graystokes, the epic journey.

this is the end of the road. graystokes lake. that road looking thing is not really a road.

an overview of the whole trip


so, where to begin...

kris, my trusty co-pilot and i set out for a green area on a backroad mapbook at about 4:30. none of us had any way of knowing what lay ahead. we got lost at least 3 times before 5:45, and being lost on a maze of mountain forrest roads is fun, but counter-productive to MISSION: ADVENTuRE. i'm suprised kris is still my friend, after all the fun but misguided antics that i've dragged him into. project 7 summits comes to mind.

our 1991 4runner. its got the sr5 v6, 5 speed, a back power hatch that opens only 5% of the time, and closes only 2%? in fact, i had resigned myself to having to take the trip with it permanantly open, until it miraculiously closed, possibly never to be opened again? i can tell you this about it though, the 4x4 part works awesomly well.

maybe the road/trail? definately more of a trail. when we finally decided to camp, and i use the term very loosly, and you will soon see why, it was only because after the stream crossing, the road became a trail, full of boulders that only a rock crawling machine could clear...

speaking of rock crawling machines... about 10k off the highway, on what ends up being the Graystokes forestry road, there is a sweet snowmobile cabin that is also used in the summer. it is also used by rednecks with landcruizers with 454 chevy engines and tires at least 5 feet high. and their girlfriends...the redneck's girlfriends, not the jeeps, that was a misplaced modifier i know. anyway, this choice group of the population was using the cabin when we got there, and it was clear that our non-mullet, not O.V. beer drinking and occasional showering ways were not welcome with them. we left to try for the next cabin when they started eating a squirrel, before it was dead.

so about camping. it was difficult to set up the tent in the 20 cm of snow. yup. snow. and lots of it. everywhere. it began as a little slush about 5km up the road, right after i said, "maybe i don't need the 4wd after all". by 7k, it was 5cm deep, and half way up, at the cabin, it was 10. it wasn't falling, it got there before we did. the snow was compltely unexpected. we had tents and were expecting to use them. but the toyota hotel was nice too. except for that rear door issue, the part about it not opening. and if it did open, probably not closing again. glass is a better insulator than no glass. but getting the pallets out of the back was difficult through the side door. yes, i said pallets. for the fire. that was our only redeeming quality in the eyes of the rednecks. so we got the fire going, got soaked wadding through the 20cm of snow to get more wood, but had a ripping fire going until we closed the doors of the truck and passed out. i mean went to sleep. we ate like kings. potatoes cooked in the fire, corn on the cob, potatoes, marinated chicken, gormet sandwiched rescued from a seminar at work in the morning.

in the morning, we had another sweet fire and headed back across the stream to a different road that might let us up. it did. we were not the first ones through the snow, but definately in the top 5. at the top is Graystokes lake. not as cool as i imagined, but pretty cool none the less. we checked out some bullet holes in a brick. that was the highlight of the lake. the map showed a road continuing north past the lake, but it became impassable for all but a redneck after about 500m. the only thing worse than going down a narrow and almost impassable road, is haveng to do it again in reverse. we did a lot of reversing. a lot. in fact, reverse was a proud sponsor of our trip, along with aluminum. our trip would have been a disaster without them.

So... reaching the most accessible top, we had no choice but to go back down the way we came. good thing we had a GPS and a backroad map book, otherwise we'd still be trying to find our way down. we checked out a few side road (on purpose) and ended up at a lot of dead ends, but cool none the less. more reversing too.

when we finally reached the bottom, we had eaten 6 potatoes each, gone through 2 pairs of socks, 4 pallets and 2 small bottles of propane. also 1/2 a tank of gas and travelled just over 125km. not bad for a 21 hour adventure.

i DID take pictures, but since christy was in new orleans with the digital camera, i took film kinda pictures. remember those?? so i have to get them developed.

now i should go clean the truck out, it smells like corned beef.

this just in!!! someone commented on my blog!!!

wow. its my first official confirmed reading of my blog. thanks andrea!!! also, thanks to midori, who is my first (and so far only) follower!! i love you guys!

weddings, canoeing and snakes. lots of snakes. and deer.

last weekend i was in pinawa for my sister andrea's wedding. despite the fact that her new husband carl was mucho sicko the day of the wedding and following, everything went off without a noticeable hitch. i guess you could say they got hitched without a hitch. The wedding was at an old hydro electric dam just outside of pinawa. it was built in the early 1900s, decommissioned 20something years later, and became a artillery practice sight for the military for some war, and has since become a provincial park. tres cool i think. most of the structures are still in tact. also, since no people live there anymore, it has become home to millions of snakes. i really do mean millions. i lost count at 37 563 732. i hate snakes, so it was a source of minor anxiety for me. the dam is about 15km downstream from new pinawa (actually just called pinawa, as opposed to the dam, which is old pinawa) so my brother and i took the opportunity on friday to canoe to the rehersal. it was cool. we say a few turtles with shells the size of garbage can lids. really. we also had a very close incounter with a deer (not so impressive when you consider that we saw more deer in pinawa than snakes in old pinawa). My camera battery died before i could take any pictures of the canoeing, but it was cool. now im back in kelowna, my sister is married and im ready for my next adventure, which i hope is a 4x4 and hiking adventure into graystokes provincial park. a kinda remote park in the kootaneys. further updates as adventures warrant.

