22 Feb 50 Shades of Green
It doesn’t take long for the forest to reclaim you in the Pacific Northwest. A few steps on the trail and the world as you know it morphs into a misty mountain wonderland, a place where the dripping rain and muddy paths shouldn’t stop you from moving deeper within.
Looking around, your eyes register fifty shades of green, colors that you’ve never seen except in a CGI-enhanced fantasy film. Crane your neck back, back, back – and still the tops of the trees, some planted 16 generations ago, elude you.
It’s Christmas Day, and my husband and I have withdrawn into the woods, choosing to spend the holiday near Canada’s Pacific Rim National Park instead of a more traditional celebration. Our planned trip to Tofino, on British Columbia’s Vancouver Island, wasn’t a popular choice with our extended families. But after a year that included the equivalent of several months on the road, I knew that we needed the quiet. Time to breathe, we told our loved ones. Time to communicate – not just with each other, but with ourselves.
The drive to Tofino provided plenty of opportunities for conversational catch-up. In this corner of the world, a road trip involves two ferry rides; we saw seals swimming near the harbor on one leg of the journey, and porpoises playing in the ship’s wake on the next. Although Vancouver Island seems small on a map, it’s a long way between the British-influenced capital of Victoria, on its south end, to nearly everywhere else: The mountainous middle ensures that the few roads that do criss-cross the island come complete with views and switchbacks.
Along Highway 4, we stopped and stretched our legs at Cathedral Grove, a provincial park known for its old growth trees. The name proved apt. Not far from the road were giant Douglas firs that have survived for 850 years, along with red cedars that provided sustenance to the First Nation tribes that lived here long before the Anglos showed up. Realizing what changes these trees have witnessed brought a solemnity to our day, a feeling that we were in the presence of something greater than ourselves. Not a bad way to start a pilgrimage.
Back on the highway, we zigzagged up along the island’s steep spine, stopping only in Port Alberni for gas and a Tim Horton’s refuel. At the higher altitude, snow replaced drizzle, white overshadowed the green. We wondered what animals made the paw prints visible in the clearings. And as the weak December sun fell low in the sky, we turned a corner and saw the inlets from Clayoquot Sound, stretching out to the ocean.
We arrived late at Tofino, the end of the road, on Christmas Eve, too tired to do much other than unload the car at our rented condo. And so our December 25 dawned with no presents and no plans, other than to get outside and explore the temperate rain forest that makes up the bulk of the island’s Pacific coastline.
Inside Pacific Rim National Park, we set out on a trail, elevated to allow people to pass over the damp ground, winding deep inside the forest. We see ferns bigger than our heads and lichen in neon shades, about the only things that can survive under the dense tree cover. New growth emerges from monster nurse logs, their roots wrapping around cedars that take hundreds of years to break down. The circle of life, we joke (but we mean it).
We could stay here in awe for hours, but the path opens up to a beach, where surfers in protective wet suits ignore the chilly temperatures to take advantage of the West Coast’s strongest waves. The crashing water drowns out conversation; all we can do is laugh as we run out to examine the tidepools left behind. Sanctuary is over; now it’s time to play.
“I went into the woods,” Thoreau wrote, famously, in the beginning of Walden, “because I wished to live deliberately … and see if I could not learn what it had to teach.” My husband and I are far too urban to be the master’s best students. But we returned to Seattle refreshed, ready for the year ahead, with a vow to make it to class more often.
Adventure Collection offers 39 different British Columbia and Canadian Rockies Tours. Here are just a few:
Chilko-Chilcotin River | O.A.R.S.
Bodacious Trips: Girlfriend Getaways | Canadian Mountain Holidays
Grizzlies & Wildlife of British Columbia | Natural Habitat Adventures
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