Cypress Provincial Park

[brandon]

Woke up to pouring rain this morning and figured it would do that all day because silly me decided to believe the weatherman again. Well go figure, he was wrong again. Weather cleared up around 12-1 and I decided to check out a new provincial park, Cypress, in West Vancouver. I took 101 pictures today and it seemed that somehow overnight my camera decided to get dirty on the inside so it looks like all my pics have pepper on them which really really upsets me because it was a 4km hike to this amazing outlook and i've got basically a couple pics out of 101 to show for it. Now I'm sure my camera was dirty before last night but maybe just the sunlight today made the dust really stand out. Anyways I hiked the Black Mountain Trail past black mountain to Eagle Bluff. This was a gorgeous trail that winds through many lakes/ponds and eventually lands you on this bluff that gives you a perfect view of vancouver, vancouver island, the gulf islands, and howe sound I think its called. Anyways my panoramic photos of this view look like crap so i'll have to make the trip out there again one day. Just before getting out on Eagle bluff there was a nice day or 2 old pile of Bear business. I've been dying to see a bear out here and photograph it so I thought today might be the day but I was wrong. Also I'm not sure seeing a bear on the bluff would be good because theres one narrow trail out to it so if a bear showed itself I'd either have to just hope he dissapeared or take a leap into the pines....thankfully I didnt have to make that choice. Eagle Bluff lived up to its name and within the first few minutes of being there I spotted an adult Bald Eagle soaring below. But of course it was gone before I could get my camera out and 70-300mm lens put on. However shortly after a pair of Juvenile Bald Eagles flew right over head and I got a couple photos of them. Here is the best pic of the eagle. All turned out blurry because I had the zoom maxed out at 300mm and was shooting freehand without a tripod because thats just plain awkward to use a tripod when shooting straight up. Also the pic of the Eagle really shows the black spots...my camera is now spotless so hopefully this wont happen again. A raven also graced me with its presence and I got some decent shots of it. The last pic is a vertically stiched panoramic photo facing west. There are still plenty of black dots on the photos but to get rid of them all I'd have to call into work tomorrow and tell them I wasn't coming in. Well thanks for reading another non fishing report of mine....hopefully i'll have my fishing gear out here soon and I can actually wet a line....