Burgoyne forest #3 Up into the Garry Oaks.

                                                                                   Burgoyne Bay.

Once again we are climbing the slopes of Mt. Maxwell following a trail that goes we know not where. We hope it`s the one that leads up to the higher rocky slopes and Garry Oak meadows but we have no map. Much more exciting this way! Soon we are scrambling around the base of an enormous rock that in some places would rate as a mountain all by itself. Further up-slope there is another massive tableau with a great arbutus tree pumping itself up to scale amid more shards of mountain cliffs. We edge past and climb up out of the forest and into the dry grasses and Garry oaks that make this such a unique eco-system here on the coast. Our eyes lift from the slippery path and our spirits soar out over a panorama of ocean and mountains. Below us, pinhead sized boats entering Sansum Narrows send complex wave patterns into Burgoyne Bay.

This has not been a difficult or long climb so we can not attribute our sense of ‘Arrival’ to some physical or mental feat. Perhaps it is the setting, perched high on a mountainside with it`s hundred mile view - out of the forest at last -, or that fantastic tree amid the rocks below us that keeps telling us we are in the world of Gods and Heros. For me, it is all of this and also those wave patterns in the bay below that cross and weave more and more complex patterns, reminding us of our own place on this cloud dappled mountainside: our small part in the larger pattern of rocks and trees and soaring eagles.