when is icefishing not ice fishing?

so we tried to go ice fishing. by we i mean chad, patrick, ian and i. by tried, i mean, you can't cut a hole through 17 inches of ice using a chainsaw with a 16 inch bar. also, chainsaws don't run well underwater. the ice fishing experiment turned into a bonfire event. good times still. see...

there was some deep snow

the final stages of the fire

the dark road home

next purchase= ice auger!! stay tuned.

updating the geocache

2 years ago we placed a geocache on the high rim trail off beaver lake road. today, we decided to put a travel bug in it and see how far it will go. it was a great day for a snowshoe. the travel bug is a cat toy that we hope zora and zen won't miss too much. we made hot chocolate, packed some snacks, and away we went.

herman the adventurous mouse going into our geocache

christine climbing along the high rim trail

stopping for a snack and hot chocolate break

winfield from the trail


stay tuned for updates on the adventure of herman the adventurous mouse. and as always, the adventures of ryan

another firewood friday

not that i was short on wood, but it was friday, the 2nd day of holidays. donald and i went for firewood. here are the pics.

here you can see the elusive 1969 homelite xl-1 in its natural habitat. a rare site.

donald, the truck and the pile of wood. chipping away at it every weekend, it should be gone in 3 years or so.

the fire, donald and the axe. a sweet triple threat.


what the pictures don't show was that when we were about to leave, our 2 person party had turned into a 6 person party. 2 random trucks showed up. one full of dogs. one full of guns. after unleashing a few clips of doods sks assault rifle, we headed down. i will send the next 2 days splitting and stacking the wood and finding unique ways and places to burn it.

on the 1st day of holidays my true love gave to me

first day of holidays. time to make the most of it. off to McCollough for some snowshoeing. it was good times. heres pictures...

christine and i chilling in the snowy grunde "cabin"


my best bigfoot impression


christy hiding. maybe from the bigfoot?




a couple of shots on the trail



ended the day with a fire in the back yard.

11 more days of holidays. stay tuned for more holiday adventures!

firewood fryday

turns out this friday was a firewood friday. Met ian and oscar and we headed up postil to a spot i knew. The bumper denting trail from a few weeks ago ends just off pstil. the road out from there is pretty good because of the logging activity. I knew there were tons of large slash piles around there, with sweet sweet wood, so we headed up in that direction.




this was our spot for the afternoon. parked by the road, lit a fire and spent the day eating smokies, drinking some beverages, and cutting firewood.


the big slash piles i was talking about. tons of mint wood all around.


le premiere etoile (the first star) goes to the 1969 homelite xl-1. best 25$ ever.


we piled wood all along the road and just picked it up on the way out. ian's truck 1/2 full. it was full by the end. so was my truck.

so one of the main results of this mission is now i have tons of wood. that means tons of fires. stay tuned to see how ryan and friends are gonna use all this wood.

another tom and ryan production... snowshoeing overnight.

it was the weekend, and adventure was mandatory. what kind of adventure? we werent sure at first either. try and find a cabin to rent? stay in a tent? do some kind of snowshoe thing? well... how about an overnight snowshoe with tom to a cabin that was free?! with more farmer sausage? sold.


we headed out from the kelowna nordic parking lot about 1:30 or 2. after the first 400m we came to this cabiny thing. perfect spot for our first break! pretty cool structure. log frame and vapour barrier. ingenious.


after our break, we continued along the snowy vista trail. big white in the distance. the trail was pretty packed, for now.


the next 2 hours we did a lot of stuff, unfortunately, take pictures wasn't one of them. the trail was a little misleading, and we had to break trail for about a k and a half. tough work, especially with a pack. when we finally got to the cabin, darkness was almost upon us. we proceeded to heat ourselves up with a bottle of wine


and heat the cabin up to 39 degrees, or 101 for our fahrenheit listeners. tooo hot. one thing we were not on this trip was cold.


after sweating ourselves to sleep and then finally getting the hang of heating and ventilating the cabin properly, we had a great sleep. this is what we woke up to. how did we fit all that stuff in our packs?


then it was pack it up, cool the place down and head back to the truck.


the hike back was fast. like an hour and a half. there was a little dusting of snow overnight, and we followed our tracks back. things go faster when you know when you are going, the sun is up, and someone did all the hard work for you the evening before by breaking trail. oh wait, that was us doing the hard work the evening before.

once we were back to the truck, we took a little drive to browne lake. a place i've camped before. the lake was still there, but now it was frozen. funny how that happens.


we continued on past the lake on a snowy road i've never been on before. shortly after this picture, the road turned into something that is possibly best explored on a snowmobile or in summer.


we had a great view of meadow lake on the way down. our cabin is just over the ridge on the other side of the lake.


so the weekend was clearly a raging success. we didnt die and tom wants to do it again sometime. next time, less sleeping warmth stuff, more fluids.

heres a map. kinda.

the blue line is where we drove. the dead end is where we turned around after browne lake. where it disappears in the top left is McCollough road, back towards kelowna. the green loop is the trail from last weeks snowshoe adventure, and the red line is our hike from this weekend. the cabin is at the north end. McCollough lake is in the bottom left.

what a weekend full of awesome looks like

another weekend was upon us. by us, i mean myself, tom and pat. to make the most of it, we bought some a can of awesome and we each had a big swig. this is where it took us.

we started by heading up the KVR and a little 4x4 trail just past McCollough Lake


Then it was off the the snowshoe trails at the Kelowna Nordic centre.




we ended up at a sweet cabin. said "not for overnight use", but we almost needed it


sweet wood stove and fire inside

we ended up snowshoeing out in the dark, but that only added to the element of coolness and proved that we are some of the most awesome people i know.

the next day, i had some farmer sausage from winkle from the day before that we didn't cook. when i have sausage i need to cook, from now on, i'll call tom. sounds gay but isn't. so we headed straight (pun intended) up to bullman lake to cook them sausages.

bullman lake spot.

lake was pretty frozen. next time, ice auger and fishing gear.

tom doing the "we didn't die dance

our spot. the truck. awesome all around

sunset on adventure. next weekend, beware. i'm coming for you.