okanagan mountain and divide lake.

Canada day we decided to hike up the mountain goat trail, into okanagan mountain park and spend the night at divide lake. i may have promised an easy 2-3 hour hike. i was right about the 2-3 hours. not about the easy. it's called the mountain goat trail for a reason. that is was 38 degrees in a burnt out mountain didn't keep us cool at all.

let make some woodchips in the middle of no where

Why not take some chainsaws for a hike in the bush?  good idea.  tom, kris, mary and i strapped on snowshoes and headed off on to a lake that was not as frozen as usual. 

tom and i out in front.

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. 

friday, in 4 low.

fryday night. its time to go out and get the truck dirty with tom. little did we know how muddy it would get.

we headed up and found a few people were already there. they had a fire going and were happy to let us chill. we hung out around the fire and shot some cans with the pellet gun.

then the trucking began..

the road in.

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. 

a sunday afternoon... living the dream.

Sunday equals adventure. from the word "sun" meaning "adventure". hense, sunday is adventure day. Tom and Partick and charlie and I got into the truck and headed up into the hills. on the way, i rolled over 300 000 km on the truck.

300,000 km.

We got to a cool spot on a quiet lake and got ready for a little paddle.  Tom and I hopped in and went on a short tour.  The lake was pretty shallow.  We didn't get any fish from the boat, and Pat was empty too when we got back to the shore.

launchy launchy

!/2 way around the lake, tom a i got out of the canoe and explores around the bush a little.  It was tough going with so much deadfall.  but we wore jeans and not-flip flops after the lesson we learned at reluctant dragon cove a few weeks ago.

tom

lots of deadfall, like i said.

On the way back, we tried more fishing, but no dice.

tom, trying to use his mental powers to catch fish. 

late afternoon

We messed around the site for a few hours.  We had a pellet gun, some hot dogs, some beers and a chainsaw.  we used them all.  it was good times.

the little camp spot

army guy.  aka. pellet gun target.  the smoke reminded me of 'nam.

packing up

sniper tom

Weirdest thing.  while we were up there, a '71 dodge demon came ripping by. 

the muddy road out

one last photo on the way down.

It was a sweet afternoon trip, and only 25km from my front door.  Possibly a place we will return to.

More adventure next weekend, you should come.

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.