June 13 – Chapman Falls

Yesterday the forecast had called for a rainy day today. This morning it changed to mostly cloudy with some sun. This turned out to be true although as I am writing this at around 6 pm we did get a quick burst of rain.

I like to go to waterfalls on cloudy days as they are much easier to photograph and we don’t need a clear sky for any long distance view.

I am finding that the websites and blog post I use to select what to do each day never really give a good representation on what being there is like. For Chapman Falls they usually showed one or two slightly obscured pictures so we didn’t expect too much. Instead we got one of the best falls that we have been to on the trip. And it was not just one waterfall but 4 large ones in a row. And because of the rain last night they were really roaring. I hope I do a better job of describing them.

You can hike to Chapman Falls from the bottom up or the top down. Since the top entrance was very close to the RV park we went that way.

It only a 3 km return trip with just an 80m drop in elevation and most of the happens in the switchbacks right by the falls.

The first 1/2 km is on a dirt road.

Then the description said that you branch off on to a signed single track mountain bike trail called BLT. This is the entrance.

This is the sign.

The first part was mostly flat but narrow and we got a little wet from plants encroaching on the trail.

Then the trail traversed, slightly downhill, along a ridge.

And then down some switchbacks to our first look at the falls.

A view from just a bit more upstream.

The photosphere.

It seemed like that log across the stream and the set of them parallel were manually placed.

Upstream a bit more, there was a pipeline of some kind, crossing the creek. I guess people tried to walk out on it.

So now they just use ropes to jump in the pool.

We couldn’t see a way to go farther but looking upstream we could see a short canyon with a cascade at the end.

At this point we knew nothing of the other waterfalls that were downstream. There turned out to be three more and each was much larger than the first one. They also were harder to get a look at. I had to scramble down a steep rooted hill and stand on some rather narrow ledges.

The next was just below the first.

The next was just off to the lower right corner of the picture above.

The photosphere.

Down and around two corners, one left turn and then an immediate right

Another photosphere.

To the final, I think biggest, falls. Also the most obscured.

We only saw three other people on the trail and I met them here. They had come up from the bottom. I asked them if there were any better views farther down and they said no.

We returned upstream to a nice flat rock for lunch.

When we looked at the log there was a thin stream of water spouting up and it looked like it was peeing. On examining the picture I see that a the water is somehow following this crooked thin branch.

Then back to the car.

After a quick stop at the visitor’s center, we walked along the rocky beach in front of downtown Sechelt.

We are at a very low tide.

There was some sort of loading terminal at the end of the beach. What looked like a tiny tug was hauling a huge barge.

Off to the horizon. There were so many layers of clouds in the sky.

And a new empty one coming in.

I walked out on to the village pier.

There were some dark clouds and it looked like rain inland from us.

The photosphere.

Normal houses to the right of the pier.

Condos to the left.

Walking back to the car, this house had a miniature version of it’s slightly older self out front.

And home.