Field trips 2.0

[gigantor]

I'm in West Virginia on vacation.  Cruised an old forest service road that leads to an abandoned fire watch tower. No bigfeet in sight.

 

Had to cross  three creeks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The main river is called Blackwater becsuse the tanin from all the trees seeps into the water, it looks like black cofee.

 

[norseman]

Awesome!

[PNWexplorer]

On 10/15/2023 at 5:37 PM, Madison5716 said:

 

 

On 10/22/2023 at 7:21 PM, Madison5716 said:

 

That is super creepy. Wow! 

 

@PNWexplorer, what's your YT again?

 

 

Trey Veston - YouTube

[BC witness]

Gigantor, that's pretty thick forest; anything 10' off the road would be hidden. 

[Madison5716]

On 11/1/2023 at 9:04 PM, gigantor said:

I'm in West Virginia on vacation.  Cruised an old forest service road that leads to an abandoned fire watch tower.

 

Hope you're having fun! What a neat area.

[wiiawiwb]

Nice adventure Gigantor. Dense forest as mentioned above. Your Wrangler is perfect for the roads you traveled. My vehicle would never have made that journey.

 

Enjoy your trip and hope you have both fun and a sighting.

[BC witness]

In my post at the bottom of the previous page, I mentioned a lead regarding footsteps heard by a young man I met on that outing, in the next valley east of where we met. I managed to spend a few hours in that valley this afternoon, after being rained out the last couple of days by torrential downpours. I was lucky enough to find the gate to that road system open today, which is not always the case when I go up there.

 

The last time I was in this watershed was about 4 years ago, and I soon saw that there had been very extensive logging in there since that time, leaving many new branch roads and dozens of new clearcuts, which didn't bode well for seeing sasquatch or game, as all the activity would have sent those deeper into the wilderness. I drove to the end of the newest logging road, where some equipment was still parked, only meeting one other vehicle in the whole valley, a couple and their 2 dogs, getting ready to explore some of the side branches on their ATV. After scouting around the area at the end of the road looking for tracks, and finding none, I took a few photos and turned back for home, as the change to DST this weekend meant that sunset was at about 4:45.

 

This valley is about 30km long, and the roads end at about the 15km mark, so there is still a lot of untracked wilderness in the upper reaches. The recent heavy rains had the main creek and the smaller tributaries roaring and seething, not something you'd want to fall into!

 

 

[BC witness]

I got back into this same valley today, Nov. 13, with a rifle and shotgun, looking for deer, bear, and grouse to shoot, or large hairy bipeds to admire and photograph. No luck with any of those, not even tracks or scat. It was still an adventure, though, because I learned a new thing about my H3 today. Under certain circumstances, limp mode can be reset by simply turning the engine off and restarting.

I was 30 km off pavement, going through many cross ditches, when I entered one that was just a bit too steep on the entry side, and high centered the truck, hanging up on the frame just behind the front wheels. I figured it would be no problem to back out of it, I just switched to 4L and hit the rear locker button, and tried to inch backwards. There was too much drag on the frame to allow the rear wheels enough traction to do that, so my only option was to push on through the ditch, turn around, and send it through the other way to get out. That worked, but almost launched my passenger through the sun roof, and triggered a traction system fault, which put the truck in limp mode.

I was reluctant to shut the thing off, being so far off the pavement, in case it wouldn't restart while in reduced power, so I opted to drive it all the way out before trying that. Once I was back out to the highway, I pulled into a parking lot, and shut it off, knowing I could call BCAA to come there if it didn't run. Thankfully it started right up, and was no longer in low power mode, so I was able to drive home at normal speed. Lessons learned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[BC witness]

Today was clear and cold, near freezing, but much too nice to stay inside all day, so at about noon I put my rifle in the truck and headed for the hills. Deer and bear are still open here until Dec.15th, which was a good enough excuse to burn up some expensive gas. I headed for a nearby watershed I was familiar with on the south side of the Fraser River, that extends nearly to the US border, and where I had seen blacktail deer during the summer. The old logging trail was badly potholed, so I aired down to 20 psi for increased comfort and traction, expecting to hit snow at the upper end of the road, but the snowline didn't extend down that low, just lots of frost in the shaded areas.

