped slope down to the bottom of the falls. 

So... after a fairly comfortable walk we hit the 'difficult' section.  The section had been improved with not only a bridge over Benson Creek but also two very long sections of stairs - some with handrails, some without.  Handrails were plastic-covered cable, which may be longer lasting than previous rope handrails we've encountered on hikes, but were themselves very slippery with moisture and therefore not very useful. And steps are never designed with short legged people in mind, necessitating what I call my 'toddler climb or descent' - move one foot, bring second foot up (or down) to meet it.  Next step, move one foot, bring second one up to meet it.  And so on.  That gets exhausting in a very short while.  Each set of steps had approximately 150 risers, except for a few shorter sections of 5-10 steps.  

And despite the stairs, there was still a fairly lengthy steep muddy section, without any improvements, to challenge us.  Think slogging uphill in molasses. 

Once we finally got through the difficult section, the trail was relatively easy.  At the top of the falls, we encountered another 150 (actual count: 154) steps to a viewing area and to the bottom of the falls.  To our surprise after encountering only one small group of people on our hike in, the viewing platform, stairs, and surrounding area were packed with dozens of people!  A group of seniors, several families with young children, a few youth, and many solo or couple hikers all arrived from the old Jameson Rd trailhead - they weren't puffing, they weren't sweating, and their shoes didn't show any signs of mud!   Kids as young as four walked all the way, moms carried babies and toddlers in arms and backpacks, and youngsters were running around bumping my arm as I tried to take photos and coming close to knocking me off my feet.  Not my idea of a great hiking destination.  

We trudged down the stairs with everyone else, took the requisite photos, and made a quick about-face back up to a quieter forest spot where we could eat our lunch and rest a bit. 

As we sat on a log in the forest above the falls, resting up for a long stair-and-mud-laden trek back to the car,  we watched every single one of the viewers depart on the Jameson Rd trail.  Clearly the RDN's hope of diverting traffic from the Jameson Road neighbourhood to the  less inhabited Weigles Rd trailhead was going to be a colossal flop.  Fifteen minute walk easy enough for little kids and ending in one flight of stairs, vs 45 minutes walk that includes a 'difficult' section and a zillion stairs?  No contest for many occasional hikers and walkers just looking for somewhere to take the kids close to town. 

I've never been fond of stairs and boardwalks on trails, though I understand and respect boardwalks used to protect fragile terrain in places like Strathcona Park.  I see far less of the beauty around me when I have to focus on moving my feet on man-made stairs.  In fact, it was only when I got home from this hike that I realized we had not heard a single bird, seen a single mushroom or newly emerging plant, photographed anything except stairs and falls. Not my cup of tea.

So - my advice:  if you want to see the falls but are not particularly fit or not keen on stairs, use the Jameson Road trailhead, being careful where you park.  If you want to test your endurance running up and down steps without buying a step machine or a four-story home,  use the Weigles Road trailhead. Personally, I can think of many more beautiful waterfalls within a short drive of here, reached by moderate and much more beautiful trails, and  with far fewer people to jostle your elbow just as you click that camera.  But at least we can say "We did it!"

Morrell Nature Sanctuary hike

 Last Friday, my hiking buddy and I went to one of my favourite places in Nanaimo, Morrell Nature Sanctuary.  Here there are many kilometers of easy, well maintained and clearly marked trails through forest, alongside creeks and a pond, and along a beautiful lake.  I've been here more times than I can count, and every time see something new - a plant I've never noticed, a mushroom, a tree, a bird.  I've been herein every season, every month of the year.  And it never fails to delight me. 

Morrell Sanctuary is owned by the Nature Trust of BC, after being donated by William Morrell in 1973.  It is leased and managed by Morrell Sanctuary Society of Environmental Education, and many local school children experience science lessons, biology lessons, environmental lessons in its 278 acres.    And  it is always a place of peace, of solitude, a place to commune with nature. 

The sanctuary has something for all ages and abilities - a gnome house trail for the young, some wheelchair accessible trails, many benches on which to rest, a covered picnic shelter, interpretive signs, viewing platforms, bluffs.   And yet it has somehow maintained a sense of  nature at its finest - everything blends into the natural environment so the human-made parts are hardly noticeable. It resonates peace.

The online information on it tells me there are 11 km or nearly 7 miles of trails, but it is also connected by trails and hydro right-of-ways to other parks and hiking trails in the region which can give the avid fit hiker many more miles to traverse.

On Friday, we started on the Yew loop across from the parking area, then continued on the Deer Fern Trail where I once saw a twin-headed deer fern. 

