No wonder I was getting cabin fever, it's been 2 months since I last got out! Between bad weather and "honey-do"s I missed 7 weekends, but today was the last day of deer season, so I had no trouble persuading my youngest boy (Oh no!, my baby just turned 49 five days ago!!) to come along for a trip to the mountains.
We left home pre-dawn, and were starting up the East Harrison FSR shortly after sunrise. The day was forecast to be decent, not great, but not raining. We encountered some fog for the first hour along the lakeside, but the rest of the day alternated between overcast and sunny breaks. As I usually do, I tried each of the feeder creek valleys along the lake, but found a couple of my favorites gated due to logging activity, and 2 that had been closed earlier in the year now open to travel, so explored those as far towards their headwaters as the roads would allow, and hiked a couple of branches off those that were too overgrown to drive, one of which led to a small lake that I had only previously seen from the other side of that valley.
Wildlife was scarce, except for hawks and eagles flying overhead, and a mulie doe that showed up just at dusk as we were driving out. Her colour was so close to that of the muddy road, that I almost ran into her before spotting her in the dim light. There were deer tracks at several areas that we checked, but no bear or cat sign, and no Sasquatch evidence of any sort.
We discovered that the winding mountainside road had taken it's toll since I was last there earlier this year. At Km 14, there were 2 crosses at the roadside, dated Nov 2nd, where 2 young men had apparently gone off the shoulder on the downhill side, which is a sheer 500m (1600') drop to the lakeshore. Just 11km further in, there was obvious evidence of a logging truck having slid off the downhill side, as the load of logs was still 50m down the slope, where several large trees had prevented it from plunging further down. You could see where the truck had been dragged back up the slope to the road, and a few small parts still littered the slope. That one may make the next season of "Highway Through Hell", as this is part of the region covered by the companies that feature on that show.
It was certainly an interesting day in the mountains, with OK weather, great scenery, and some father/son bonding time, which is always a joy.
Here's my usual slew of pics:
Snowline along the mountainside:
Big Silver Creek:
Tragedy along the way
The narrow main logging road
My 6' tattooed "baby boy"
The small lake we hiked in to