ryan and christy go snowshoeing

yes we did. on the high rim trail up beaver lake road. here are the pictures. it was fun. we brought snacks.

the valley was covered in fog the whole time.



but we had minty sun all afternoon.



first tracks. my favourite.



christy with meadow


look. its the moon



finally a clear view of the lake


more fog. i told you there was a lot.



this is where we ate our snacks


time to go

winter camping, and yes, we were warm enough

so on nov 28 we returned to hydraulic lake with a truck full of stuff. our mission, to sleep in a tent in the snow. we toured the campground until we fond a primo spot. not surprisingly, we were the only ones there.

we brought the usual pallets, aluminum foil and random meat. it was a darn good mission. we (kris and i, who else) had 6 sleeping bags, therma-rests and even pillows!! talk about luxury.



the entertainment for the evening consisted primarily of getting pulled around a gt snowracer behind a truck. the result is some sweet bruising all along one leg. no pics of that, sorry.

sven and tim joined us around the fire for the evening, but felt their own beds were far better than sleeping in a tent in the winter in the snow. they definitely were welcome company.



It was snowing all evening, but when we woke up it was sunny. we had a sweet breakfast, but not as good as the bird did that stole kris's marinated steak and a bunch of his bacon.

sorry this post is lacking the normal enthusiasm. it's monday. i didn't take many pictures, but i hope you get some of the idea from the ones i did take.

until next time...

more tales from the truck

hydraulic lake... what a sweet little spot.

we (kris, sven and I) drove up here sunday. well, sven drove until his truck would go no further due to traction issues, then he hopped in the 4runner.



It was not the usual daredevil mission, but anything is better than nothing. The road up is a little slick, but not so bad. at the top is Hydraulic lake, which is also a reservoir for kelowna. The water level seemed to be low, but sine this was my 1st visit, it's only a hunch. There are actually a few different lakes. all frozen over now, but with a dubious thickness of ice. There are 2 forestry campgrounds at the top. we chilled at the 2nd one and had a small fire. good chance to axe and saw some stuff up. getting the fire going was a challange, until we got the right wood. then it was all good.



we only chilled at the top for about an hour, then drove back down. i do believe that this camping are will be a spot for a possible winter camping trip and snowshoe adventure.

terrace mountain, the long way around, and up, and down

star date nov 9th, 2009. just kidding, i think star trek is lame. but it was nov 9th. once again, kris and i decided to go somewhere cool. armed only with a general sense of direction but a good knowledge of coolness, we set out in the mighty truck. we decided to try and make our way up terrace mountain. thats where the biggest fire was this summer. i also heard of an abandoned mine that was in the area. that was all we knew, but we brought headlamps just in case we found the mine.


The mission began just off bear creek road. we saw lots of guys/ladies (its hard to tell when everyone has helmets on) ripping it up on dirtbikes. we checked out some of the trails on foot, and just when we were about to give up looking for the mine on the lower part of the mountain, we found it. We suited up (aka, turned on out flashlights) and began to adventure in. the welcoming party was a puddle of calf deep stinky mine water. then a big rat. we took a few pictures in the mine, then busted out of there. thinking there might be a bear or something worse. maybe an angry troll.



anyway... after the mine we continued up and up and up. into the land of ice and snow and dreams of winter tires. we took the long way around when we made one of those accidental on purpose decisions. the road was primo. until we got to the huge dead end. it was a dead end to rival all others. the road should have kept going, but didn't. our choices were to return and go up a different way, but it was a long drive back and we might not make the top before the darkness came. so we decided to follow a small dotted line on the map. clearly not a road, but our will power changed it into one! and after a medium size detour and 1 or 2 more dead ends, we were reunited with the correct road.


Then we saw the fires. we knew that the area had been badly burned during the great summer fire of '09, but we saw some big fires on the mountain across fintry valley. they were absolutely no threat to us, and we assumed that they were controlled fires set to burn off dry fuel/pine beetle kill. we left them alone and they left us alone.


so, we were back on the road, almost to the top. we spun up and down a few sketchy hills and the rocky summit was in sight. so was the steep switchback road that we couldn't believe was a road. even from a distance, it looked steep and very very sketchy. It was.

we made it part way up the road, which had about 20 cm of snow. There were tire tracks, but when they became quad tracks we got out of the truck. it was WAY too not drivable. even for us. having come this far, we obviously couldn't just turn around. so we hiked the last 2 km to the top. it was cold. there was snow. lots. the top felt like a blasted waste land, but with a crappy metal shack. we hung out there long enough to take some pictures and to say that we had been there.



then we walked back to the truck and drove back down.



