Hike #1 - Aug 2 - Stats: 9 km / 443m gain / 295m high point / 2:40 hours MT
This is a great mini maintenance hike at the north end of oval shaped Vedder Mt. I'd never done it before even though it was so close to home. Mountain bikers also make use of this trail.
First we ended up going the wrong way, on the Old Yale Wagon Road that follows along the foot of the west side of Vedder Mt (also behind our home). So we backtracked to a wide gravel path with concrete lego bricks, turning left.
Developers have been busy clearing these slopes for housing. I like how they sprinkled poppies on the uprooted terrain.
Hence the name: Duck Farm Loop.
1) Hawksweed 2) Shaggy Daisy
Some very dried out ferns in the development area.
Even with my GPS we ended up taking another wrong turn. Parts of the original trail had been chewed up by the developers. This made it a bit more confusing.
1) Seed puffs. 2) Backtracking.
Soon after this entrance we turned right onto the big Duck Farm Loop trail #203.
Lots of goodies for those mountain bikers.
1) Hmm. I don't think this is a wildflower. I think it was in the seed packages with the poppies. 2) Tansy Ragwort
Hike #2 - Aug. 6: Stats: 13.7 km / 660m gain / 244m high / 4:15 hours MT
Back again after only 4 days. Many other regions in southern BC are closed to the public because of forest fires or flooding. And with a cloudy sky we decided to stay close to home and go explore a few more trails on this north end of Vedder Mt. It was good to connect with Anne again, as she'd moved to Victoria this spring.
The higher first section of track is the Duck Farm Loop. I was a bit too confident that I wouldn't go off track because I'd just done it, right? Wrong. But I didn't get far off track, thanks to my GPS. It's such a network of trails in the forest and not all junctions are have sign posts so it's easy to take a wrong turn.
Leaving the Duck Farm Loop trail shortly after crossing this creek. Despite the cloud cover, it was quite muggy out. This creek was refreshing, generating cooler temperatures.
On the Big Rock trail. Maybe we'd find those caves? Or are they a myth?
After passing several spurs that were not on my All Trails App nor on my Garmin map, we found the 2 house-sized rocks.
Climbing up and around the rock, we found this rope to climb to the top of it.
The neighbouring rock had pins in it for rock climbing.
Settling down for a snack.
This nativity scene was right under the big rock.
The Big rock trail continued down and then south and then dead-ended by Karson Rd. in Majuba Hill. I was thinking it'd lead us to another big rock but it didn't.
Then we turned back but instead of going up and round the 2 house-sized rocks again, we stayed lower on the Waterworks Access dirt road. A man passed us in his waterworks truck and said he just ran into a cub up ahead. So we just kept talking, as we had been all morning.
This Waterworks trail followed alongside the suburbs on Majuba Hill.
Then after about 10 minutes on the road we turned right onto a broad trail that led upwards and connected us to the Big Rock trail again.
Back at the cool creek on the Duck Farm Loop trail.
We did not find the caves. Maybe next time...
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