hydraulic lake, nov. 2010

what a trip. not much to say. i'll let the photos do the talking.

it was not snowy in kelowna, but the roads went from this:


to this:


and finally ended up like this:


there was some of cooking and eating like this:



steve playing in a sand pit off the KVR


kris contemplating if we should move in or not.


we left, the cabin was just too far to commute.


a good trip, but only because i didn't have to sleep in a van partially submerged in a freezing creek. Steve's van (and the occupants) slept in the van/creek until morning when i was woken up from sleeping in a warm bed to go rescue them.

more tales from the truck

hydraulic lake... what a sweet little spot.

we (kris, sven and I) drove up here sunday. well, sven drove until his truck would go no further due to traction issues, then he hopped in the 4runner.



It was not the usual daredevil mission, but anything is better than nothing. The road up is a little slick, but not so bad. at the top is Hydraulic lake, which is also a reservoir for kelowna. The water level seemed to be low, but sine this was my 1st visit, it's only a hunch. There are actually a few different lakes. all frozen over now, but with a dubious thickness of ice. There are 2 forestry campgrounds at the top. we chilled at the 2nd one and had a small fire. good chance to axe and saw some stuff up. getting the fire going was a challange, until we got the right wood. then it was all good.



we only chilled at the top for about an hour, then drove back down. i do believe that this camping are will be a spot for a possible winter camping trip and snowshoe adventure.

its hard to blog when you are always on adventures

so... its not that i haven't had anything to write about. as vonnegut said "busy, busy, busy" thats my life. not always in a bad way.

this post will be dedicated to an adventure i had with Kris and Sven on Nov 1st. Kris is no stranger to those of you in my blog land, and sven was a welcome addition. we decided to try and find a wilderness camp that was built in 1990 by the environmental youth corp in the mountains near little white mountain. by camp, i mean a place to tent, not a bunch of cabins. we drove up and along the KVR in the truck, with only a vague idea of where we were going. Kris was wearing shorts. sven and i were not. finding the trailhead was pretty easy, and the camp really was a km or so up the trail. it was mission accomplished in a big way. photos i had seen of the camp showed it in a state of extreme disrepair. this was not the case upon our arrival. the camp was in prime condition, and the underground cold storage was back in action. someone really cleaned it up. we decided it is a good location for a potential winter camping mission in the future. we hiked up the trail a little more, but it was getting darkish in the bush, so we made tracks back to the truck.

then we made track in the truck. we followed a few different forestry and logging roads up into the forest and clearcuts up around crawford, just south east of kelowna. it was another successful mission.

btw...
tracks and trails is a sweet site on hiking and outdoor adventure type of stuff. lots of user comments, and Clayton Kessler (the guy who runs the site i think) seems like a bang up guy.