Straying from the August long weekend tradition of Whipsaw, we (myself, my wife Becky, and our 2 girls Brianna, and Cassidy) joined up with Sonny, and his two oldest kids Violet, and Diego, to go to the north end of Chehalis Lake for this holiday.
I had only been there once, and that was just a short stop while on the trail ride after Cruiser Days 2007. A few months later, and the landscape there would be drastically changed from the massive landslide and the ensuing Tsunami.
We packed up the night before, and Friday morning we tossed the cold stuff in the coolers and proceeded to meet up with Sonny at the Weaver Creek hatchery to air down. 2.5 hours and 115 km's (from our house) we pulled into what would be our home for the next 4 days. It was a pretty uneventful ride up, the Mystery Creek FSR is very smooth, and the entire trip was pretty much dust free from a recent rainstorm. I joked with the princess of how we could have driven the Sienna up (well at least to the final short run down to the lake anyways), only to later find a Echo parked there.
I had seen the various pictures of the landslide results many times, but was really in awe of it seeing it first hand. There was definetly no shortage of fire wood, but everyone there all weekend respected the fire ban. Perhaps the many helicopters with buckets flying overhead helped. Camp fire bans seem to lead to early nights, but instead of staring into a camp fire, you can look at the stars.
The old, old, old forestry campsite is totally gone, nothing there remains to even hint that there was something there. The other older northern site, that had more car friendly access from the Mystery Creek road, has been thoroughly deactivated, but yet 8 camp sites still remain. Of those 8, 3 still had assembled concrete picnic tables, while the other ones had been dismantled, and stacked in place. One lone outhouse was toppled over and filled in. As you walked closer to the beach, you could see the odd fire ring, and various campsite remains among the broken trees and debris.
Our campsite was on the little island that still remained, and a few trees with strong roots remained to give us some shade. There were some other campers on the entrance side, John with a bj70 and others, but there was not room for us to spread out our large tents and not a lot of shade, so the island it was. Johns group had made a large slip 'n slide down a bank and into the lake, but I didn't drink enough courage to try it.
Yes it was hot, but not the oven as some had mentioned. Being that close to the water, there was a nice breeze all day. The winds started to pick up about 1 pm, and got quite strong untill around 5 or so, creating some decent chop on the lake. And with that breeze, no bugs. Ok, some bugs, but no mosquitoes or flies. Just a few wasps, and some really large beetle things.
Our days where spent lounging around, cooling off in the water, and watching the kids play. They had a real blast.
Except for battery management issues with my new ARB fridge (thanks Sonny for the jump starts to keep things frozen!), it was a perfect weekend.
I did get to pull out a Ford Exploder that some young guys had got stuck in a ditch on the Harrison FSR on the way home as well, other than that it was smooth sailing.
I had only been there once, and that was just a short stop while on the trail ride after Cruiser Days 2007. A few months later, and the landscape there would be drastically changed from the massive landslide and the ensuing Tsunami.
We packed up the night before, and Friday morning we tossed the cold stuff in the coolers and proceeded to meet up with Sonny at the Weaver Creek hatchery to air down. 2.5 hours and 115 km's (from our house) we pulled into what would be our home for the next 4 days. It was a pretty uneventful ride up, the Mystery Creek FSR is very smooth, and the entire trip was pretty much dust free from a recent rainstorm. I joked with the princess of how we could have driven the Sienna up (well at least to the final short run down to the lake anyways), only to later find a Echo parked there.
I had seen the various pictures of the landslide results many times, but was really in awe of it seeing it first hand. There was definetly no shortage of fire wood, but everyone there all weekend respected the fire ban. Perhaps the many helicopters with buckets flying overhead helped. Camp fire bans seem to lead to early nights, but instead of staring into a camp fire, you can look at the stars.
The old, old, old forestry campsite is totally gone, nothing there remains to even hint that there was something there. The other older northern site, that had more car friendly access from the Mystery Creek road, has been thoroughly deactivated, but yet 8 camp sites still remain. Of those 8, 3 still had assembled concrete picnic tables, while the other ones had been dismantled, and stacked in place. One lone outhouse was toppled over and filled in. As you walked closer to the beach, you could see the odd fire ring, and various campsite remains among the broken trees and debris.
Our campsite was on the little island that still remained, and a few trees with strong roots remained to give us some shade. There were some other campers on the entrance side, John with a bj70 and others, but there was not room for us to spread out our large tents and not a lot of shade, so the island it was. Johns group had made a large slip 'n slide down a bank and into the lake, but I didn't drink enough courage to try it.
Yes it was hot, but not the oven as some had mentioned. Being that close to the water, there was a nice breeze all day. The winds started to pick up about 1 pm, and got quite strong untill around 5 or so, creating some decent chop on the lake. And with that breeze, no bugs. Ok, some bugs, but no mosquitoes or flies. Just a few wasps, and some really large beetle things.
Our days where spent lounging around, cooling off in the water, and watching the kids play. They had a real blast.
Except for battery management issues with my new ARB fridge (thanks Sonny for the jump starts to keep things frozen!), it was a perfect weekend.
I did get to pull out a Ford Exploder that some young guys had got stuck in a ditch on the Harrison FSR on the way home as well, other than that it was smooth sailing.
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