So after all of the last minute shopping for food, parts, beer, I packed the trucked and met up with Robert at his place coffee in hand ready to go. Minor checks on both trucks and we hit the road at about 10:30ish. One stop for fuel at the Shell on lickman (and more coffee) and straight to the highway. Seeing as we left a bit late and it gets dark around 6pm we decided to skip Whipsaw since neither of us did if from beginning to end and we really did not feel like either setting up camp after dark or hanging out beside the main fsr. We ran into John just as we finished fueling up and joined in lunch at the bus station - Billy's restaurant - good burgers as always. After that we hit the trail....well Hwy 5a, then the trail. Spent the first night at Thalia lake, on the North side where there is a cabin that likely belongs to the ranch in that area, very nice and large and well maintained. The temperature dropped to -7 over night and I was really happy that I had a good sleeping bag.
Morning, bacon and eggs, clean up and we headed West to Otter Valley, then a half forgotten trail east back up the mountain to the South side of Goose Lake. While Robert filled his need for fishing I had to run back into Princeton as I managed to get an eye infection and needed some good old fashioned home remedy supplies. By the time I got back Robert already started to roast - rather defrost - the chicken and was happily freezing his ass off on the lake.
Some tree cutting, another awesome dinner, pays to have a professional cook come along, another -7 evening and some more stories fuel by Whiskey and the camp fire. It got the the point that beer was starting to freeze and the only way the whiskey would warm us up was if we left it by the fire for a couple of minutes. I can honestly say this is the first time I wanted my whiskey warmed up before drinking.
Saturday Robert had to head back so we chose to take the longer route and try for the Pike Mtn. fsr down to Princeton, best laid plans.....and so on....we followed the main fsr and must have missed the turn off for Pike but figured "hell, it's the main fsr, it has to go somewhere - right?" Maps and GPS do not help when you have a couple of people that don't really have to be somewhere specific. We found the end of the main fsr which turned out to be manning creek fsr. Of course at the end there is nothing, or is there? once we passed the clear cutting field we found an ATV trail heading down the mountain, an attempt at an off-camber approach and a quick re-assessment finally got us heading the right direction. We came down the Otter mountain/Cook creek ATV trails, which were perfect for a Landcruiser.
Back on the main road we said our goodbyes and Robert went home while I chose to head for Rampart Lake. After a quick dash on 5a, the Summers or Missezula lake fsr and onto Rampart........wait, that's now blocked and would require a lot more time. Oh well, up to Missezula lake, which I discovered is a nice place to buy a cottage, but not camp (at least on the South side). I managed to find a trail that has not been turned into a private and gated road, heading East and finally met up with something that existed on all of my maps. It was getting late and the only lake near by Vinson, so I headed for it. Nice place, good camp site, a water reservoir for something, a bit weird to get to though as the road to it is 3/4 clear cut. I'm guessing it was around -5 or 6 at night but a good dinner of pork, whiskey and a nice fire (once the wood dried) did the trick.
Sunday morning I decided to take a different approach, pick a general area and if I find a lake I like, camp there. So I headed South from Vinson (as you can't go north - contrary to maps) and met up with Siwash fsr, which as far as I could find did not meet with Johnson lake fsr, I tried and found old dead ends that once could have been. So by a coincidence of taking the trails that were left and the GPS I found Spukunne lake. There is access from the North, even though the signs on the road tell you that it is closed due to a washout - which is a very pathetic dip in the road. Spukunne is a very nice little lake with fish and a really nice camp site. I got there early and relaxed for a bit, later in the evening it started to rain so instead of setting up a tarp I retreated to the back of the truck to relax with more whiskey and a good book while watching the fire die.
Monday.....what can I say, even on vacation mondays can go wrong. I left the lake, went South on another closed fsr due to a bridge that was out, that span across a 15' wide creek that was 6" deep - good thing for the snorkel. Then I headed to the Summerland-Princeton rd/fsr after following and driving on some of the old KVR (kettle valley railway) trails, through Bankeir, which has.....a lodge, coffee and the KVR preservation society....and headed further on the trail into Summerland. A quick stop for supplies and a shower, and went forth toward my next destination - Isintok lake. The idea I had was to stay there the night and head down stemwinder in the morning......right....
I arrived at Isintok on the Mcnulty fsr, an interesting and large lake that was frozen and looked like a grave yard from all of the old and dead trees at it's shores. Since it was only 3pm I decided to look around and went to the Isintok mtn, some other trails and back to camp. Just as I was about to set up I noticed it started snowing and the clouds were not looking like they would improve. As curious as I was about my new chains, I was not about to repeat the snorkel incident so I decided to cut my losses and get out, the stemwinder way, which due to logging in that area I could not find. So I now have 5pm, snow, no camp and a long way back - the closes cut through was Shingle creek and some camps near it. I found Agur Lake which was a nice swamp with mud around it, then somehow missed the Fish Lake fsr and came in on the West side of Shingle creek. Now I will not publicly mention anything but I do not recommend ever coming down on the west side of Shingle Creek unless you have a lot of time to figure out which trails go around private land.
Finally I managed to hit a main road way after dark and figured that the evening was a write off and setting up camp when you can't see what you're doing in the middle of a place you don't know was not the brightest idea, so I head back to Princeton.
Tuesday I figured a nice trip from Princeton, to Tulameen, across the Lawless-Britton to Murphy lk was a short, and nice trail to forget Monday. Once I got to Murphy I found the East side was private and the West side was a very tiny camp site not even close to the water that already had hunters set up for the week it seemed ( big tent!). So I figured I'd head back towards Hwy 5 and take the bypass with a possibility of crashing at the creek crossing there. Once I arrived I noticed that there was a large shortage of wood, so I had a late lunch and headed for home. The bypass still has no snow worth mentioning, the only thing is that there is some ice on the West/South side on the paved section.
