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The Angler’s Trail or Stamp Long River Trail
It’s called the Angler’s Trail, Stamp Long River Trail, and Sayachlas t’a saa’nim in the Hupacasath language. Don’t ask me how to pronounce the last name. I have no idea! I did find out that it means Stamp Long River Trail! This trail was constructed a year and a half ago by local people with the approval or BC Parks. By any name this trail is a real beauty!
My wife, some friends, their children and the dogs took a hike along it last Father’s Day. Of course, you’ll remember it was one of the few gorgeous days we’ve had so far this year. And the trail was in good shape. We decided to start at the north end and hike downstream.
The drive out to the trail head was pretty uneventful. We drove past the shoes on the power line marking the spot where the locals take the trail down to tube down the river. The end of Beaver Creek Road is one of my favourite spots in the valley. Because the large farm creates a large open area there are magnificent vistas of the Beaufort Mountains and the mountains of Strathcona Park and the Comox Glacier. Once we reached the end of the road, we followed the signs saying Angler’s Trail. It led us to a clearing in a young stand of Douglas fir. I tried following the road a little further, but had to back up as the road was a little too rough for the car I was driving. However if you are driving a pickup or an SUV you could park at the second clearing a little further on.
By the time we got started it was mid afternoon. So we knew we weren’t going to do the whole thing. You would need at least three hours just to do the trip in one direction. Very quickly we got in to some immense old growth trees. They are magnificent. Brad, who is a tree climber, was drooling at the thought of bringing his tree climbing buddies to go up some of them. We moved in further and they got bigger and more numerous! We stopped in one grove and discussed what name we could give to it. We came up with the ironic name of the “Seven Dwarves”. As we followed the river downstream, we stopped in several places where you could step right out onto the gravel of the river bed. Once we stopped so the kids and the ladies could walk out on a huge log that projected out into the river. Just before we turned around we found a nice spot to sit on the rocks by the river while the kids clambered out onto rocks further out in the river. We found an enormous crayfish, almost as big as a lobster and played with it. We showed it to the dogs who didn’t seem that interested.
All of a sudden we looked at the time and realized the afternoon was over. We hustled back in about an hour pausing briefly for a picture or two. It was 6:30 by the time we rolled in the driveway.
To me it was surprising that we only saw one other group on the entire trail. And they just took a short poke in and out again. By any name the Angler’s Trail is now one or my favourites.
Sandy McRuer