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Field trips 2.0


BC witness

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Love it!!

He captures what I feel out there beautifully, and the guitar melody fits perfectly.

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On Sunday, March24th, I spent the day with my son Rick exploring the creek valleys to the east of Chilliwack Lake, just north of the Canada/US border. This area is only accessible from the Canadian side, as the FSR ends a km or so short of the line, and no roads extend north into the area from the US side.

 

We first ventured up the Paleface Creek valley on the old decommissioned FSR, up to the point where the snow pack halted progress in the H3. We spotted the first fresh bear scat of this year on the way, and one scrawny looking grouse, but not much else of interest. Skunk cabbage is blooming in the area, which is often the first food for bears in the spring.

 

We then continued south on the main FSR to the Depot Greek valley, which also has been  decommissioned, with lots of deep water bars, almost at the limit of what my H3 can handle. In this valley, there was no snow until the very end of the road, which is about 500 meters from the border, according to Gaia Maps. The scenery in this valley is great, so we took a few pictures, and scouted around for tracks. We found lots of deer prints, and some large canine ones as well, which might have been someone's dog trotting around. It was getting late , so we backtracked along the shore of Chilliwack Lake to pavement at the north end of the lake, where we stopped to air the tires back up for the hour ride back home, as the sun set on a great day out in nature.

 

 

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Posted (edited)

My oldest boy, Steve, called me earlier this week to see if I was heading out in the mountains this long weekend. He didn't have to twist my arm very hard to get a yes out of me. ;-)

I picked him up at about noon, after my honey-do list was done, and we headed out to the north side of the Fraser River, east of Mission. We chose to go in a FSR that would bring us to a creek valley north of the one where we both had sightings about 45 years ago. The valley of our sightings has become very popular with the local 4x4 and ATV groups, and would be busy on a sunny Good Friday, hence the detour to the back side of those same mountains. Once we got to our chosen branch FSR, we had the place to ourselves, other than 1 truck headed out as we went in.

 

The previous 3 nights had brought heavy rain via thunderstorms, so the road was a little slick, and coated the Hummer with a nice tan coat of mud, rubbing off on our pant legs every time we got in or out of the truck, and washing away any hopes of seeing tracks. Not only were no tracks spotted, no animals were seen all day, either. Every branch trail that we attempted off the main one ended in washout, mudslides, or deadfall, and in 1 case, all 3 in the same spot! By 6 PM we called it a day, and turned around for the 1 hour run back to pavement on the washboard gravel FSR main.

 

I was blessed to be able to get out in the hills with each of my sons on subsequent weekends, It felt like our outings when they were both still teens.

 

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Edited by BC witness
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Admin

Cutting trail. Never ending job in a evergreen sea.

 

Pulled 3 ticks off me already. Only seen deer and turkey thus far.

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Great view of a big tamarack budding. Only evergreen to loose its needles each fall.

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I love how the tamaracks turn gold in the fall.

It looks like the little Mohindra is still serving you well.

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1 hour ago, BC witness said:

I love how the tamaracks turn gold in the fall.

It looks like the little Mohindra is still serving you well.


The little diesel just chugs along! Now I have a Western plow for it and plow the 3/4 of a mile drive way!

 

I do too. Tamarack = Home.

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Posted (edited)

I took a few hours this afternoon to go a little further than I had ever been on the east side of Stave Lake, to a spot called Grotto Falls. I didn't quite reach the falls, as that would require fording the river to go up the far bank, and I was solo for this run. As it was, I had to take a couple of pretty sketchy bypasses around some washouts, the first one of which had a young lady winching her Jeep to get out of, as she couldn't make it without a locking axle. Even with my rear locker engaged, I had to make 3 attempts to get up the short, steep climb.

 

The weather was great, a nice warm, sunny spring day in the mountains, so it was a pleasure to be out there. I didn't see any game or obvious tracks along the route, but I enjoyed the time in the mountains anyway.

 

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Edited by BC witness
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My HS buddy and his wife (with no shoes) and Canuck buddy and I got a day of exploring in on the east side of Priest lake. Lots of sledders parked all over the place to access all the higher snow.

 

Ate lunch at the Moose Knuckle!👍

 

Lots of Moose sign. Saw some deer and that was it.

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