christmas in st. lucia!!

So christmas this year was spent in St. lucia with my fam. it was my wife and i, my parents, mark and naomi, andrea and carl and their baby abigail. the 9 of us had a blast. here are the highlights.

told you we were gonna get more wood this weekend

so, not that i need more wood, but i needed to run a saw in the bush and drive around in 4x4. we did just that. again.

back up to postil for the sawing part of the program.

working hard

Then back up to the cliff to burn some of it.  and shoot some guns.  and generally have a time.

sunday is for firewood

sunday was time for more firewood, so i met norm at the bottom of postil and up we went.

our usual firewood spot

a lot of the wood in the usual firewood spot had been burned.  not cut and burned at home, but burned on the spot.  not sure why the forestry compamies do this.  it they leave it there, it will all get cut up and brought home by someone.  probably me.

1st run in the snow

sunday was time to see how much snow was in the mountains. we could see it from our window at home, but mike, kris and i needed to experience it for ourselves. 1st hand.

going up beaver lake rd.

four by fogging

saturday was time for kris to take out his sidekick to get in adventured up.  him and steve were inside, and mike rode with me in truck 2.

it was really really foggy.  we started up the back way to chute lake around 1.

going up in the fog

1 weekend, lots of adventure

friday and saturday night were full of 4x4ing.  but because it was night, there is a distinct lack of light for good photos.  i certainly tried, but the only ones that turned out were of the aftermath that awaited me in the driveway in the morning.

muddy good times.

lets be thankful for fishing in poco

Thanksgiving christine and i headed to kelly and oanas' sweet place in port coquitlam. lots of awesome happened, but my camera only made it to the river when kelly and i went fishing in the crazy salmon spawning time. 

i caught 1 with my camera

we got bored this weekend

This weekend it was time to make more woodchips, and boards.

Saturday, Kris and i headed up to the wood storage facility up postil and got the chainsaw all set up.

1st cut

Our mission this time was to make a sweet post.  pretty much the same procedure as boards, just wider cuts. 

cutting up the post

testing the beam machine

Friday my chainsaw mill came in. i promised kris i'd help him move saturday, and so the mill sat in the back of my truck. About 4:00 we are enjoying a post-moving beverage and decided "hey... screw the pouring rain, lets go try that thing now!" so we did.

We headed up postil rd a few kms to a place we knew there was some sweet wood just getting board. hahaha. board...

step 1.  screw a 2x4 to the top of the log

mounted 2x4 guide

another truck sunday to celebrate autumn

so its the first day of fall. how to commemorate it? how about 4x4ing up a sweet trail with kris, a chainsaw and a dog? off we went.

where we rung in autumn

whats latin for adventure?

this weekend it was time to check out a new lake.  mike had been talking about it for a month or so, and we believed him that it was cool, now we just needed to experience it for ourselves.

we got prepared for the adventure by opening a keg at mikes on friday night for his birthday.  happy birthday dood.  thanks for the party.

saturday, it was time to get going in the direction of away from it all adventure.

going up bear creek

skunked at beaver lake

it had been too long since the last time i was canoeing. 6 days. mike and i decided to remedy that by fishing out on beaver lake. we didn't catch any, but we had sweet times.

We hit our regular spots and a few new areas on the way.  i had one on the line that jumped twice and then was gone.  After quite a few hours of fishing, we headed to the island.  maybe the last people there were Kris, Tom, Steve and I.

pulled up in our regular spot

labour day weekend... no labouring was done.

Sunday.  got monday off and i got friends who want to adventure.  more specifically, tom kris and steve and i decided to head up to beaver lake for the night.  camp in one of my favourite camp spots, do some fishing and some paddling.  all good.

The 1st problem was can i get 2 canoes on the roof of the truck.

2x4s and ratchet straps.  all good here officer.

paddeling murtle lake. 7 days of adventure. days 1-3. aka the north arm.

So after last year's sweet bowron lakes adventure success, christine and i decided to do it again. this time at Murtle Lake, in wells gray park.

We spent a few hurried days dehydrating food and packing. actually, most of the packing was done on the morning we left.

Saturday, after packing, we hopped in the car and headed north on the yellowhead to blue river. We had a sweet little (really little, but cool) cabin reserved for saturday night so we could get a fresh early start on sunday morning.

our little cabin for saturday night.  tons of blue berries

murtle lake day 4-7. in which christine and ryan canoe the west arm

Here it is.  the west arm of murtle lake and days 4-7 of ryan and christine's 2013 canoe adventure explosion supreme.
 

