back to the cabin

it's august.  sure there are fire bans, but that doesn't mean we can't have fun.  in a sweet cabin, on a sweet lake, with awesome all around.  so thats what brian, wayne and i did.

kathleen mountain.

in my eternal quest for firetowers, i threw a dart at a map and it hit kathleen mountain.  so off louie and I go.

it's not far from summerland on roads that slowly get worse.  The views got better and better though.  I drew the most logical looking route from google earth and backroads Mapbook and stuck them on the garmin.  i don't think we made a wrong turn once.

the end of the drive.

Moose Trophy Overland Rally 2017

July 7, 6 trucks and 2 bikes headed out on what can only be described as prepared chaos.  The best plans were thwarted by roads that had changed drastically due to the late spring but the heavy run-off... one thing we could not change, but we were prepared for anything, and so we went in search of it.

The original mission of the Moose Trophy Overland Rally was to visit a few fire towers around the Okanagan area. The unpassable (for us) road conditions prevented that, but our mission to get out together and see some really cool things and explore the backroads of BC was a huge success.

okanagan mountain and divide lake.

Canada day we decided to hike up the mountain goat trail, into okanagan mountain park and spend the night at divide lake. i may have promised an easy 2-3 hour hike. i was right about the 2-3 hours. not about the easy. it's called the mountain goat trail for a reason. that is was 38 degrees in a burnt out mountain didn't keep us cool at all.

eating fish on a monday afternoon

I can't think of a better way to spend a monday than paddling on a sweet lake, catching fish, and eating them on an island on the way home.  that's what we did.  here are the pictures chris took.  that's one of his things.

i dig this shot.

up postil with a jeep.

So we made some new friends, and they brought a camera.  i did not, so all of these pictures and videos come from sam, james and their jeep.  i was there.  so was my truck.  my camera was not.

A spring (read 3rd winter) drive

Sunday it was snowing, but I had new tires.  called up nathan and off we went.

winter camp on beaver lake

it after christmas and before new years.  kinda an awkward time.
why not go camping?  ok.
how about skiing and snowshoe camping pulling trailers with our gear?  ok
why not go across a frozen lake and spend 2 nights under a tarp?  ok.
and ice fishing?  ok.

another fire tower, or at least there was... once.

we found ourselves with another free weekend. mary found herself in the okanagan and kris and i found ourselves in her new truck driving towards pinaus lake as well as the site of another old fire tower. at least there was one. it's gone.

muddy roads.  tuk in the back.

woke up in a new spot

1 free night. what to do?  how about a quick camp to some new place with Phil? done.

we got there pretty late and i couldn't really get any pictures until morning.  in the middle of the party, patrick, charlie and curtis showed up.  a sweet surprise.

here are some pictures.

night canoe and fish for breakfast on beaver lake

2 nights to spend on beaver lake? lets do it.  kris, mary, louie, nathan and i headed across the lake in the dark.  under this moon...

night paddle moon.

a little cabin we like

we had a few days, and a few nights at the end of august, so we decided to check out this place we like.  we being myself, louie, wayne and mary.  time to get in a weekend of paddle time, fish time and awesomeville time.

eureka. were we camped in a fire tower

turns out we had 3 days for an epic adventure, so wayne, mary kris cruise and i headed up to this cool spot we heard about.  We originally had plans to return to twin lakes, but that fell through.  this was a worthy replacement.

we could see tiwn lakes, and the pinnacles.  

little white adventure time

Got a weekend and a mountain to climb?  heck ya.  Friday night finished in the bush with tom and brian and kris and i.  saturday morning i opened my tent to this, the east ridge of little white.

good morning

elton lake at full moon solstice

the end of june i ended up back in manitoba and managed to fit in a few days paddling in nopiming park with rude.

we headed for elton lake.  3 portages and some sunny lakes in from the truck.

lunch at site 2

a little part of the high rim trail

Saturday Kris Louie and i went for a snowshoe along the high rim trail. it was snowing like a mad man.

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