Mordor (eye of Sauron is only visible at night)

While I am on a bit of a rant about greed, I should give a little update about the Gash on Black Mountain.

The Sea to Sky Highway is being upgraded to improve access to Whistler for the Olympics. A major piece of this is building a by pass over the top of Eagleridge Bluffs along the skirt of Black Mountain. Black Mountain lies across the Queen Charlotte Channel from us and the construction is 5 kms away as the raven flies.

They had the option of building a tunnel through the mountain or blasting a gash across it. The provincial government choose the "blasting a gash" option and destroyed a significant coastal bluff ecosystem and a beautiful arbutus grove in the process.

The work has continued unabated for months now. To build a four lane highway across the base of a mountain that is essentially a cliff, you need to blast a lot of rock. For some reason, they choose to do this at night. Last night, just as I was talking to Caitlin about how sad rampant greed was making me, there was a blast from the mainland that shook our house FIVE KILOMETERS away. It took 20 seconds for the sounds of falling rock to become silent.

Before, with all the blasting and cutting along Miller Road near our house I was comparing life here to living atop Vimy Ridge.

Now we just refer to the other side as Mordor.

The Eagleridge Bluffs Coalition website is still up and they seem to be still doing good work.