Yours truly took a much-needed break during the first full week of September. After an intense month of books edits, #mrmoss and I went into the woods, DEEP into the woods, leaving electricity, showers, and cell service behind.
Day three saw us geared up for what we suspected would be a long walk in search of a purported series of ‘pools’ in the uppermost section of the river that cuts through Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park. Rounding a curve in the trail on our way in, look what greeted eyes that had been drenched in the greens and browns of fir, spruce, and cedar trees: Laetiporus sulphureus or Chicken of the Woods mushrooms.
We got >>this close<< to the pools, but by the time we were >>this close<< we had been walking and bushwacking for almost four hours. We were tired, hungry, bug-bitten, and acutely aware it would take us at least the same amount of time to make our way back to camp. Eating my lunch of rice cracker, hazelnut butter, and cheddar cheese on a rocky ‘sandbar’ in the middle of the river, the sun on my limbs and birdcalls in the air, was worth every challenging step of the hike.
