Of Sucker Holes and Salmon

I learned a new meteorology term over the weekend. This (note arrow)...



..is a sucker hole. What is it? According to Merriam Webster (as doctored by yours truly),

Main Entry: suck·er hole
Pronunciation: 's&-k&r 'hOl
Function: noun
Etymology: Early 21st Century British Columbia, Canada. Used in weather forecasting
An opening in cloud cover through which sunlight and blue sky may be seen; often fools people into thinking the rain will soon go away prompting them to embark on outdoor activities that were probably not meant to be done in the pouring rain. Related to the eye of a hurricane.

Sucker holes notwithstanding, we did get a fair bit of hiking in over the weekend--both rainy and dry.

We spent a very rainy Saturday morning at Goldstream Provincial Park hiking the Niagara Falls Trail (yes, the third one we've found and the second in Canada) and hiking the banks of the Finlayson River in hopes of seeing the salmon run but as we were nearing the end of the migration (which kills the fish within 10 days of entering the river), we shared our hike with just sea vultures (gulls) and fish carcasses. It was quite probably the stinkiest experience I've ever had in the great outdoors counting the multi-day with no shower backpacking trips we did pre-Nathan. I do have to commend the humble salmon on this brutal annual effort. Swimming upstream can't be easy though I'd like to think the species will eventually evolve out of this fatal cycle.



We made the most of our sojourn north on the Trans-Canada Highway by visiting a couple of wineries, a cidery, and Nanaimo Bakery (so I could get a Nanaimo bar on my birthday).

The sun came out to play on Sunday so we decided to take advantage of it by driving west to Botanical Beach Provincial Park in Port Renfrew (the end of the road on the island and the end of the Juan de Fuca West Coast Trail). We hiked the Botanical Loop which met up with the Juan de Fuca trail and did some tidepooling on the beach. It was a few hours after low tide so many of the best pools were already covered in water.