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I AM BACK!
This is the official NSH Wednesday July 14 Trip Report along the Deeks Lake Circuit.
After witnessing very few ‘B’ Wednesday hikes postings of late I pulled out my trusty Vancouver North shore Hiking Trail map and closed my eyes and dropped my pointed finger down to see what should be done. Deeks lake was the location of my finger pointing. Since I had already done that rout I discovered a spot just below called the Deeks Bluffs Circuit.
Researching the location and rout I discovered this little potential gem looked exactly like a perfect Wednesday hike. It would be a recon with a twist. The twist was actually finding the trail that would allow you to make it a circuit verse out and back. After discussing the potential twist with my trusting fellow hikers I heard that even the great NSH leader of many years (not wanting to embarrass him I will only use his initials GD, or as he like to think of himself as the Wizard) had got lost looking for the connection to make a loop.
With sound advice from ‘Elliot Ness’ we discovered the trail head about 100 metres past the Deeks Creek bridge on highway 99 just past Lions Bay. We parked about 150 metres on the south side and walked up to the well marked trail head. Even though we were well past Lions Bay I could still envision the Lions Bay Parking Gestapo swarming are cars ticketing us for being within a 50 mile radius of their precious little community. Common, really who are the morons that run that village?
The first 30 minutes or so are a wonderful hike straight off the highway on to an open area with great views of How Sound. All six of us were enjoying the warming temperatures and a little exertion and NO BUGS. The book I used for instructions said allow 5 hours for the 10 km hike and I thought that was going to be generous the way our group was moving. As you move north going along the Bluff below the pound going up to Deeks Lake it seemed to me that we would probably be finished within 4 hours unless we all took a long sleep at lunch. We kind of did.
Cam brought his untrusting GPS and everyone took turns leading the well marked trail. I have to say the people that did the trail clearing on this wonderful location did a great job, for awhile. For some reason they must have got bored or just fixated on the views and stopped. From that point on the trail became over grown. Between our ‘Brain Trust’ and Cam’s GPS we managed to pretty much stay on course until are return loop turned into a comedy of ‘stop and go, back up and go over there, no back that way’ situations.
Back to lunch. We stopped after some 2 or 2 and half hours of leisure hiking and sat on a large rock looking down at Howe Sound on one side and having the MT Windsor keeping an eye on us on the other end. Very pretty, very relaxing and feeling good to be back where I am meant to be for some of each week. We talked, or I did, trash and spent time solving all the world problems before focusing our attention on showing GD the self proclaim Wizard that we could outsmart the him and complete the loop. Tumble Weed Jumper former Albertan, Elliot Ness, had been with the Wizard when they failed to find the trail back. The self imposed challenge was on and everyone seemed to take it seriously. Pouring over maps, adjusting GPS’s….really just turning them on, looking at the sun for direction we decide on a rout we figured would take us to the holy connection. Philippe, with the phony French Canadian accent pointed his finger in the air after he sucked on it and gave weather report on the spot and said the wind is coming from over there. We all looked around and wondered where there was and what was the point. Side note, did you know the weather person (being politically correct) never work Sunday’s even though they get paid. Nobody cares what the weather is going to be like on Monday so they just post anything knowing nobody cares.
Back to hiking, even our new member from New York was plotting a plan! She is from New York for goodness sake. It shows desperate people will resort to desperate actions. A New Yorker telling us where to go? Give us NSH more credit.
With game plan in place we took off in pursuit like a bunch of Rabbis looking for the latest Catholic Church scandal to divert their own Black Swan issues……..what has that got to do with anything?….I had a brain bubble, sorry. Different story for another time.
Off we went with of all people in front….ME. At that moment I knew Cam The Ram Man was setting me up to see if I would get loss. The evil, conniving guy was still taking out his problem of getting his truck stuck on a road up to Brandywine last November. He has always blamed me but who was driving his truck? Not me! What more can I say?
Acting like a seasoned CD, that I am, I lead our group into a dead end cul-de-sac area that had orange tape floating around everywhere. The maps came out, the GPS were back on and deep thinking and analysing was going by all except Elliot Ness. She just sat back with that look “I told you so”. We were going to have none of this attitude. We went diving into the thickest bushes with the most pointless possibilities to show her we could outsmart the great Wizard.
Finally, Cam shouts we are only 400 metres within joining up with our old trail. Yea, 400 metres as the crow flies and even the birds were nowhere to be found because the bush was getting so thick and the thistles were getting so sharp. As a well seasoned CD I pulled the plug on what appeared to be another NSH failed attempt to complete the Deeks Bluffs Circuit and we started to back track.
Once back on the dirt road we decided to take one last attempt and turned west into what looked like another dead end. Now hear me out because I am going to give credit to Cam The Ram Man which is something that I find very difficult to stomach only once. I would prefer you dismiss the last line as quickly as possible so nobody outside our small circle of bored over worked CD’s will get wind of this point. As insignificant as it was, I give him credit because once he went ramming into the woods like Bowinkle he found an orange marker. Than another, and another. He did it. We did it, more importantly…..please remember that thought. We showed the Wizard the trail can be completed as a true circuit.
Elliot Ness broke out into a chant: “nah, nah we beat the Wizard”, or something like that. I did not want to get into any personal name calling or whatever but she did have a valid point.
So after a wonderful hike, a long lunch, a bunch of pointless bush waking and another long tea break we made it back down to highway 99 in six hours. A little on the long side but we did stick it to the Wizard!
Thanks Blair, Philippe, Marianna, Ness and especially the hero of the day, Cam The Ram Man.
Please remember at this time of year when running away from a bear, you do not have to be the fastest. You just have to trip your friend.
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