OUR EXCELLENT OFF-CAMBER ADVENTURE – Chapter 1
Thursday, July 1, 2010 – Day 1
By Glenn, Mat, & Bill
Glenn and Bill were on the road, out of Vancouver, at 9:00 a.m. on a strangely quiet July 1st holiday morning. Up the newly renovated Sea To Sky highway (whatever happened to the Hydrogen Highway?) and fuel stop in Brackendale costing $1.10 / litre diesel. Onward and upward to Whistler and then to Pemberton where the traffic was grid locked. There was a July 1 parade in beautiful downtown Pemberton and an outdoor town market fair going on, so traffic was horrible. The parade was complete with a beautifully decorated 5 tonne flat deck lumber truck with pretty balloons and an array of deckchairs on the back, followed by little tykes on mini-ATVs bringing up the rear. What community spirit! We finally found a “classy” French greasy-spoon burger joint that not many of the locals were patronizing for reasons we found out later. Bill and Glenn both snarfed the “Gourmet Deluxe Burger” and it didn’t taste quite right. Bill found out why about an hour later up on the Hurley, and we GPS way pointed the spot and called it the “Gourmet Burger Blow-out”. Also, while we were still in the greasy spoon saloon, in came our third intrepid member, Mat, who wisely avoided the burger selection. Also, Mat had found out that the diesel fuel is cheaper in Pemberton than we paid in Brackendale. He paid $1.03 / litre.
Further up the washboard-laden Hurley FSR, we encountered a new and shiny, but dead, Jeep Wrangler with a clueless dude and two gals, none of which and any idea why their vehicle died. Well we got our heads under the hood and it quickly became evident that there was zero oil in the motor crankcase, as well as a disconnected air pump hose. Our guess is that some service outfit had drained the oil and forgot to put new oil into the crankcase. No signs of oil leakage anywhere. We were bewildered how this new “Trail-Rated” rig made it half-way up the Hurley. Mat popped up with 5 litres of Wolf’s Head diesel oil from the bowels of his truck’s massive compartments and, much to everyone’s surprise, the Jeep sprang back to life, for just how long we will never know. Mat, the good soul that he is, refused to accept money for the oil; he just told them to pass the good Karma on to someone else. Bill would have asked the girls for sexual favours but that’s another story.
We carried on through the Hurley and topped up our tanks in a one-horse gas station in Goldbridge for $1.23/litre. Since there was no actual fuel pump other than a gravity fed nozzle and volume meter, we had no actual way of knowing if we got our money’s worth. The fuel hose needed replacement as we watched as the diesel was dripping on the ground and down the side of our trucks. We’re still wondering about the accuracy of the fuel meter and the fact no one was issued receipts. Definitely not a Michlein recommended service facility.
We then headed along Carpenter Lake, then swung north up to fire singed Mowson Pond, stopping briefly to decide this spot is no longer as nice as it was before the fire. We then proceeded north along the Tyaughton Lake Road, Mud Creek Roads, past Eldorado Mountain on our left, then north following the Mud-Paradise FSR along the south side of Relay Creek which dead-end near the base of Relay Mountain at the eastern perimeter of Southern Chilcotin Prov Park (formerly Spruce Lake Protected Area).
Any roads heading toward the eastern perimeter of Southern Chilcotin Prov Park are blocked for vehicle access, although open for snowmobiles November 30 to June 1. We were forced to backtrack over a bridge slated for deactivation (the following week) and headed back, but just prior to getting back to the junction we fortuitously took a very muddy side road which eventually led to a creek side horse camp. With huge picnic tables designed for dozens of people, a locked cabin, outhouses, firewood, and not a soul in sight we decided to call this place home. We had the whole place all to ourselves, including firewood, a nice stream, hitching posts, wild flowers and an outhouse, and it was a great find. It was damp and chilly that night but our spirits were high with expectations of a great wheeling ahead. The pictures below show Spruce Lake Prov Park signage and also our lowly camp grub; prawns, lamb and vegie shish-kabobs, and the camp site
To be continued….