Day 4

We woke up in the sun.  finally.  like a "it's gonna be sunny all day today" kinda sunny.  christine celebrated by going swimming, i read a book and made pancakes.

christine and the morning "bath"

We were on the lake around 10ish and there was no wind.  0% wind.  We made our way back down the final 2 or 3 km of the north arm and then headed west. i put on lots of sunscreen.

the twin lakes adventure

after such an epic trip into the monashees and pinnacle lake a few weeks ago, it was time to go again.  this time to twin lakes.  Tom, Patrick and I have been there before, but we didn't have tents or plans to stay the night.

this time, my bro Mark, Kris and I were the intrepid adventurers.  Mark got in Friday night, just in time to party on my deck with some hitchhikers i picked up.  we welcomed mark to my house in proper style... with extra old stock.

Saturday morning Anna dropped off kris, we packed up the truck and off we went.  ok, it wasn't quite that organized, but close.

our goal for the weekend

fishing in a hail storm

Saturday.  time to go fishing up at beaver lake with louie and his grandkids sean and liam.  we got off to a sunny start, but after louie had 2 casts the sky opened up and we were caught in the middle of the lake in a pretty crazy storm.  we headed to the island for some shelter and to let the storm pass.

wow did we get wet.

pinnacle lake. wow.

Saturday morning.  time to go.  picked up mike, brian and kris and off after a bit of packing and shopping, head towards cherryville and ultimately, we hope, pinnacle lake.

We got to the trailhead about 1ish, and after a little repacking, we were off.

the 4 adverturees.  im leonardo.

It wasn't a steep trail, for the 1st hour anyway.  we were in and out of the forrest and passed through some big avalanche chutes.

thats where we are going.

sunderby. thats sunday in enderby

Sunday. its hot. time to go sit in the shuswap river and watch stuff float by with a beer in my hand. so i met patrick and charlie there and we got it going.

we had a sweet vantage point

ainsworth anniversary

 

Friday, I took the day off.  I had been decided a while ago that Christine and I would spend out 10th anniversary at Ainsworth Hotsprings.  and so it was.

The drive there through cherryville and nakusp was awesome, as i expected.  it was our first time past nakusp and in new denver and kaslo.  what an awesome place.

big lakes, big mountains, big awesome

sunstar silverday. i mean silverstar sunday.

Sunday was sick. I wanted to spend some time with my wife and continue my eternal quest to check out fire watch towers and other adventur-esque locations. Found a way to do it all. It was awesome.

We headed to Silver Star for some hiking. Started off riding the chairlift to the top. that was pretty awesome. At the top, the very 1st thing, was the old fire tower. How sweet it is.

checking off and out another old fire tower

saturday in the 4runner, and out of it.

saturday is here. what to do? a few options presented themselves, and we ended up in the truck heading up beaver lake road. knowing the rec sites would all be pretty crazy busy, we headed up a little trail towards some of the more little known rec sites. they were busy too. but we stayed anyway.

flyfish lakes #2

paddling the rabbit river in manitoba

Canada day weekend, time to head back to manitoba and put the paddle in the water.  i landed on thursday afternoon, and mark, dad, jeff and i were at the put in to the rabbit river in nopiming park less then 12 hours later.

the rabbit river is 15km long and ends at cole lake.  the plan was 2 nights at cole, then back the way we came.

and off we go

sunday, back to the bush

time to return to the trail that mike, dave and i had to abandon last weekend due to lack of a chainsaw. this time we would have a chainsaw, and a hero chainsaw operator on a mission from gad.

we pretty much made a beeline for the daedfall that held us up. first was the greasy hill climb, which was no problem now that we knew what the deal with it was.

soon we came to the first blockage.  mike went to work with the saw while we (mostly louie) cleaned up the result.  

mike and louie.  the road clearing crew.

we bought farmer sausage for dinner, but we didn't need it!!!

Saturday. time to get some more miles on the canoe and also put my fishing license to use.

