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.

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

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.

up towards the kettle valley

beauty of a sunday.  time to go.  Louie, Mary, Kris and I hopped in some trucks and headed up towards kettle valley.  hoping to get to the KVR through the back door.

a weekend on beaver lake

 time to get out the canoes and stuff and head to beaver lake for some dirt camping.  that means we left the tents at home.

big waves and wind.

saturday. fish for dinner.

Saturday Wes picked up my canoe and I and off we went to Beaver Lake. Our mission was simple... catch fish.

Wes pointing to where the fish are.

a short drive and walk in the postil region

tom and i went for a walk. at postil. there is still lots of snow. we had a little off-trail explore and the snow was thigh deep. recon for summer camping will have to wait a bit longer. here are pictures.

forest trail

kris's birthday... in my new (to me) wall tent. yea.

Kris's birthday.  Also, the weekend after i scored a wall tent and stove off the local internet classifides.  Kris's party seemed like an epic time to try the tent.

heading up off the main rd.

who logged the snowshoe trails?

Time to get the snowshoes white once again. this time we headed up to Kelowna Nordic. it was snowing on the way up, so that seemed like a good thing for snowshoeing.

We strapped on the shoes and headed into the bush. then, the bush was gone. just like that. 1/2 the trail area had been heavily loggeds over the summer. what the heck? sure changed the feeling.

christy in the newly created snowshoe fields.

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. 

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.

may long and some dam camping

So this weekend jeff newman decided to return to the okanagan to guest star in the adventures of ryan. he got in thursday night and after work on friday we wasted no time in getting our adventure on.

We headed up to beaver lake rec. site, which was totally full by 6PM. we did not get a spot, and in hind site, we didn;t want one. too busy there. We kept on trucking a bit further down the road to the old rec. site, which have visited a few times before, but never overnight.

The only other group there was a dad and his 2 kinds, and they were pretty cool enough. the space was big enough to share anyway.

crooked lake from the dam

We shot the pellet gun and got a sweet feed on before turning in for one of the best sleeps ever.

Saturday was a bit rainy.  not hard, but light and constant.  we hung around the tent for a bit.  I did some fishing and pulled out a pretty small rainbow.  i let it go.

beaver lake.  the other side of the dam

jeff pondering the spillway

lunch.  porkchops

another group came to fish from the dam.  they didn't have any luck and soon were gone.

the fishermen on the dam

Once it stopped raining, or at least let up quite a bit, we headed off on an explore across the dam.  If i had a quad, i would pretty much live up there.  

the end of beaver lake

an old trail??

Our mine finding skills are quite honed, since we spent a lot of time in beaverdell and on blue grouse.  This old trail looked suspicious with an old pile of rocks.  we checked it out and it was an old mine.  gonna have to do a bit more research into it.

yes, to an old mine!!

Once back from the 2 footed explore, it was time to get in the canoe and head up corrked lake.  I found a fishing rod attached to a bobber that was floating in the middle of the lake.  score.

jeff riding point

the 'vette that came to visit. 

our little set up

After a super sweet saturday and another great sleep in the tent, we got up sunday and lazily got ready to go and packed up.  the drive out was wetter than the drive in, but thats a good thing.

2wd that baby.

What a sweet weekend, and it's not over yet.  stay tuned for more tomorrow.  better yet, come with us.

saturday. time for another shot at beaver lake. i packed up the fishing stuff, the canoe and louie and off we went. not as empty at the campsite as last weekend, and the ice is officially all gone!!

louie in the bow

i also packed the pellet gun and we both had some beer.  it was sunny, and i wore sunscreen.

all loaded up

We caught 4 fish.  only 1 was keepable sized, but we didn't keep it.  let it go to catch it again.

yea fish!!

On the way back to the truck, we stopped at our usual camping island.  the new canoe performed awesome.

the ripper.  good times so far. 

The island was not as we left it.  some people decided to build a big log thing.  not sure of it's purpose yet, but it's there.  seems like more than an elaborate way to store firewood.

the log thing

We spent an hour on the island shooting cans and chilling out.  a pretty amazing camp spot.  might be back next weekend, with tents.

louie showing how it's done.

pellet catching tree

Then it was back in the canoe and back to the main camp site.  we fired up the chainsaw and then the fire and then some smokies.  like i said, it was fuller than last weekend, but not as full as it will be next weekend.

You should come may long.  there will be a special guest and the usual suspects.  It will be good.

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.

mission creek geocaching

spring is definitely here, and that means all the geocaches buried all winter are ready for picking. christine and i headed out to mission creek to snag some of them.

the creek is still pretty low

cliffs of mission creek

We've been along mission creek tons before, and it's a really neato trail.  heaps of geocaches all along the trail just makes it that much cooler.

in a few weeks, the flooding will likely be pretty crazy

christine on one of the bridges that crosses the creek

we logged 5 new geocaches and got to explore some of the trail we had never been on before.  a good time.  maybe with wheels next time.  2 wheels, and pedals.

a saturday trip up spion kopje

a nice sunny saturday morning. tom and i decided to hike up spion kopje near my house. not much to say. nice trail, not many people. hailstorm on the way down.

good times.

i can see my house.

They are thinking about turning this area into a park.  that would keep the dirt bikes off it, and more importantly, keep the crazy development of houses at the bottom at bay.

tom on the ridge.

we were below the snow line, but not by much, as you can tell from the mountains across the lake.

on the way down.  okanagan lake on the right, wood lake on the left.  my house in the middle.

Adventures don't need to have 4wd.  another good weekend in the books. 

feb 24, in which mikes new truck gets stuck

so mike got a new 4runner. we went and picked it up on saturday in vernon. he decided to get it stuck and i needed more firewood. all the winter adventures have run my stockpile to almost nothing. we headed up to postil. the mud pits were pretty much frozen, except for this one spot near the edge. mike parked it in there. i towed him out.

first stuck for mike.  maybe the first one ever for his truck.

After getting the truck out.  we shot these guns.  mike can hit a moving balloon at 300 yards no problem.  any colour too.

12ga. and sks

Also, it appears postil is still a parking lot for unwanted/stolen trucks.  someone left the keys in this one.

wanna race?

2 trucks. and the tow strap.  i left it like that all morning.  might need it more.

that bumper looks sweet.  another part of truck 1 re-incarnated. 

This truck guards the entrance to the playground.  has a larry's cycle sticker on the dash.  thats funny because i used to work there.

We were home by 2 and it was a solid mission.  trucks got stuck, guns were fired, and firewood was collected.  good times.