Twin-headed deer fern

We came to a side trail and headed out to see where it went. It met with the hydro lines, from which we could have gone left to Extension Ridge or right to Westwood Lake had we chosen.  We walked along it for a short distance, marveling at the fact that there were still pockets of snow along the route - we've not seen any in our home communities (one to the north and one to the south of Nanaimo) for a few weeks now.  

After a short while, we returned to our original trail and continued on through the sanctuary - Deer Fern Trail to Bob's Trail to the Beaver Pond Loop.  The pond, which had been completely full of grasses and reeds in the fall, was once again mostly clear and the reflections on this sunny day were wonderful.

I watched a couple of ducks feeding in the brush.  They were barely visible, but I had to try to photograph them because I had never before noticed the beautiful brown-on-brown pattern on the female mallard's feathers.  I saw in it a pattern I had often seen in indigenous art without understanding from whence it came. 

From the Beaver Pond trail we headed up to the fire lane and over to Morrell Lake.  There, a whole flock of ducks raced up to meet us.  I know this is where volunteers often toss seed for them, and I guess they were hoping we were those volunteers.  They let me take a few photos, and then seeing we were empty handed when it came to treats, they waddled en  masse back to the water. 

We took the lower lake trail to its far end, watching three female hooded mergansers swimming rapidly across the lake, too fast for my camera to capture.  They reminded me of the time a couple of years ago when we had seen a mama hooded merganser with a very large brood of  12 babies, only half of which I captured in a photo.

On the other side of the lake, we could see various hydro trucks, and overhead a helicopter's blades sliced the air with its throb, throb, throb. Soon it appeared hauling a large piece of metal pylon.  The trees were blocking our view, and by the time we got to the edge of the lake it was just a pinprick in the distance, flying into the sun.  If you look hard, you may be able to see it just to the left of the brightest part of the photo.

At the end of the lake, I photographed more reflections and beauty.  We found a bench where we sat to have our lunch. 

It was sometimes noisy with the helicopter flying back and forth, but interesting to watch as hydro poles, electric pylons, and empty tow chains flew overhead. 

After lunch, we headed back along the Lower Lake Trail, and decided to take the firelane back to the Beaver Pond Loop and explore Tranquility Trail and  Vi's Walk trail, two trails we hadn't done before.  There we saw a tree hollowed out by woodpeckers.  The square or rectangular holes are the signature mark of the pileated woodpecker, one of my favourite birds.

Other than the ducks, the only other wildlife we saw were two red squirrels, though the next day a fellow hiker posted a photo of a pine marten she saw there - lucky her, I've never seen one!  The sanctuary also has the occasional bear or cougar sighting.  Thankfully, I've not run into these.  Most of my wildlife encounters here, on previous visits, have been with birds, including barred owls, western tanagers, and various woodpeckers.  

I'm looking forward to returning again soon.  Friday's hike was just over five miles, and took us four hours due to the many stops to admire nature, to breathe deeply, to watch squirrels and ducks and helicopters, and - of course - to take photos. 

Aptly named! 

Moorecroft Park

 Friday's gentle hike was at Moorecroft Park in Nanoose Bay - one of my favourite short and easy hikes/walks close to home, offering beautiful ocean vistas, lovely forest trails, a meadow, a boggy pond, and a few side trails to residential areas or little known coves.  

It was raining when we arrived, so we started with the forest trails where the trees offered some protection from the rain. We rambled past the pond and through the meadow and kept right on going to the La Selva Trailhead on a cul-de-sac, then backtracked and  took a main trail down through the forest and over to Vesper Point.  By then, the rain had stopped and the sun was attempting to appear. There was a cold wind blowing and the waves were dashing up against the rocks as an eagle called from the trees and a brave gull took his morning shower.  

We noted a new bench at the viewpoint, and stopped for a few minutes in the small grassey picnic area overlooking a quiet bay.  

The park property has an interesting history (https://moorecroft.org). It was first established as a girl's summer camp by Gertrude Moore in 1934. It interested me to learn that Moore was the first Director of Physical Education for Women at the University of British Columbia.  In the 1950s,  Moore sold the property to the United Church who ran it as a summer camp and eventually as a year round operation for camps and retreats and other events.  When the church sold the property to the regional district a dozen or so years ago, it was under a Conservation Covenant, held by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, and that covenant has guided its development. Eventually, most of the camp buildings were deemed unsafe and removed, but the old boathouse still stands. 

We decided to take another side trail, which led us out to a cove we'd not seen before.  There were "No Trespassing" signs high in the trees on either side of the trail, but the trail itself had a Regional District trail sign down by the cove, pointing up to the main park trail.  Our best guess is that the cove is a landing area for kayaks and canoeists and the trail is to provide them access to Moorecroft Park.  We spied a lovely old stone staircase in the rocky cliff to one side but chose to respect the No Trespassing sign rather than examine it more closely. 

