VANCOUVER ISLAND WINDTALK

gnarf wrote:How's the road? Any updates?

last sunday the road was largely as nanmoo described (rough, packed and worn, but no potholes), but they were working on it. I passed at grader at one point (closer to nitnat than youbou), and sections that the grader had done varied from butter smooth to great wide gravel speed bumps. They also seemed to have sprayed sections of the road. ... I assume that was to keep dust down... no idea if it was oil, or water, or ?? -Tom

campfire ban?

http://bcwildfire.ca/hprscripts/wildfir ... mpfireBans

I think when I checked another year that the camp was well outside the fog zone. Which is why it's windy........ So no fires :-(

hhmm, I am planning to stay overnight tomorrow (friday night), will bring my propane firepit ... didn't use it last time as everyone else had campfires. Not the same warmth as a real fire, but good enough for marshmellows and talking etc.

Anybody know what the road is like on the alberni side?
I'm headed out towards Bamfield this weekend, coming from vic, wondering if I should go via alberni or suck it up and do the extra 50k of logging roads.

Alberni to Nitinat is pretty rough right now. I haven't seen it this bad in a while.

Thanks, driving further to get onto a crappier road, doesn't sound like a great plan to me, so through the south side it is!

the Alberni side is decent... Globe you should come out for a drive between Nov.-and March..... then you will know rough

Road today:

There are worse sections on I5. This is as good as a coastal logging road gets. 10/10.

Weird lack of jellyfish in the lake which seemed odd. But warmest conditions I've experienced on and off the water and it's only early July. Usually there were tickets to ride, but it was difficult to track down the fellow to pay.

Super busy, people already showing up to mark their territory for wind fest.

I don't want to argue, but IMHO the road is still pretty badly surfaced at the youbou end and somewhat washboarded at the nitnat side. Yes, the middle is fairly good, but this judge wouldn't score it a 10. One of these days I'm going to take a can of spray paint and spray that damn rock after the first left turn (around km 23)... the one that I finally seem to remember accurately enough that I haven't hit it recently. (only an issue outbound.)

or maybe I've just hit it enough that I can clear it now (e.g. scraped the bottom bits off the van)?

I'm only claiming It's a 10 for a coastal logging road, where rain and weather constantly work against maintainence to never let them get very good. No rain in months is the major factor why it's so good right now. I drive a ton on logging roads across the entire province for work and they are as bad as they get right here at home, the difference is huge. For instance, If ithe drive to Nitinat were compared to an okanagan mainline that doubled as a community thoroughfare (like say the Christian valley off Hwy 33) it'd score a 5/10, but for the coast I'm still sticking to my 10; which doesn't mean it's perfect, just that you'll never see it better.

Agreed, it was pretty decent. Alberni side is mostly good with a few washboard sections and a crappy chunk near china creek

nanmoo wrote: Weird lack of jellyfish in the lake which seemed odd. But warmest conditions I've experienced on and off the water and it's only early July. Usually there were tickets to ride, but it was difficult to track down the fellow to pay.

Warmer water, fewer jellyfish, sounds like the work of a few sharks to me. Better watch out moo, now that you're batting for the other side, they prefer kiters, less fiberglass. In one day at Flo 3 of 6 kiters gone in a single chomp.

Oh no, you weren't dressed up in your silly shark costume biting kiters on the jetty again were you?

Where could the jellyfish have gone? (I know one was in Oregon till recently). There were shoals of them last weekend. But there was also big patches of white in the water, almost like herring spawn, that wasn't jellyfish. Maybe it was an algae bloom that killed off the jellyfish?