Saturday, February 23, 2002

Colin phoned me Friday night, wanting to know if I wanted to head out to the Ruby Creek area the next day. Sure, why not! We met up with his co-worker Paul, who had never been 4-wheeling before, and headed east on Hwy 7. As we approached Agassiz, we noticed that the snow line was quite low, only a couple hundred feet up. It appeared that while we got rained on in town, the Fraser Valley got a dusting of snow. We also knew that the Coquihalla Hwy in the next valley to the west had been closed due to snow within the last couple of days. Hmm, could be interesting! A strong wind was blowing against us, with the odd cross-wind pushing our trucks towards the right side of the road.

We turned left onto the Ruby - Lougheed Hwy FSR, where we aired down and locked in our hubs. Or at least I did; Colin forgot and stopped again to lock his. The strong wind blew cold air through our cabs, and I was glad my Gore-Tex jacket was windproof. We checked out the first trail on the left; it was a bit overgrown, and wound down a steep, loose grade, and ended at a cut clearing. The dirt was loose and muddy, and I had to spin the tires a bit to reverse back up the hill to where I could turn around. Another branch required a traverse over a "little" ditch; the dark, muddy water didn't look deep, but when I drove into it I found out it was around 35" deep (top of the tires). It had some root and wood debris beneath water; I could see some of it sticking up out of the surface. I tried to climb up a dirt ledge to access the road beyond the ditch, but was unsuccessful as the dirt on the ledge was too loose for the front tires and the ditch was too muddy for the rear tires. I suppose that if it was the only way out of a trail network I would have tried a bit harder, but it wasn't, and rather than risk breakage I decided to explore another trail. While reversing, I hooked an inch-thick branch between my rear axle and my parking-brake cable, bending my LSPV lift-extension bracket. I reached under, snapped the branch in half to remove it, and bent the bracket back to it's usual vertical position.

We exiting that little section of road, and proceeded up the main road again. We turned off onto the next trail, a sharp angle on the right side of the road. The road split and we took the left fork. It split again; Colin took the right path which led to a wide-open field and a no-trespassing sign by a wood building. I took the left fork which wound around through the trees. I recognised this road as the one that Jud led us on back in April 1999, and called Colin on the VHF to tell him that the path I took would go through. Since I knew about the upcoming mud hole, I avoided it by taking the longer trail that curved around and put us back on the original trail just past the mud hole. Actually, I don't even know if that mud hole is still there; I should have looked. I got snagged by a long, 3"-diameter fallen tree that twisted a fender-mounted antenna bracket as I attemped to use the left fender and A-pillar to push it up and over the truck, so Colin whipped out his bow saw and removed it.

We got on to a powerline road just past the wood structure, having circumnavigated the private property. The powerline road took us to the network of roads that we explored back in November 2001 when I drowned my truck in Garnet Creek. Much of the roads were still covered with snow, although it wasn't deep. We headed up to the powerline towers, and stopped for lunch on a bluff overlooking the valley. The wind was still blowing strong, and it blew my Subway sub right off my hood. Fortunately, Murphy was nowhere in sight, and the sub landed on top of the wrapper when it hit the muddy ground. :) Paul was being a wimp, and mostly stayed inside Colin's truck while Colin and I braved the winds outside. The wind chill was enough to freeze moisture on plants, and I snapped a couple of photos of thick ice forming on the weeds. The whole area was pretty wet, and water was running down the rocky trail in the ruts from our tires. I snapped a quick photo of the sun glinting off the snow-encrusted radio repeater tower on top of Dog Mountain to the northeast, and we turned around at the end of the trail, by a powerline tower.

On the way out, I spotted a little trail that I think was the one I'd been looking for since the November 2001 trip, so we backed up and checked it out. It was really overgrown, and our mini-truck bodies barely fit through the trees. I stopped in a clearing just before a creek crossing; it was obvious that no trucks had been past this point for a few years, and it was so narrow that I didn't want to try it. To cross the creek, we would have had to climb a small berm, crank the wheels hard, put the passenger side into the creek, and squeak our way through the trees while off-camber. I hiked down the trail for about a kilometer; the trees just kept getting thicker until the trail was barely ATV-width, so I'll be back with the ATV when the weather gets nicer. We turned around and headed back to the main trail.

Back at the main trail, we decided to keep out of the snow, so I headed for the Lougheed Hwy-Mahood Creek FSR. This road would lead us to Sasquatch Provincial Park and the Harrison East FSR. We had plenty of time, so we checked all of the spurs along the way (these are the spurs that I didn't check out the last time I was here in November 1998. Each one climbed up for a short distance, and ended at a logged cut. One deactivated road had a large berm followed immediately by a large ditch at it's start; Colin banged his rear bumper on the way in, and both of us banged our rear bumpers on the way out. The two creek crossings were low, although some stock vehicles might experience difficulties with the entry into the first creek, a 2-foot drop. Just before the entrance to the second creek crossing, Mahood Creek, the road narrowed and got a little off-camber between a tree growing out of a bank and a large boulder, and Colin lightly nudged the boulder with his right rear rim. Unfortunately, along the road midway between the two crossings, some losers had dumped and burned their Honda Civic, and have no doubt reported it stolen. It's actions like this which will get our trails closed down.

Just past Mahood Creek, we encountered a large berm across the road. I exited my truck for an inspection; this was a large berm followed by a very deep ditch. It looked like it was crossable if we were careful, but as it was a deliberate deactivation I decided to walk on ahead to see what lay around the corner. Sure enough, just around the next corner, I saw what looked like a landslide. Dirt, rocks, and log debris covered the entire travelled portion of the road. We got out to inspect it; it turned out that this was another deliberate road deactivation, as part of the hillside had been pulled down, and the road surface immediately before and after had been deeply carved out by a backhoe. This was definitely not passable. End of the road! The traverse through to Sasquatch Provincial Park is no longer driveable. We turned around, and headed back to the Ruby - Lougheed Hwy FSR.

On the way back to the highway, we checked out a promising-looking powerline road to the right; it went in a couple of kilometers and ended in an open field beneath some powerline towers. It was strangely well-maintained for a road that really didn't go anywhere. From this road, we could see the glittering water of Hicks Lake, 1.5km's to the west. Once again, we exited back to the main road. I pointed out a snowy mud puddle at the 5km mark, telling Colin that that was an alternate exit from the gas pipeline route that we were exploring the last time we were out here in November. He wanted to show Paul the climb, so around the 4km mark, we took the steep climb up to the gas pipeline right-of-way, and descended back down to the T and exited through the mud puddle back at the 5km mark. Back down the road again, hmm, sure looks familiar! We finally arrived back at Lougheed Hwy, where we unlocked our hubs and headed to Michael's Cafe in Dewdney for dinner.

Paul had a great time, and is looking forward to another outing. Colin and I didn't break anything, so it was a good day for us as well. :)

If you've been linked to this page, please check out the rest of the site!