Reporting in with another adventure in south BC.
Had a bit of a bizarre morning in the woods. Hit my normal route along Chilliwack River Valley, keeping an eye out for trail openings that I haven't been down before, spotted one, parked, and headed down a steep decline towards the river. Realized it was a section of the Trans-Canada Trail (which you'll never find anything weird on since it's meticulously maintained year round), found an alternate trail, mostly overgrown and obscured by landslides, so following my general rule of thumb that the harder a trail is navigate the more likely it's hiding something awesome I kept going. Followed it further down the mountain towards the river, eventually finding myself on a very skinny service road with fresh tire tracks. I follow it west and quickly find myself at a tall chain link gate, locked, with a
NO TRESPASSING sign hanging on it, and then it hits me, oops, I've accidentally broken into the Chilliwack River Hatchery, a government research facility responsible for maintaining the local salmon population....
But it's Sunday, so nobody is around, not a sound to be heard in any direction beyond chirping birds and croaking frogs, so **** it, now is my chance to see what goes on in a joint like this. I head back east along the road and start coming across these signs labelled "Pond #1,2,3...", realizing that all along this road are isolated habitats built by the Hatchery for experiments. At Pond #1 along the shore I find 4 separate piles of dead fish in different stages of decay, from rotting to dry bones. At Pond #2 they have cages full of tadpoles. Pond #3 seems more populated with frogs than the others. Pond #4 is a gorgeous marsh with flowers growing from each little section of ground slightly above the water line. Spent a good hour just aimlessly wandering the grounds before heading back up the overgrown trail.