Tom and i loaded up and were on the lake by 10:45. The forestry site was pretty full, but we didn;t need a tent spot, just a parking spot. it was such nice weather it was no surprise there were so many people there, but it did mean there were quite a few boats on the lake.

we paddled to an area we had some success in past years.  i like paddling. 

friday night

its friday. what to do. how about check out postil? ok. lets go.

truck in the back.  way back

a 4runner friday

friday night my neighbour and trusty backyard mechanic mike and his buddy dave says to me "we are going 4bying at 6:00. wanna come?" i said "yes". so off we went up oyama lake rd. about 5 k up the road, we left the road in favour of some sweet trails none of us had explored. these are their stories...


first was a greasy uphill.  time to use the 4wd.  dave didn't have quite enough momentum had had to stop and air down half way up.  i learned from him and fully committed in 2nd gear.  the rain made it sketchy but pretty doable.

a weird place to stop, but not much choice.

saturday, home by noon... with firewood

 Saturday morning, Wes calles me for a firewood mission.  not many pictures, but it really was an epic trail.  lots of mud, bumper scraping and road deactivations.

We went up postil past the mud pits and onto some old road.  there was mud, and lots of it. 

wes's truck was supposed to be in the shot.  more than just the tires.

friday, in 4 low.

fryday night. its time to go out and get the truck dirty with tom. little did we know how muddy it would get.

we headed up and found a few people were already there. they had a fire going and were happy to let us chill. we hung out around the fire and shot some cans with the pellet gun.

then the trucking began..

the road in.

beaverdell mines and goat mountain lookout. and a bit of driving

Sunday.  what to do...  how about pester louie until he agrees to go on a random drive far away to a place that we don't even know for sure exists and certainly don;t know how to get there.

sounds good.  I had been to the mines at beaverdell before, but there is also the rumor of a sweet old fire lookout on goat mountain.  off louie and i go to find it, and check out some mines as well.  we also brought a bbq.

It was raining a bit as we headed out of kelowna, but soon it wasn't.  it stopped raining as soon as we left the pavement.  obviously a sign.

our first stop was this mine.  we went in.  alllll the way in.  tons of old railway tracks inside.  pretty cool.  we came to what was to us, a dead end, but could have been further explored with coveralls and better flashlights, but some common sense stopped us from climbing through a small hole in a tunnel that was 80% caved in.  we could see through and could have climbed through, but we didn't.  it was too early in the day to get that muddy on the 1st stop.

pretty cool

return to christie falls

Monday of the long weekend.  Jeff was leaving tomorrow so our last adventure needed to be something epic.  Christie falls came to mind as one of the most epic adventures, so why not head back there?  Why not pick up Tom on the way?

Why not indeed?.... so thats what we did.

We took a different way around Terrace Mountain, more east and closer to the lake.  The result was tracked some new roads and had sweet views of the lake along the way.

Theres the lake

Also along the road we found a pretty sweet cliff, so we stopped and checked it out.

tom and jeff looking down.

We kept driving and about 4:00 we got the the trail to the falls.  we didn't waste much time starting hiking, and about 25 minutes later we were at the top of the falls.

jeff and tom at the top

the top

Then it was time to head down the trail.  the ropes work well and are quite necessary.  don't get rope burn.  Definitely a cool trail.

going down mr. tyler?

sweet!

Then we were at the falls.  rounding the last corner before the falls are visible has an extra layer of awesome.

We spent about an hour at the bottom.  exploring the cave, having a beer, and soaking up the awesome.

its wet.

look up, way up, and i'll call rusty

The basin at the bottom is huge.  The cave is really big and really cool.  The ice around the edge was covering the trail and made access kinda crazy and a little dangerous.

me navigating the ice zone

jeff in the adventure pose, and tom in the wild man pose

Then it was time to go back up.  while we were chilling at the bottom, a huge piece of ice fell right on the trail, so we were more expedited about the climb back around the falls.

climbing up the rope way

We got back to the truck and commenced a mini tailgate party in celebration of our outstanding awesomeness.

the truck was waiting for us

jeff snipering the beer cans

A major part of the celebration included the launching of rocks off the nearby cliff.  so we did.

3-2-1- go!!

Here is a video of a 200 lb rock blazing a new route to the bottom. tress did not stand a chance.

We got the feeling we were not alone, and sure enough.........

a pic of the elusive Terrace wood elf.

until next time terrace mtn.

Of course, it was eventually time for us to leave.  but we'll be back.  you should come too.

Thanks to Jeff for coming to visit from Winnipeg, to Tom for coming along and for some of these sweet pics.