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.

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 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

spion kopje. near my house. with my brother. and naomi. and snow.

Not far from my house (like 5 km) is spion kpoje. its a small mountain with some houses at the bottom. It's not a long hike, but there are tons of trails. It was a great place to spend the afternoon.

naomi on the way up

its a place i've been quite a few times before, usually on my bike.  we stuck to the wider trails, but still had a big climb time.

okanagan lake from just below the top.

The best views are looking south, towards kelowna.

okanagna lake on the right.  wood lake close left.  duck lake far left.

my house is just to the left of centre.  

towers at the top.

a great day and a great adventure.  come back soon mark and naomi!

thankful for 2 wheels and 4

The Sunday of a 3 day long weekend seems like the perfect time for an adventure, so thats what we did. Pat, Charlie and I piled our bikes (not charlie's bike...he's a dog and can't ride a bike yet) into the truck and headed up beaver lake road. destination: high rim trail. This is a part of the trail i've been on a few times, and also the part of the trail the Herman the Adventurous mouse started his journey in the geocache christine and i placed.

We unpacked everything and immediately got riding.   Weird that i had no recollection of the long uphill right at the beginning.  Once we got to the level top part, it was hard smooth single track.  good times.  We chilled out in a meadow that overlooked the central okanagan pretty awesomely.

the sweet singletrack through the meadows.

stopping for some pictures (and a beer)

okanagan lake in the back, duck lake in the front.

sweet okanagan day.  20 degrees.

The spot we stopped also happened to be in wrinkly face cliffs provincial park.  A place i can see from my living room window.  Cool to be ion the top of it looking down, instead of the other way around.
 

patrick chilling atop the cliff.

And, wouldn't you know it, we stumbled upon a 1971 plymouth gtx.  Stopped for some pics with it.

patrict and the gtx

hope the owner doesn't come find us messing with his car

after our break we got back on and kept on keeping on up the trail.  Patrick uttered the words "looks like this is where the shit starts" referring to fallen logs and more pointy rocks.  at that exact moment, i got a flat tire.  the shit did start there.

a little flat repair.

After fixing the flat, it was time to turn around.  there was a campfire to be had and some green army guys that we needed to shoot with the pellet gun.  so we returned to the truck and quickly found a close place to have a fire.

there are 7 army guys hiding in this picture

We spent the rest of the afternoon/early evening shooting and generally relaxing around.  good times.

It's starting to get colder here.  freezing at night and stuff.  not sure how many biking adventures we can have before we trade the bikes for snowshoes.  I'll obviously let you know.

Or... come for a first hand experience yourself sometime.  we got room.

the paddle around dee lake

Dee lake is at the top of the beaver/crooked/deer/island/dee lake chain. i'd paddled them all except dee. saturday was the day to change that. Christine and i packed up the truck and headed up beaver lake rd to island lake. there we took off the canoe, hopped in and got to it. heres the photographic evidence...

through the channel between island lake and dee lake.  dee lake resort.

into dee lake

this island put the island into island lake

the island campspot.  menatl note to self... go here with a tent

christine checking out the island

good camping views

looking towards the island lake rec. site.

It was a sweet little day trip.  good roads (though bumpy enough to rattle off the front license plate it turns out).  we'll be back.  maybe ice fishing??  definately camping on that island.

an adventure with dad

since we had spent the last 2 days in a truck driving from manitoba, smelling each others pizza hut farts, it was time for a short, mid-week adventure. outside of the small closed cab of a ford f-150. it had to be somewhere kinda close, not too crazy, and cool. beaver lake rd it is.

1st stop, high rim trail.  we headed south from beaver lake rd, on the part of the trail that tom and i snowshoed on.  pretty cool.  we saw a bear.  after about 5 km, it got pretty muddy, so we turned around.

vernon creek.  before it gets contaminated by civilization

trail workers bridge across vernon creek.

Next stop, beaver lake forestry rec. site.  we ate smokies and explored around, and schpitzeered all afternoon.  good times.  not a cloud in the sky.

rude dog at beaver lake. 

Next we took echo lake rd to king edward and into specs lake.  a spot mike and i have camped before.  a helicopter came and hovered about 3 meters off the lake.  not sure why, but it was cool.

the site at specs lake.

then it was on to oyama lake.  a short stop there to look around, then down oyama lake rd. to civilization. 

the oyama/wood lake land bridge from the viewpoint on oyama lake rd.

