Our incessant rain, wet snow, and wind have finally eased off, and the last few days have been sunny and spring-like, though there's still lots of wet, greasy snow as soon as you gain a bit of elevation in the local mountains. Today I took the opportunity to get out of the house for a while, going this morning to a local gun show with an old hunting buddy that I hadn't seen in person in almost a year. We spent a couple of hours perusing a lot of overpriced weaponry and gear, and all I bought was a nice leather wallet to replace my old worn out faux leather unit, while my buddy found a couple of pounds of powder that he wanted. We left there for lunch at a local eatery, then he headed off on a road trip with his lady friend, and I headed for the nearby mountain trails for some scouting and soul refreshing.
The Heritage Arms show was in Chilliwack, so the closest option was the Chilliwack River Valley, and its many offshoot logging roads and trails. My first choice was Tamihi Creek, towards Border Peaks, and as expected, I encountered snow about 5km in, as the elevation increased. I continued on a few more km, but as the road climbed, the snow got deeper, and slicker, so I opted to turn around before I found myself needing a rescue, as happened a couple of months ago. Even so, I had gone a little too far in, and needed to deploy my traction boards and air the tires down to 15 psi to complete the turn around on the narrow, steep road. Once pointed downhill, the going was easy, and I went back down to the river valley, and followed another road that Gaia showed crossing from Chilliwack River over to the next valley west, Cultus Lake, but at a lower elevation than the Tamihi trail. I had never driven the route before, but the map proved to be correct, and it was a very pleasant 10km cruise over a scenic, but rough, narrow road through second growth forest, ending at the back side of the resort village of Cultus Lake. The only disappointment was not seeing any wildlife at all on the trails, and no tracks or droppings either. From there it was only a 20 minute drive back to Chilliwack, where I stopped at a service station to air the tires back up, and go through the car wash to get the mud off the H3 before heading home for supper. The whole day made me feel good, I really needed to get out there!