we go winter dirt camping, again.

Mary was back from school. Kris wasn't working, and i could get away for a night and wayne was in.  lets go winter dirt camping again.  dirty snow camping?  whatever.  Norm and sonja came with us for the day and we headed to one of our favorite lakes.  of course it was frozen and there was tons of snow.

following sonja and rocksteady.

remember to go adventuring

It's the middle of the week, how about some adventuring? Kris, ross and i hopped in our trucks for the first adventure together.  after a tour of some trails in the area, we ended up at a sweet place for a fire.  so we had one.

ross has a scope.  is that cheating?

an adventure to a very cool place

During my internetting, a occasioanlly came across a place called stocks meadow.  it looked cool, so kris and i decided to see for ourselves.

IMPORTANT!!! This is private property.  many people choose not to believe that or to disregard exactly what that means.  Bad karma will come to the disregarders.  I found out who owns it, called him up and explained that we just wanted to adventure time to it.  he said ok.  if you want to go here, do that too.  or bad karma to you.

Kris and i hopped in the truck and off we went.  Not gonna say much about exactly where this place is, but we could drive to it and it wasn't far away.

We pulled in an were immediately awenomified.  this place was cool.  it still is cool, but definitely not as cool as it was 20 years ago when it was in action.  apparently about 25 people all lived here.  lots of activity.  judging by some of the buildings, they also had a LSD tree growing somewhere.

told you it was crazy

aberdeen lake

sunday. time for a mission.  louie, kris, norm and i headed in the direction of aberdeen lake.  a place we had passed a few times but never really explored.  also, louie got a new pellet gun and we needed somewhere cool to shoot it.

target acquired. i'm too close for missiles and switching to guns

return to pinnacle lake

as a mad send off for mary, who was certainly one of the gang, the four of us decided to hike to pinnacle lake.  it was also kinda a send off to summer and a chance to do some awesome.

the 4 awesomers

so mary, kris, louie and i piled into louies truck and headed past cherryville and to the trailhead for the 7 km-ish hike to pinnacle lake.  these are their stories...

hidden lake is no longer hidden to us. what a mission though.

Can louie and i find hidden lake on the 2nd attempt. spoiler alert: yes.

We had tried previously with kris and mary and, although we had an awesome time, we it remained hidden.  off to try again.

The road got crazy pretty quickly.  4x4 type of crazy.  we were kinda in the middle of nowhere, so it's a good thing truck 3 is so awesome.

the good part of the road.

another drive with no camera

Just a few pictures from a drive with norm et all.  We headed up postil, crossed over to doreen lake, and then down past beaver lake.  here is a map.

turned off the gps at doreen lake, hence the weird line top middle

a drive though a meadow. then a walk through a forest. with louie.

Time for a drive with louie.  We headed up to one of our favourite spots to try and find a tower with a blinking light we can see from my deck.  We didn't find it, but we had a good time anyway. 

the parking spot.  lots to choose from

3 trucks 1 adventure

so my camera officially died again, so this post will be a bit light on pictures. thanks to mary for the ones that do exist.

our little trip around echo lake. track got a bit messed up on the top left.

sunday on the trail. and in the lake. and around the fire. and in the truck. not in that order.

After many sincere offers, Jordan finally came out and got his truck dirty with me and kris.  Awesome.

We headed up a favourite trail of ours.  It had rained recently so there was a bit of water.  not 2wd kinda water.

paddling beaver lake

saturday christine and i put a canoe on truck 3 and headed up to beaver lake. it was sunny and hot with just enough wind.

we launched from the rec site and paddled around the northeast end of the lake, stopping to check out one of my favourite camp spots.  it was still there.

hydration is very important boys and girls

it's may long weekend again!

may long has long been a time for awesome. we knew we had to keep that going.  we did.

we hit up a little lake we've been to before.  in fact, kris left his phone there one day.  in february. in 3 feet of snow.  in the middle of the random bush.  we also camped there last winter.  under a tarp.  in 4 feet of snow.  in the middle of the random bush.

the perfect spot

time to do the thing again

saturday.  Time to get adventury.  Louie, mary and i got in truck 3 and off we went in search of cool times.

It started with a drive along the KVR north from the trestles. This is a part that it's ok to drive on.  the snow was long gone, but a few big (2 feet deep) puddles remained.  didn't even need 4wd.

choo-choo along the kvr

lookout below

mandatory stop at oyama lookout on the way up.

 today we had time for a little day trip. why not go somewhere epic? we weren't sure exactly where that would be when we left, but we sure did find it.

lets go up this road.

so we decided to go up a road we had never been up before and try and find postil lake from the back door.  it was a sweet day trip with some awesome happenings.  some snow, some pellet guns some fire and some more.

free ford.  no battery, busted windows.  call 911 for more info

beaver lake = birthday lake

Last week's recon was to get ready for this.  kris's birthday in the wall tent.  we had left some firewood up there and scoped out a site. time to put that to use.

lets check out beaver lake

got some plans up at beaver lake soon. big plans. this weekend was recon. we had some questions that need answers. is there snow? how frozen is the lake? is the road even open?? lets go find out...

still snow.  yup.

let make some woodchips in the middle of no where

Why not take some chainsaws for a hike in the bush?  good idea.  tom, kris, mary and i strapped on snowshoes and headed off on to a lake that was not as frozen as usual. 

tom and i out in front.

another day in the woods.

Met up with some of the usual gang for another adventure. It started off pulling a guy out of the ditch by the airport.  it was pretty funny and i ended up dragging him 100 yards through the ditch before he finally turned his wheels the right way.  his oil pan is probably still in the ditch.

norm laughing about the amusing pull

then we hit the gravel, or actually snow, and 2nd corner we come aross this sweet gto with a 455.  pretty cool.

sleeping in the snow

weekend.  time for another adventure.  i'd been jonesing for some winter camping, so time to make it happen.  rory from house of hawes came out from the coast to join kris and mary and i on the lifelong quest to be awesome.

we headed out to a lost little lake around noon, snowshoed in and within an hour had a 4 foot deep hole dug out and a sweet tarp fort built for four. 

tarp fort for 4.  deep enough snow to stand up inside once it was dug out.

sunday snow shoe

sunday i strapped on the snowshoes again.  this time with my awesome wife christine.  we headed up to soverign lake in silver star to make some tracks.  took some new trails and some old ones.  it was -4 and foggy and a bit clear and totally awesome.   look.

snowshoe saturday

saturday.  there is lots of snow!  we got over 2 feet in our driveway this week.  that means some epic snow up higher.  time to check it our from the decks of snowshoes.  kris, mary and i took off in truck 3 and made a bee-line for a little lake up in the hills.

making our way across the lake.

1st trip of the new year.

It's the first weekend of the new year. time to get out there.  louie, kris, scott, mary and i headed up beaver lake road looking for an epic spot.

the convoy