gillard today, vapour again tomorrow, but first beer tonight.

so yesterday we (my buddy kevin from bike shop work, some other guy and I) went to gillard to ride. Gillard was the first DH freeride action I ever really checked out, and I checked it out on foot, not on rubber. But yesterday I finally got a chance to ride it. It was also my first mission with our new truck (a 91 4runner). What a sweet ride. there was lots of ridable built up log rides, ramps and jumps, as well as tons of sweet singletrack. Not too rocky either, which was a surprise. the ride down was just short of an hour, and while i was waiting for the vehicle retrieval, i drank a beer with some cool older doods from vancouver. overall, a very good day. tonight we were at aaron's birthday party, and im on a drinking mission. but tomorrow, hopefully kevin, patrick, me and some other dood will be hitting vapour trail again in the morning for a few runs. vapour is the trail i made that girl cry on (see 2 posts ago or so). Then a pig roast!! woohoo. don't you wish you had my life?

7 summits, oh yea, i forgot the best part

so, back to the rossland riding story for a second...

on the way back, after the rain had stopped and we had bbq'd once again, we were headed towards beaverdell, which has a population of about 200 or so and DOES have a sign for a gas station. this was important because the fuel guage was on "e" although the gas light wasn't on yet. We searched the town for said gas station, but found only what might be a gas station, but apparently wasn't. what could we do but drive and cross our fingers? just on the outskirts of this non-thriving non-metropolis, a big blue sign reminded us to check our fuel, next service 79 km. after checking it, it was still low. very low. unless "e" means enough, but i don't think it does. The gas light came on about 15km past the sign. i remembered watching a show about gas mileage testing, and they said they lancer had traveled 70km with the gas light on. i hoped my car was the one used in the test, but i don't remember anyone borrowing it. also, we were in the mountains, and figured that would change the result. if we could make it to big white turn off, it was 95%downhill from there. driving 90 for the next 45 minutes in the silent glow of the small orange light of the gas meter, we planned what we could do. i figured my caa membership might come in handy, until i realized that we were out of cell phone range. We didn't really want to have to ride our bikes away from an abandoned car, but that would have been our best option. it turns out... we made it. lots of coasting in neutral might have helped. sorry for the quick wrap up, but thats the end


our camp spot near rossland

a valuable lesson

This post is not in chronological order. it's unstuck in time like the infamous billy pilgrim.

Vapour trail in the Crawford trail network is not for beginners. A few of us were ready to ride one late august evening. A few guys from work and someone who had never ridden in the okanagan before. They assured me that they had worked in bike shops before, and i guess i understood this to mean more than it did. It was my first time down the trail, but i thought that since it was in crawford, how hard could it be?? The trail that takes pros about 15 minutes, and joes about 45, took us just over 2 hours. we finished the trail in the dark, and it involved me coaxing our friend to ride and, after that failed miserably, a walk down the remaining 3 kms of the 7km trail. i'm excited to go back and finish the trail in the daylight, but i learned a valuable lesson.... i dont' really know what it was, but i learned it. the hard and slow way. so... if anyone wants to ride vapour with me, lets go, and we'll meet up at the bottom. bring bear spray if you are walking alone though the woods at night, because you might be able to outrun a bear on a bike, but not pushing one.

7 summits, or lack there of

So after not enough planning but a sense of adventure to compensate, Kris and I headed to Rossland BC on Sunday night of Labour Day long weekend. We drove through pouring rain with a yellow lancer loaded with bikes gear and an indespensible bbq. We arrived for the last day of the Fat Tire Festival, set up the tent in a no camping- rest stop and bbq'd pop tarts for diner. We had a meeting with the shuttle guy the next morning to take us up to the epic 40km 7 summits trail. The next morning, after bbqing corn for breakfast (i know the corn should have been diner and the pop tarts for breakfast, but whatever) we went to meet the shuttle guy. He said that we were now the only ones who wanted to ride the trail, and due to the small crowd, rides were now 45$ each. That seemed like way too much to pay to ride through the blizzard and landslide that were reported at the top, and the driver decided that we were not going. So, up and ready to ride at 8:00 am, we went in search of some other epic rides that didn't involve parkas or sketchy shuttle drivers. We ended up on some of the wettest rootiest rockiest single track ever. After the 2 km push to the top of the mountain that is. Every intersection choice was answered with "keep descending!" and we rode miles of forested trails that kept the tires sliding off the wet roots. After 10 or so km so, the trail opened into some of the fastest open singletrack through a sweet grassy meadow. Then the climbing began. We pedaled and pushed our way across a golf course, up some gravel roads and then pedaled aross town to where we had parked, stopping at a grocery store to get something else to bbq for lunch. Then we did it again. this time the trail took us around and up a different mountain, along still wet and loamy rooted trails through what felt like a rain forest. After another 10 or so kms, we returned to the car again, with just enough time to pack up the bikes before another torrential downpour hit us. Thus began the return trip home, in the rain, with the bbq.