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.

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

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.

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.

labour day. no lablouring was done.

Summer is ending.  Need an epic way to end it off.  how about 9 of us head up to a lake and have a time. will do.  Steve and friends got up to the cabin thursday and help it down.  waiting the arrival of the rest of us.  So saturday morning we wasted not much time getting going in TRUCK 3.

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.

whats latin for adventure?

this weekend it was time to check out a new lake.  mike had been talking about it for a month or so, and we believed him that it was cool, now we just needed to experience it for ourselves.

we got prepared for the adventure by opening a keg at mikes on friday night for his birthday.  happy birthday dood.  thanks for the party.

saturday, it was time to get going in the direction of away from it all adventure.

going up bear creek

saturday in the 4runner, and out of it.

saturday is here. what to do? a few options presented themselves, and we ended up in the truck heading up beaver lake road. knowing the rec sites would all be pretty crazy busy, we headed up a little trail towards some of the more little known rec sites. they were busy too. but we stayed anyway.

flyfish lakes #2

return to christie falls

Monday of the long weekend.  Jeff was leaving tomorrow so our last adventure needed to be something epic.  Christie falls came to mind as one of the most epic adventures, so why not head back there?  Why not pick up Tom on the way?

Why not indeed?.... so thats what we did.

We took a different way around Terrace Mountain, more east and closer to the lake.  The result was tracked some new roads and had sweet views of the lake along the way.

Theres the lake

Also along the road we found a pretty sweet cliff, so we stopped and checked it out.

tom and jeff looking down.

We kept driving and about 4:00 we got the the trail to the falls.  we didn't waste much time starting hiking, and about 25 minutes later we were at the top of the falls.

jeff and tom at the top

the top

Then it was time to head down the trail.  the ropes work well and are quite necessary.  don't get rope burn.  Definitely a cool trail.

going down mr. tyler?

sweet!

Then we were at the falls.  rounding the last corner before the falls are visible has an extra layer of awesome.

We spent about an hour at the bottom.  exploring the cave, having a beer, and soaking up the awesome.

its wet.

look up, way up, and i'll call rusty

The basin at the bottom is huge.  The cave is really big and really cool.  The ice around the edge was covering the trail and made access kinda crazy and a little dangerous.

me navigating the ice zone

jeff in the adventure pose, and tom in the wild man pose

Then it was time to go back up.  while we were chilling at the bottom, a huge piece of ice fell right on the trail, so we were more expedited about the climb back around the falls.

climbing up the rope way

We got back to the truck and commenced a mini tailgate party in celebration of our outstanding awesomeness.

the truck was waiting for us

jeff snipering the beer cans

A major part of the celebration included the launching of rocks off the nearby cliff.  so we did.

3-2-1- go!!

Here is a video of a 200 lb rock blazing a new route to the bottom. tress did not stand a chance.

We got the feeling we were not alone, and sure enough.........

a pic of the elusive Terrace wood elf.

until next time terrace mtn.

Of course, it was eventually time for us to leave.  but we'll be back.  you should come too.

Thanks to Jeff for coming to visit from Winnipeg, to Tom for coming along and for some of these sweet pics. 

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.

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.

we didn't even try and fish...

We should go to a lake, bring our rods, and not fish. we catch the same amount of fish anyway. so that's what we did. James and his girlfriend came to my house. then we went to the dollar store to pick up army men, then we went to Canadian tire to meet Mike.

dirty windshield

james leading the way

After getting up McCollough Road, which was nicely plowed, we headed towards fish lake.  word on the street was there were fish in it.  When we got to the access to fish lake, it was totally plowed closed. 

can't go this way

So we headed to browne lake.  The road there was also closed, so we walked to the lake.  totally empty and a good place to check out.  left the fishing stuff in the trucks.

or we could, and walk

There was so much snow and after 5 weeks of no luck fishing, we decided to just park at the hydraulic lake camp site and chill out there.

lets both get stuck.

There was tons of snow, and we had to dig out the fire pit from 3 feet of snow, once we found it.

we found the fire pit

Then we saw the approaching forces and got out the pellet guns.  pretty darn fun.

target practice

About 4:30 we headed down.  Another successful mission and the 1st stuck of 2013.  we'll be back out next weekend.  you should come.

1970 judge.