Sometimes you have to perservere …

“His name is Bob. But he’s friendly …”

Thus said the hiker we ran into in Strathcona Park on Vancouver Island. He was talking about a bear!

We were then left to wonder whether Bob was a known bear or if that was a joke, we never would find out ….

As Kim and I pulled into the park on Tuesday morning after a fairly long drive from Oyster Point near Campbell River, it was absolutely freezing outside. Before we opened the doors to Doug’s truck, the snow had started coming down pretty hard and we had to ask ourselves if we really wanted to go for a very long loop run, in the snow and cold, with the possibility of bears or worse weather?

Sometimes, we agreed, you just have to persevere – as in life.

We looked at the trail maps, put on several layers, loaded up our backpacks and headed out with snow still coming down. My altimeter said we were at about 3500′, not that high, but just enough to feel the altitude.

As we set out from the trail-head, we could see nothing but wilderness and a desolate trail that would go past several lakes and valleys during our journey. We said “let’s do it!” and put one foot ahead of the other.

The first miles included nothing but countless icy wooden bridges and pathways that had been built by someone not that long ago. We walked these rather than risk injury in the middle of nowhere.

Before long, the sun had come out, though the snow still came down, and we could smell the alpine air and see snowflakes through the sun rays.

When we ran into the hikers, they seemed quite chipper about the bear thing and we strategized about what to do if we ran into Bob – which we never did.

We didn’t talk this much on this run, since I was kind of huffing and puffing with the altitude and the jaunts up roots, rocks and hills that were more climbing than running.

The first 6.6k just took forever until we reached an outpost ranger cabin. I looked at my watch and realized that we would have to hustle to get down and drive to the rental car place that would eventually take me the 250k to Victoria to catch my floatplane back to Kenmore Seattle.

The next 9k kind of flew by! Some long downhill true trail runs punctuated by walk breaks along the rocky uphill road that interrupted the trail. The last mile took a long time – it always did – but by the end we high-fived each other and said how glad we were that we did not give up at the very beginning.

Moral of story – Most of the time when you set out a journey, you have no idea how it is going to end. Sometimes you have to take the chance and see what happens – but the joy comes in seeing it through to it’s conclusion. Sometimes, the sun comes out and you’re glad to be alive.

Today was one of those days! The journey and the friends along the way make it worthwhile. And I was left wondering about Bob and if he was enjoying the salmon season and how did they know the was friendly!!???