whats down this road?

Saturday was another day to explore some previously unknown to us roads.  We headed past beaver lake and took a left by dee lake.  the backroads map book showed a few roads that were worthy of our attention.

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

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.

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.

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

cutting wood on beaver lake road.

Had some time and the need today to cut some firewood. Donald came too. we packed up the truck with implements of adventure and headed up beaver lake road.

the advancing army

Even though there was no snow in the valley, the mountains are still a winter wonderland.  wood was going to involve a trudge through some deep snoe unless we found a primo log that somehow fell off a random logging truck.

lots of snow still.  and random minty firewood

behold!!! a sweet random log that looks like it fell off a logging truck.  that will do nicely.

the road up

wood, chainsaw, pelletgun, 4x4.  this picture has it all

We shot the gun, sawed until the truck was full and headed down.  it was warm enough that we didn't bother lighting a fire.  and we had nothing to cook anyway.  the firewood pile is good to go a for a bit.  can't wait for the next adventure.

7 summits and rossland. year 4.

Labour day long weekend only means 1 thing to partick an I... 7 summits poker ride in Rossland. It was our 3rd year doing it together, and my 4th overall.

Things got off to a rough start Saturday morning when we had to switch rental cars. The Avenger was not big enough, so we got a mitsubishi rvr. Not a big deal, but it put us a little late starting. We hit the road like, ... well, like something determined to have a sweet time... whatever that might be.

Our first stop was our ritual pee stop at this crazy blue bridge. We couldn't stop our tradition now, so we stopped. and peed.

71 charger on polson bridge

the valley from the bridge

We got to our campsite and settled in pretty hard.  That evening was pretty chill, just getting set up, having some dinner and doing some shopping.  Getting ready for the next day.  I had to meet a dood to get to the volunteer station at 7:30.  I'd spend the morning there serving chocolate and checking riders in.  The plan was to take off once patrick got there, and we'd finish the ride together.

the fondu station

Once pat arrived, off we went.  It's a 45 minute climb from the station to record ridge, a sweet spot the relax, put on your shin guards and get ready for some fast dusty rocky down parts.

looking back at old glory

from record ridge

another from record ridge

After a short chill at record ridge, its 90% down from there.  fast flowy down.  the kind where you should wipe out a lot but don't, because you are just that awesome.

pat down the trail.  pretty dusty.

We got to the bottom, had the provided celebratory beer, then caught the shuttle back to the festivities at the campsite.  The rest of the evening was spent meeting people, eating and swapping stories.  Really sweet.

The next morning, we laughed at the guy who was puking from his mad hangover while we packed up our car.  Then off. 

the 71 charger was camped right next to us!!

We stopped at Midway at the Kettle Valley Railway Mile Zero museum.  A cool little spot.

KVR mile 0 museum

charlie and i at mile 0

And 1 more stop at the kettle river provincial park, to stretch and pee.

kettle river park

364 days until the next time next year.  We are trying to get more people to come with us, so consider this more than enough notice for you to get time off.

mission: doreen lake

Sunday it was time to see what the forestry sites on the Thompson PLateau were like. could we drive in? were the lakes still frozen? whats the deal in general? to find the answers to these questions and more, tom, louie, mike lau and danny and i headed up towards doreen lake to meet natasha and wayne.

the road into beaver lake site. someone went to town with a chainsaw, presumably a logging firm of park clean up crew. the site was barely recognizable. 

louie and his beer checking out the still 95% frozen beaver lake.

mobile mike owning the "road" to doreen lake.

our view for the 5 hours we spent at doreen lake.

the gangs all here.  why aren't you?

the mission was a mad success.  mike brought his honda trike and that was a source of sweetness.  also, wayne and natasha brought their pellet gun.  everyone left with their eyes.  Wayne tried fishing, but no luck.  

it's good to know the sites up there are open and ready for business.  you should come next time.

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.

another backroads escapade. with tom.

it was time to get more firewood. did i mention i don't have a fireplace? who cares. the smartest thing ever said by an american president went someting like this... "cut your own wood and it warms you twice." so true. and so we were warmed twice.

tom is a dood from my old haunt in pinawa. actually, i taught him grade 11. now he has a masters, so i guess i didn't completely turn him off school. but now that he has more education than me, and i'm not marking his papers, we could just be two cool doods hanging out.