In the end it was a good trip, lots of sight seeing, good pics (which will be posted soon), good times, new experiences, nothing broken, more trails discovered, and most importantly - spent some quality time with the truck on the trails.
Morning, bacon and eggs, clean up and we headed West to Otter Valley, then a half forgotten trail east back up the mountain to the South side of Goose Lake. While Robert filled his need for fishing I had to run back into Princeton as I managed to get an eye infection and needed some good old fashioned home remedy supplies. By the time I got back Robert already started to roast - rather defrost - the chicken and was happily freezing his ass off on the lake.
Some tree cutting, another awesome dinner, pays to have a professional cook come along, another -7 evening and some more stories fuel by Whiskey and the camp fire. It got the the point that beer was starting to freeze and the only way the whiskey would warm us up was if we left it by the fire for a couple of minutes. I can honestly say this is the first time I wanted my whiskey warmed up before drinking.
Saturday Robert had to head back so we chose to take the longer route and try for the Pike Mtn. fsr down to Princeton, best laid plans.....and so on....we followed the main fsr and must have missed the turn off for Pike but figured "hell, it's the main fsr, it has to go somewhere - right?" Maps and GPS do not help when you have a couple of people that don't really have to be somewhere specific. We found the end of the main fsr which turned out to be manning creek fsr. Of course at the end there is nothing, or is there? once we passed the clear cutting field we found an ATV trail heading down the mountain, an attempt at an off-camber approach and a quick re-assessment finally got us heading the right direction. We came down the Otter mountain/Cook creek ATV trails, which were perfect for a Landcruiser.
Back on the main road we said our goodbyes and Robert went home while I chose to head for Rampart Lake. After a quick dash on 5a, the Summers or Missezula lake fsr and onto Rampart........wait, that's now blocked and would require a lot more time. Oh well, up to Missezula lake, which I discovered is a nice place to buy a cottage, but not camp (at least on the South side). I managed to find a trail that has not been turned into a private and gated road, heading East and finally met up with something that existed on all of my maps. It was getting late and the only lake near by Vinson, so I headed for it. Nice place, good camp site, a water reservoir for something, a bit weird to get to though as the road to it is 3/4 clear cut. I'm guessing it was around -5 or 6 at night but a good dinner of pork, whiskey and a nice fire (once the wood dried) did the trick.
Sunday morning I decided to take a different approach, pick a general area and if I find a lake I like, camp there. So I headed South from Vinson (as you can't go north - contrary to maps) and met up with Siwash fsr, which as far as I could find did not meet with Johnson lake fsr, I tried and found old dead ends that once could have been. So by a coincidence of taking the trails that were left and the GPS I found Spukunne lake. There is access from the North, even though the signs on the road tell you that it is closed due to a washout - which is a very pathetic dip in the road. Spukunne is a very nice little lake with fish and a really nice camp site. I got there early and relaxed for a bit, later in the evening it started to rain so instead of setting up a tarp I retreated to the back of the truck to relax with more whiskey and a good book while watching the fire die.
Monday.....what can I say, even on vacation mondays can go wrong. I left the lake, went South on another closed fsr due to a bridge that was out, that span across a 15' wide creek that was 6" deep - good thing for the snorkel. Then I headed to the Summerland-Princeton rd/fsr after following and driving on some of the old KVR (kettle valley railway) trails, through Bankeir, which has.....a lodge, coffee and the KVR preservation society....and headed further on the trail into Summerland. A quick stop for supplies and a shower, and went forth toward my next destination - Isintok lake. The idea I had was to stay there the night and head down stemwinder in the morning......right....
I arrived at Isintok on the Mcnulty fsr, an interesting and large lake that was frozen and looked like a grave yard from all of the old and dead trees at it's shores. Since it was only 3pm I decided to look around and went to the Isintok mtn, some other trails and back to camp. Just as I was about to set up I noticed it started snowing and the clouds were not looking like they would improve. As curious as I was about my new chains, I was not about to repeat the snorkel incident so I decided to cut my losses and get out, the stemwinder way, which due to logging in that area I could not find. So I now have 5pm, snow, no camp and a long way back - the closes cut through was Shingle creek and some camps near it. I found Agur Lake which was a nice swamp with mud around it, then somehow missed the Fish Lake fsr and came in on the West side of Shingle creek. Now I will not publicly mention anything but I do not recommend ever coming down on the west side of Shingle Creek unless you have a lot of time to figure out which trails go around private land.
Finally I managed to hit a main road way after dark and figured that the evening was a write off and setting up camp when you can't see what you're doing in the middle of a place you don't know was not the brightest idea, so I head back to Princeton.
Tuesday I figured a nice trip from Princeton, to Tulameen, across the Lawless-Britton to Murphy lk was a short, and nice trail to forget Monday. Once I got to Murphy I found the East side was private and the West side was a very tiny camp site not even close to the water that already had hunters set up for the week it seemed ( big tent!). So I figured I'd head back towards Hwy 5 and take the bypass with a possibility of crashing at the creek crossing there. Once I arrived I noticed that there was a large shortage of wood, so I had a late lunch and headed for home. The bypass still has no snow worth mentioning, the only thing is that there is some ice on the West/South side on the paved section.
In the end it was a good trip, lots of sight seeing, good pics (which will be posted soon), good times, new experiences, nothing broken, more trails discovered, and most importantly - spent some quality time with the truck on the trails.
