Another Hike for Gold

February 23rd (Sunday) 

The day started out as a beautiful, sunny morning, and since the forecast had been for rain, it was a pleasant surprise. When I went out into the cockpit to look around I got to see a few scattered, pink clouds around the mountains as the sun rose.  

After our morning Spanish lesson time we headed out for a hike. It was a beautiful day to get out into the forest. Unfortunately, only a couple of hours after being out, the already thickening clouds started to rain on us. At first it was only a sprinkle, but it continued to get harder, but we were happy to be out hiking.  

We made our way up the same stream that we had tried gold panning in earlier in the week, and continued on up much further than we had been before. 

We tried our luck with panning a few pans here and there, but unfortunately we didn’t find any gold. We did find lots of other cool rocks, however, and had fun exploring.

 

For some of the hike we were able to walk along the streambed, but for other parts it was easiest to go up into the forest. Some of the forest was quite overgrown, particularly along the stream, and so Jason was using his machete to hack a clear route. 

We did not bring our long handled clippers with us, because we were not making a trail, but simply hacking a simple path. Shortly before we were going to turn around, Jason went to hack a low branch, and as it cut through it continued on and collided with his shin. 

Luckily it was on a more downward angle than inward, and so, although it was a fair-sized incision, it was not serious. After a quick field dressing we turned around, and headed back down the mountain.  

As we were just making our way back down into Ocean Falls from the stream and Link Lake, Blair drove up in his car looking for us. He is actually the only permanent resident of Ocean Falls itself, not Martin River, and he is another local whom we had gotten to know. He took us to his place on the way home to give us a bunch of produce that he had had. He was leaving town for two weeks on the following weekend, and had more produce than he could eat. Once again, the residents of Ocean Falls have been amazingly generous to us. 

We enjoyed a beer in “The Shack” with Blair and Norm before coming home to make dinner.