Wind Storm Destruction

Stanley Park in downtown Vancouver has been closed for almost two weeks as a result of that huge storm that blew down all kinds of trees. The parks crews finally got the ring road open this weekend so Rachelle and I took a drive around the park.

Prospect Point is the highest part of the park and that's where the damage was the worst. Areas of old rain forest look like they've been logged. Hundreds of fir and cedar trees fell across the road and had to be cut out.

All of the parking lots have been turned into logging landings where the timber is being staged before being taken away by hauling trucks. It's been 70 years or so since there has been any sort of logging in Stanley park, which was all done with horses. There's been some talk of bringing the horses back to skid the logs out of the areas that are too environmentally sensitive for modern machinery.

The Stanley Park seawall is an eleven kilometer sidewalk that runs along the entire perimeter of the park. It's often considered the jewel of the city and it's still closed. It doesn't look as though the crews have even gotten a start on it. This is a picture of the seawall from atop the lookout at Prospect Point.

It was interesting to me that of all the trees that came down, very few were huge old growth trees. Most of them seemed to be older second growth trees that have grown since the logging in the early 1900's. More arguments against old growth clear cutting?