Red Cedar
More apocalypse, less angst
I *heart* Cathedral Lakes.
Back in the city for a couple of days now, I’ve finally had time to post our Cathedral Lakes photos to Flickr and gather my thoughts a little about the trip. In short? What a beautiful place, and we sure picked the right time to go there since it’s wildflower season in the sub-alpine and Cathedral Lakes Provincial Park has the most awesome meadows I have ever hiked in.
CLPP is a bit of an oddity in terms of the provincial parks, as the core area of the park is only accessible via a steep hike in, or via transportation up a private road operated by the Cathedral Lakes Lodge (grandfathered into the park, but owned privately). We elected to take the transportation in, as we had such a short time to spend up top, and so paid the $120 apiece to ride in the back of the Unimog which takes an hour to do nine miles of pretty-much vertical road. A little terrifying, but worth every penny to be able to carry in a cooler with beer and fresh food (the campsite is only a few minutes walk from the drop-off point), not to mention getting straight to the good stuff of alpine hiking.
We decided to stay at the first campsite at Quniscoe Lake, which I wouldn’t do on a weekend as it does tend to be the busiest (and the lodge across the way can be noisy) – but we were there mid-week and it was pretty quiet. Our campsite at Quiniscoe was right on the water so B. managed to get some good fishing time in on the rocks out front. Additionally, Quniscoe is the only campsite that allows fires (when they are allowed at all), and the only sites with picnic tables.
As for the hiking, CLPP is beautiful and ass-kicking terrain, with pretty much every trail involving some scrambling up and down. Ladyslipper Lake is one of the easiest hikes at only 7 km, but still involves 200 metres of elevation gain, the main trail of the park – the Rim – is only accessible by scrambling up steep, loose trail whereby one is rewarded with views for miles in every direction. If you’re thinking of doing any of these hikes, good footwear and hiking poles are pretty much a requirement. I wore through the rubber tips on both my poles last week!
When not hiking straight up and around and down, B. and I spent time beside the many lakes (Ladyslipper Lake is by far one of the most beautiful places I have every seen), and checking out the riot of alpine meadows in full bloom. Honestly, if you’re planning a trip up there in August, the Diamond Trail is not to be missed for its endless floral carpet – not to mention that it offers lots of opportunities for frolicking amongst said meadows if you are so inclined. The lodge is also open to campers for beer and meals – we went over one night for dinner which was pretty good (but pricey at $40 for the amount we eat – it’s buffet style), and had beers there on another occasion. This makes it a little less “backcountry” for sure, but it also provided a place to go one night when the wind was howling so fiercly down the lake that all we could otherwise do was hunker down in our tent. Beer by an indoor fireplace is a very welcome comfort in such circumstances.
Because of the effort required to get into the park, there were really only about 30 other people in this huge area with us at any given point during our week up there. We found that made CLPP one of the friendlier parks we’ve hiked in, as people tend to feel a bit bonded by the experience of being so remote and with so few others. Everyone has a recommendation – a favourite hike, a great spot to lunch, their particular harrowing experience coming down the wrong side of a mountain – and sharing those seems to be a big part of the CLPP trip for folks. Which was pretty neat, really, as we met all sorts of interesting folks in our footbound travels. On our last couple of nights there, our neighbours were a couple of young kids (20ish) from Kelowna who had never camped before, and who had no idea how to cook a fish that they had caught (nor any idea what to do with the bit of squash I offered them to saute with the fish – I think they had been solely raised on packaged food). It definitely made for some extra interest, and also gave me the impression that folks up there look out for each other since parks staff in the backcountry is next-to-nonexistent these days.
Because of its remoteness another feature that makes CLPP so precious is the incredible diversity and proximity of wildlife. We saw mountain goats, deer, grouse, picas, marmots, squirrels, chipmunks and whiskey jacks pretty much every day, in our camp! And because of the elevation, bears are pretty-much non-existent in the core area of the park.
Go check out the photos to see more of what we did and saw! On our way back Friday we picked up a load of fruit and spent the last two days canning it. You can check that out over on Among the Weeds where I have enumerated our great haul from Keremeos.
Oh, the excitement of food!
“The pleasure of serving the fruits of home canned food is comparable only to a clear conscience or a very becoming hat!” Joy of Cooking
I love this quote, and even though I used it in a canning post last year, I can’t help myself, there is something so satisfying about racking up a large amount of food to put by and serving it all winter long. A clear conscience? I’m not sure, but it does bring great peace of mind.
The above photo does not really do our canning weekend justice, but I was on my way out this morning when I took it with my cel phone – a testament to two full days of work between B. and myself as we laboured through the boxes we picked up on our way through Keremeos on Friday.
This weekend we managed to put up a total of : 120 pounds of tomatoes, 10 pounds of cherries, 20 pounds of peaches, 15 pounds of cucumbers, 20 pounds of beets and assorted onions and peppers in the mix. From that we made:
- canned tomatoes
- tomato sauce
- bbq sauce
- tomato salsa
- peach salsa
- canned peaches
- cherry marmalade
- cherry-walnut jam
- cherry vinegar
- dill pickles
- bread-and-butter pickles, and
- pickled beets
This, in addition to the rhubarb and raspberries and the strawberry-frangelico syrup I put up earlier this summer. I’ve also got lots of squashin I’m considering turning into relish or pickles.