 

When i reached the end of the road and the clearcut I had planned to hunt, I found a group of 5 rednecks with a campfire going, shooting ***** and target plinking, so there was no point in trying to hunt there. Since I'm pretty much a redneck myself, I stopped and joined them for a chat and a drink. They were new to this spot, so I filled them in on the local landmarks and lore, showed off my Browning BLR, helped them clean up their casings and empties at dusk, and headed back home to make supper for my wife. I saw no game or sign on this trip, but it was still worth it to get out there for the fresh air and scenery. Maybe next weekend I'll get more than photos to bring home. 

 

 

[BC witness]

No field trip this weekend, but a great meet up with some of the local researchers at the appropriately named Sasquatch Inn for a dinner and gab fest. Besides my wife and I, Thomas Steenburg, MagniAesir and his daughter, and Robert "Stryder" attended. The food was good, as it always is there, and the conversations went on for over 2 hours, mostly Sas related. We didn't solve the mystery, but had a great time chewing away at it. 

[BC witness]

I managed 2 more trips into the woods over the last 3 weeks. The first was on Dec.17th, to a sighting location that Thomas, Alohacop, and I had investigated about 3 years ago. At that time, all we found were some track imprints on the softer gravel along the edge of the downhill side of the road, but they were badly weathered due to several days of heavy rains, so not worth casting. There was an old roadbed trail leading downhill from there, but not driveable, so I only walked about a km down it, without finding any sign at all. On my latest visit on the 17th, I found that the old road had been reactivated for some logging on the hillside between the main FSR and the lakeshore, about 4 km below. The new logging show ended about 2km down the hill, and the route reverted to the older, much rougher roadbed, badly rutted by flowing water over the years, which slowed me to a low range crawl in the H3. Another km down, I came to a Toyota 4Runner stuck on a short, slippery climb out of a creek crossing. The young and new to 4 wheeling driver had spun out trying to climb the slick hill, and slid backwards into the left hand bank of the narrow cut through the creek bank. Now he couldn't go forward or backward, and he and his lady were standing in front of the truck trying to figure out how to get out of there.

 

I introduced myself, and then had a good look at his situation. I couldn't get past him to pull him forward, so I suggested that we rig a tow strap to the rear corner of his truck that was jammed into the bank and to the front of my H3 so that I could pull him sideways allowing him to then back down into the solid gravel of the creek, where we could both turn around and drive out He had his own strap, so I let him rig it, then gave a slow low range pull to straighten him up, and they were free. Since it was now dusk, we both decided to call it a day and drive out. I saw nothing of interest on the way in or out.

 

The second outing was today, Boxing Day, Dec 26th. My oldest son had asked to join me for a trip over the holidays, and we asked a mutual friend, Mike, who isn't a 4 wheeler, to come along. We chose to explore a ridge between a river valley and a good size lake. I had only checked out a few of the lower trails in this area in the past, so this time we chose to find one that climbed higher along the ridgeline. We found what we were looking for, and were rewarded with some great views over both the Fraser Valley and the Chilliwack River Valley. we turned around when we got to the snowline, as I wasn't in the mood for mounting chains, which would be needed due to the very narrow trail with near vertical drop off on the downhill side. Once again, no tracks or scat was found, but we all got some great photos of the valleys below, including a section of the Chilliwack River covered in low cloud for several km. Mike was blown away with the views, and is already talking about trading his 2wd F150 for a 4x4. !!

 

I'm having trouble downloading photos to this site right now; I'll try again later.

Here's a link to a video that Mike shot:

 

 

 

https://fb.watch/pc5tBryXh-/

Edited December 27, 2023 by BC witness

[wiiawiwb]

Thanks for sharing BC.  You have access to absolutely gorgeous surroundings teeming with wildlife. Spectacular. As we all know, things can unexpectedly turn ugly in a hurry. Glad to hear you were able to help extract a fellow outdoorsman and his lady from a very difficult situation. Look forward to your pictures.

[Madison5716]

@BC witness  absolutely gorgeous area! Love the pix  Glad you were able to get out and about. 

[norseman]

Checked out some boat launches of the Clark Fork river today.

[Twist]

^^^
 

Looks great,   I’m amazed by the lack of snow.    We go over Donners

pass umpteen times a week…..this has been the easiest year I can remember in 20+ years.

 

 

I realize you are not near Donners but it kind of acts as my barometer.     Here in Mi, I have only had to clear my driveway once.     Haven’t even used the tractor/blower yet.