It was a solid adventure by all accounts.  thanks to dad for indulging some 4x4ing.  hope we can do it again soon.

next time, we'll bring a putter

 It's september 8th.  time to get our adventure on.  in a canoe. on okanagan lake. camping.

so we did.  it started when i picked up tom from his new place.  pretty sweet.  Hi rita.
Next were the usual stops.  grocery store and beer store.

Then, off to peachland and find a place to launch.

We headed across okanagan lake on a hot saturday.  not the best idea in a canoe due to tons of boats, but we couldn't wait for all the oil to dry up to have the lake to ourselves.

we headed for rattlesnake island.  We pulled the canoe into a sweet cove on the small bare grassy rock island.

the sweet cove on rattlesnake island

SPOILER ALERT!! no rattlesnakes were seen.

old fire pit?? on rattlesnake island

It was a very cool place.  great views of the lake, a cool cove to land, and the mingolf course.  seriously.  In the middle of okanagan lake is an abandoned minigolf course.

one of the holes.  pretty cool.

weird story.  it involves hostage taking in labanon.  seriously.  heres the link. it'll open in another window.

bank off the wall, down the rock face, past the stump and boom... hole in 12.

rattlesnake island and hostage taking

after an hour on the island, we made for Reluctant Dragon Cove.  seriously, its a place.

landing in reluctant dragon cove.

we got there and it was still pretty busy, so we just kinda hung out until the place cleared out a bit.  then we got a fire ripping (lots of firewood was brought over in the canoe), set up our tens, cook and began to really set about the place.  whatever that means.

tom.... showing us what "setting about the place" looks like

looking north from our camp

We did some exploring up a rocky place near the campsite, but with sandels and shorts, the roses were pretty crazy-ass.

we tried to get up there.  in flip flops.  don't do it.

tom, coming through the roses... bleeding

sun going down over peachland.  view from the climb.

back at camp, bleeding.

Back at camp, the sky got pretty cool and then, out of nowhere, an austin martin DB-77 rips by.  didn't expect that.

like i said... cool sky & an austin martin

peachland lights.

evening on reluctant dragon cove

In the morning we packed up and got on the lake before any major boats did, but not before a pretty big wind did.  We didn't really pay attention to where we parked the truck the day before, but karma led us right to it.

Pretty awesome trip.  Thanks to tom for being a sweet co-pilot.  happy birthday dood.

Next weekend is road trip to MB to pick up my old car.  should be an adventure of a bit of a different breed, but an adventure still.

stay tooned.

twin lakes- aug long weekend

Twin Lakes, just north of Cherryville, has been on the adventure radar for a while. We (Tom, Partick, and I) decided that this would be the time to do it. I picked up the truck on Friday from a mechanic who said he couldn't fix it, tweaked the clutch myself, and we crossed our fingers. an hour from pave,ent and cell service is not the best place to have your truck crap out.

We picked up patrick at 2... a little later than we wanted to leave, but as the saying goes, better late than never. It was a 2 hour drive to the trail head from pat's in Vernon, with the last hour being forestry roads.  We got to the trail at about 4:30 and wasted no time getting moving.

The trail climbed steeply for the first hour.  really steeply.  Then we reached the alpine meadows.

the view north from the 1st meadow

more meadow views

pretty sweet.  i want to go there too.

soon the top was in sight, and what a sight.  there is the mark berger traverse trail.  a 3 day treck along the ridges.  it starts at the same trailhead we used, but keeps on going.

ridges headed south

must be getting close now

the last meadow

pretty sweet vistas

Soon we left the meadows andinto more rocky terrain.  We followed the contours of the ridge and began to see snow fields around us, even though it was 25 degrees.

tom heading through the rock fields

Then, there were the lakes below us.snow and sun and mountains and awesome views of everything.

finally we can see the lakes

this 71 maverick somehow beat us there?

Unfortunately,we couldn't stay much longer.  it was getting dark and we still needed to get back down and find somewhere to camp.  Next time we'll bring our tents.

time to head back down.

patrick heading up from the lakes.

tom and patrick crossing a snow patch

these things were everywhere in the meadows.

We had some sweet views going down.  you don't always see what's behind you until you change directions.

It was pretty dark when we finally decided to set up camp. like "can you set up your tent in the dark" kind of dark. we found a clearing with firewood close by, cooked some food and passed right out. this was what we saw in the morning.

our "camp spot"

The next day we spent at a forestry site near cherryville. There were people, but not too many. We spent the day swimming and drinking beer and eating. I took my phone and camera for a swim as well. they didn't like it.

patrick showing us how to count to 2 in french

shuswap river

Such an epic trip. So much more to see in the area too. We'll be back, earlier in the day and ready to camp in the alpine. You should come. Thanks to tom for some of the great pics.