We are anticipating a couple more canning days this fall with the intention of doing apple sauce, apple chutney, and mincemeat (I’m also thinking canned pears) – but so far we’re feeling pretty good about this output! When we were picking stuff up to bring homeward on Friday, I wasn’t anticipating we’d get it all done before the weekend was over. But here we are! Ready for writing the date on each jar and putting on our new shelves in the basement for just this purpose.
More on canning in the upcoming days, but just wanted to share that we are back and with goodies too!
Loving summer food.
As I head out on a week of holidays, I leave you with this charming picture from Saturday morning yard gleaning. We ate the beans and squash tonight with beer-can chicken. The tomatoes went down in a cheese and pickle sandwich this afternoon. Loving the summer food and the fact so much of it is coming out of garden. Looking forward to more cukes, zucchini, beans, and greens upon our return.
Fluttering.
Looking at my stats this morning, it appears that everything is going back to normal and the most popular posts remain my Facts about Ocean Phospheresence and the Recipe for Black/Salal Berry Jam – both of which continue to get comments even years after being posted. There’s something about that which really tickles me – the sexiness of posts about nature and wild food foraging 🙂
Yesterday I was on the way back from the dentist – on the skytrain from Commercial to Burrard – and somewhere around Stadium Station, a butterfly flew onto the train. At least I assume it was at Stadium, but I didn’t notice the butterfly until we were underground, just before Granville. It caught everyone’s attention then, because of the incogruity of it I suppose – this delicate outdoor creature flapping around inside a rushing steel tube buried beneath twenty feet of pavement. And of course, we all knew that it was going to die, which gives rise to all sorts of lovely musings about ephermality of life, etc. I could write a poem about that butterfly, so perfect was the visual subject, but really it’s probably best I don’t.
In any case, I was watching this guy watching the butterfly and he was also in some mesmerized place by it, and just as I was thinking “someone should try to free that butterfly”, he got up and tried to catch it. This was just after we left Granville Station – but the butterfly wasn’t having any of his interference. Just as we pulled into Burrard, I decided to have a go of it as well, but again – why would that insect trust me? Better to bang itself against the dark windows of the train than follow doom into the hands of a monster. Right before the train pulled away from Burrard, I realized I was going to miss my stop and hopped off, where the guy was watching me.
So we had a laugh together, and I told him I thought the butterfly was a goner, to which he said – but you never know what’s going to happen, it could fly off at the next stop (which is true, because at Waterfront the stop is above ground) – and as we got to the top of the station escalator I said have a good day and he responded as though – yes, in fact, he was going to have a *great* day. Which I’m sure he wasn’t before, but something about trying to save that butterfly and then talking about its fate with a total stranger made the whole being downtown prospect seem much better. At least I felt that way. And I felt the amazing possibility of connection, and that made me feel stronger than I had in days.
It was the randomness, of course. Because I live so much in the reality that randomly bad things can just happen, I forget that also randomly good things can happen. And they aren’t giant good things usually, they are small ones – like sharing a joke at a check-out counter, or having a little flirt at the farmer’s market, or just helping someone at the right moment so you know it matters. It’s so easy to ignore those little moments and focus on the bigger, badder ones – particularly as the ego is conditioned to complaint – but not only do they happen, we can create opportunities for them more often by simply staying open. That’s the hard part for me, because mostly in the city I close myself down for the sake of protection, and some days it’s all I can do to make eye contact at the deli counter. The butterfly gave me an excuse to come out of myself yesterday, as it did the guy sitting across from me, and who knows what ripples that will have?
Don't buy it: Plant-based plastic
I was just on the skytrain coming back to the office from the dentist and I noticed an ad on the train for Coca-Cola’s new packaging – made from 30% plant-based materials – and I’ve been stewing about it ever sense. This “biodegradable packaging” movement is nothing short of the worst form of greenwashing. In an era when we should cutting back , these companies are simply telling us it’s okay to keep consuming disposable (and in this case completely non-nutritional) junk, but we just have to change what we consume.
What’s the problem with plant-based plastic? First of all – the same energy-heavy processes used to make all packaging products are used to make corn-plastic products – if not more. According to the researchers at the link above, some approaches to making bio-plastic consume even more fossil resources than most petrochemical manufacturing routes. That means plant-based platics are contributing the climate change even more than petrochemical based plastics are. (I do recognize that some companies claim that their manufactured “green plastic” bottles are carbon neutral – but it’s just not possible folks. There is no carbon neutrality when it comes to large-scale manufacturing).
Secondly, according to Bill McKibben in Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
Thirdly, there is nothing ecological about a company like “Green Planet Bottling” who suggests that bottled water is even a remotely environmental choice.
Honestly, in this era of rapid climate destabilization, the last thing we need is more consumer junk packaged as “earth-friendly”. When are we going to get it? The only way to cut our impact is to cut our consumption. Don’t let those corporations greenwash you!
Red Cedar 