The way down was uneventful (by our standards) and every road we took was the right one. or close at least. we saw some deer, some mountain goats and some very crazy tracks that must have belonged to a liger or something.


sadly, this adventure has taught me that adventures must be more mellow until i have tires more equipped to deal with the inevitable snow. but then... watch out. stay tuned for more adventures, even mellow ones can be sweet. trust me, i know adventures.

its hard to blog when you are always on adventures

so... its not that i haven't had anything to write about. as vonnegut said "busy, busy, busy" thats my life. not always in a bad way.

this post will be dedicated to an adventure i had with Kris and Sven on Nov 1st. Kris is no stranger to those of you in my blog land, and sven was a welcome addition. we decided to try and find a wilderness camp that was built in 1990 by the environmental youth corp in the mountains near little white mountain. by camp, i mean a place to tent, not a bunch of cabins. we drove up and along the KVR in the truck, with only a vague idea of where we were going. Kris was wearing shorts. sven and i were not. finding the trailhead was pretty easy, and the camp really was a km or so up the trail. it was mission accomplished in a big way. photos i had seen of the camp showed it in a state of extreme disrepair. this was not the case upon our arrival. the camp was in prime condition, and the underground cold storage was back in action. someone really cleaned it up. we decided it is a good location for a potential winter camping mission in the future. we hiked up the trail a little more, but it was getting darkish in the bush, so we made tracks back to the truck.

then we made track in the truck. we followed a few different forestry and logging roads up into the forest and clearcuts up around crawford, just south east of kelowna. it was another successful mission.

btw...
tracks and trails is a sweet site on hiking and outdoor adventure type of stuff. lots of user comments, and Clayton Kessler (the guy who runs the site i think) seems like a bang up guy.

photos and more

so, i went to walmart (awkward silence) and picked up my photos. here they are. look.


a shallow creek crossing. i almost drove over a fish. not really.


this is the old hunter cabin in its natural habitat. see how still it is?, it's playing dead.


after driving through some clouds, we stopped to pee. while peeing, i saw this cool view. when i was done peeing, i took this picture.


the truck, aka our tent. also the pallet fire. notice the snow.

there you have it. some pictures of the greatest journey since jules verne's journey to the center of the earth. and also the greatest journey until the next one. the truck must rest for now.

graystokes, the epic journey.

this is the end of the road. graystokes lake. that road looking thing is not really a road.

an overview of the whole trip


so, where to begin...

kris, my trusty co-pilot and i set out for a green area on a backroad mapbook at about 4:30. none of us had any way of knowing what lay ahead. we got lost at least 3 times before 5:45, and being lost on a maze of mountain forrest roads is fun, but counter-productive to MISSION: ADVENTuRE. i'm suprised kris is still my friend, after all the fun but misguided antics that i've dragged him into. project 7 summits comes to mind.

our 1991 4runner. its got the sr5 v6, 5 speed, a back power hatch that opens only 5% of the time, and closes only 2%? in fact, i had resigned myself to having to take the trip with it permanantly open, until it miraculiously closed, possibly never to be opened again? i can tell you this about it though, the 4x4 part works awesomly well.

maybe the road/trail? definately more of a trail. when we finally decided to camp, and i use the term very loosly, and you will soon see why, it was only because after the stream crossing, the road became a trail, full of boulders that only a rock crawling machine could clear...

speaking of rock crawling machines... about 10k off the highway, on what ends up being the Graystokes forestry road, there is a sweet snowmobile cabin that is also used in the summer. it is also used by rednecks with landcruizers with 454 chevy engines and tires at least 5 feet high. and their girlfriends...the redneck's girlfriends, not the jeeps, that was a misplaced modifier i know. anyway, this choice group of the population was using the cabin when we got there, and it was clear that our non-mullet, not O.V. beer drinking and occasional showering ways were not welcome with them. we left to try for the next cabin when they started eating a squirrel, before it was dead.

so about camping. it was difficult to set up the tent in the 20 cm of snow. yup. snow. and lots of it. everywhere. it began as a little slush about 5km up the road, right after i said, "maybe i don't need the 4wd after all". by 7k, it was 5cm deep, and half way up, at the cabin, it was 10. it wasn't falling, it got there before we did. the snow was compltely unexpected. we had tents and were expecting to use them. but the toyota hotel was nice too. except for that rear door issue, the part about it not opening. and if it did open, probably not closing again. glass is a better insulator than no glass. but getting the pallets out of the back was difficult through the side door. yes, i said pallets. for the fire. that was our only redeeming quality in the eyes of the rednecks. so we got the fire going, got soaked wadding through the 20cm of snow to get more wood, but had a ripping fire going until we closed the doors of the truck and passed out. i mean went to sleep. we ate like kings. potatoes cooked in the fire, corn on the cob, potatoes, marinated chicken, gormet sandwiched rescued from a seminar at work in the morning.

in the morning, we had another sweet fire and headed back across the stream to a different road that might let us up. it did. we were not the first ones through the snow, but definately in the top 5. at the top is Graystokes lake. not as cool as i imagined, but pretty cool none the less. we checked out some bullet holes in a brick. that was the highlight of the lake. the map showed a road continuing north past the lake, but it became impassable for all but a redneck after about 500m. the only thing worse than going down a narrow and almost impassable road, is haveng to do it again in reverse. we did a lot of reversing. a lot. in fact, reverse was a proud sponsor of our trip, along with aluminum. our trip would have been a disaster without them.

So... reaching the most accessible top, we had no choice but to go back down the way we came. good thing we had a GPS and a backroad map book, otherwise we'd still be trying to find our way down. we checked out a few side road (on purpose) and ended up at a lot of dead ends, but cool none the less. more reversing too.

when we finally reached the bottom, we had eaten 6 potatoes each, gone through 2 pairs of socks, 4 pallets and 2 small bottles of propane. also 1/2 a tank of gas and travelled just over 125km. not bad for a 21 hour adventure.

i DID take pictures, but since christy was in new orleans with the digital camera, i took film kinda pictures. remember those?? so i have to get them developed.

now i should go clean the truck out, it smells like corned beef.