Bushwhacks

Bushwhacks

SP fixes the "Image Type" for this sort of entry and of the types on offer "humour" was the closest I could come. "Suffering" didn't seem to be an option.

On Vancouver Island a bushwhack approach - carrying a full climbing/camping pack - is the norm, not the exception. Struggling up through the undergrowth in the half-light, climbing over or through snags and deadfall, becoming one with the biomass; it's all part of the Island climbing experience. I've included a few of my favourites. Hopefully afficionados of the Coast Ranges, Cascades etc will add pictures of their own that will show that we're really just wimps over here.

You don't have to be a great photographer for this one. Indeed the the worse the photo, the more it might capture the experience. I'd propose that any votes are awarded for the awfullness of the terrain rather than prowess with a camera!

I thought it might also be a nice idea if contributors added a measure of bush difficulty to their additions to this page. Perhaps I could suggest the "system" we have here on the Island. Here I borrow substantially from Island Alpine – A Guide to The Mountains of Strathcona Park and Vancouver Island, Philip Stone, Wild Isle Publications, 2003, ISBN 0-9680766-5-3:

B1 - Open old growth, vegetation knee height or less. Travel remains at trail speed.
B2 - Light chest high vegetation, travel not impeded but slowed. No thorns but expect a dew bath early in the day.
B3 - Dense, thorn free, head height vegetation meaning that the feet cannot be seen a lot of the time. Travel impeded and route finding becomes affected. Vegetation now begins to assist forward progress.
B4 - Thick, entangled vegetation requiring constant negotiation such that the feet can't be seen most of the time. Travel severely restricted with frequent obstacles often on steep slopes. Thorns, fallen logs and logging slash to be expected.
B5 - A higher plane of existence where the mind transcends a body trapped in a painful primordial struggle for bio supremacy between plant and animal.

Images

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