I found a spot on the map that said 4x4 only and pretty much headed straight for it.

Our first stop was brunette lake. i was the only person with brown hair there... kinda misleading. we had first tracks all the way in. The site leaves someting to be desired for camping, but a cool trail led in to this small frozen lake.



the turn around at the "site". room for a tent and a fire. thats it. definately a canoe spot next summer


next was aileen lake. again first tracks. pretty cool. a bigger site, but not much.


it was so cool, tom made this pose...it may also have been a "yea!, we didn't die" dance


then, onto the trail back towards flyfish lakes. we did this trail before. with less snow, downhill. this was the snowy, rocky uphill direction. almost a mistake. almost.you may remember flyfish lakes from last week's post.


tom and i found a bit of firewood, the chainsaw helped us. turns out, tom cooks a mean hotdog. only 4 ingerdients... hotdogs, buns, bbq sauce and fire. what else could we possibly need. did i mention we had some beer? well, we did.

while we were eating, some people on quads came by and said something like "did you guys come from THAT way?" i guessed by their reactions to our "yea" that they saw the uphill spot with the huge rock that we had to churn up in 4wd lo. our tracks were kinda hard to miss. that rock will never be the same. no pictures. sorry. my mom might see it.

Nov 5. so you say you need some firewood? and some snow?

10am. saturday. steve calls. i thought he was dead. he wasn't. turns out he lives in white rock. but he makes a special guest appearance when he calls asking if i wanna go get firewood with tim and him. yes i do. so i pack up the chainsaw, mixed gas, and random other stuff, and off i go to meet them.

we head up beaver lake rd, aiming toward flyfish lakes. a place i've seen on the map often enough, but never fully busted into. today would change all that.



about 1/2 way up we hit the snow. about 4 inches, so not really enough to make it dumb, but enough to make it a bit more fun. we got to the forest site no problem, and proceeded to get a fire going. then i break the recoil on the chainsaw and begin field stripping it on a snowy picnic table. after officially giving up, it works. funny how that works.

the lake is totally frozen over. not enough to walk or drive on, but enough to remind us that snow wheeling time will be here oh-so-soon.



the forest site here is minty mint. good spot to camp and fish in the summer, avec a canoe.


after filling the backs of our trucks with wood and watching our sweet campfire run its course, its time to continue on. always a better option that turning back. After the camp spot, the road quickly becomes a trail. some big frozen puddles we broke through, some we didn't. but is was 17 km of awesome.


We finally ended up at haddo lake. its a much bigger lake but was also in the process of freezing over. also, only a short jaunt back to the main road and, bob's your uncle, back to 2wd.


logged some sick new trails. got tons of firewood. didn't break anything.
sounds like success.

edmonton, the adventurous part

a prairie sunset from grant's deck

I recently got to spend a week in edmonton for a work conference. the conference part was not an adventure because there was no camping, canoes, bikes, trucks, fires drinking or cool people. Luckily, i got to stay at me buddy grant's house. he lives in edmonton with his girlfriend bev. both are cool people, so part of this trip certainly was an adventure.

the first adventure was an evening (a tuesday evening) fire at out friend seth's acreage. it was kinda dark by the time we got there, so the pictures aren't so clear.

fire pit area and comfy chairs



one of the smaller guest cabins


main cabin. very nice.

we had a great evening here exploring the trails that go around and through seth's 50 acers. i remeber this place the day after he bought it. no pond, no cabins, no golf hole (yup, there's a golf hole). its changed completely. very nice place now. wish it could have been brighter to get pictures of all that stuff. next time i guess. thanks seth

We also spent what was supposed to be 1 short night at steve's acerage. but after the invention of the brutus (a ceasar with a knife in it HAHAHAHA) we decided to stay a little longer. here are some pictures.

here's steve and a friend of his (can't remember her name) sitting around the fire pit. she was painting.



a shot of the trails all around his acerage. fall was full time ripping.


grant and steve at the top of a small hill


grant whipping up some breakfast


grant whipping of some sick bass tunes.


guess which one is me. heres a hint. brap brap.