We did, however, choose a log in the cove on which to have our lunch. In between bites of my sandwich, I photographed waves bursting over the rocky outcroppings.  

Our lunch spot in a quiet little cove

Sally, my hiking buddy,  spied some birds among the rocks (can you spot them in the photo above?) and I zoomed in as far as my small camera would allow - I have yet to buy a harness that might make possible bringing the new Canon with its more powerful zoom lens along.  We thought, from the way the birds moved, that they were sandpipers and we weren't far wrong. But when I uploaded the photos to the computer and zoomed in further, I could see they had bright yellow legs, yellow on the beak, and a shorter beak than the sandpipers I'm familiar with.  My bird book offered no clues so I posted the photos to a naturalist group I belong to on Facebook, and quickly had a name for them:  surfbirds, aka Calidris Virgata (formerly Aphriza Virgata) of the order Chardriformes, Family Scolopacidae (the same family as sandpipers).  

I also learned that it is not that common to see them here - they mostly winter further south and then move to Alaska and Yukon for breeding season, so were likely just passing through.  Surfbirds spend most of their lives "in the splash zone of rocky ocean shorelines" (allaboutbirds.org) where they feast on whatever the surf washes up as well as other plant and animal life.  These ones were certainly busy checking every nook and cranny of the rocks after each wave - and they certainly were in the splash zone!

Birds in the splash zone!

They don't seem to mind getting wet - they made
no attempt to run away from the waves. 

After lunch, we headed back up the trail and back through the forest, past the meadow, and alongside the pond.  We passed a tree covered with "witches butter" (a type of fungus), admired the bull rushes and talked about how the red-winged blackbirds will soon be here.  

Across from the pond was another new bench, with a beautiful inscription that really resonated with me.   I cannot find the verse on the internet , but I learned that Helga Schmitt was a local woman who passed away in 2017 at age 56, and she loved nature, dogs, and photography.  I think I would have liked her! 

And soon we were back at the parking lot.   Total distance: 3 miles. Total time (including lunch, nature discussions, and photo stops) 3 hours.  Total enjoyment: every minute of it. 

Jack Point / Biggs Park

 With days still short and dark and weather unpredictable, and many trails closed for repairs or impassable, our Friday hikes have been close to home along familiar paths, often in local parks.  This past Friday we did an old favourite - Jack Point/Biggs Park in south Nanaimo, located alongside the Duke Point Ferry terminal. 

The trail is easy (with the exception of a few long steep sets of stairs), and once past a short section that parallels the road, it is peaceful and beautiful.  The rocks along the shoreline have been worn smooth, some hollowed into caves, some - like the one right of centre in this photo - rolled into a large smooth ball as the tides turn it between two harder rock faces:

There are many viewpoints and places to rest, little side trails that lead to benches overlooking the bay or leading down to small rocky coves.  Sometimes the tide blocks access to some rocky outcroppings, other times an agile person can easily explore rocky tidal pools and shallow caves in the cliffs.  The winter daytime tides were high enough to hide some of our usual favourite photography spots, but this little island and the lone tree reflected in the water drew my eye:

The trail was only washed out by storms in one spot, where logs had driven hard into a small cove.  Amazingly, the bridge was still standing and the trail still passable. 

Heading down the point, there are views of downtown Nanaimo, and as one reaches the tip of the point, we see cargo ships waiting to enter the docks to load and unload, as well as big ferries coming and going from Duke Point and small ferries going back and forth to Gabriola Island.  Small float planes also fly overhead and the occasional helicopter too. 

We eat our lunch near the lighthouse at the end of the point, where a cormorant or two always stands guard, self-appointed keepers of the light.

As the waters are churned up by the ferries, seals and sea lions pop up to catch the fish disturbed by the wake.  A raven chatters overhead, his gurgling "krak krak krak" reminding me of a wood block percussion instrument with its hollow-sounding short musical notes that can be heard for up to a mile.  We hear him but can't locate him, but do spot the eagle who is singing soprano - or screeching soprano - in accompaniment. 

The sea mammals, including a pair of  river otters, were entertaining but difficult to capture with the lens - these two were curious about us but not in a position to gain a good focus. 

Heading back mid afternoon, the winter sun decided to make an appearance low in the sky through the clouds, lighting up the bay and casting an eerie glow.  

Peaceful, calming, spiritually refreshing - nature always knows how to calm the soul and wash away the winter blahs.