Blue Mountain |
Saturday, April 25, 1998
Participants |
We met up at the Burger King at Lougheed Hwy and Dewdney trunk at about 9:30 am, and headed off towards Blue Mtn. The Blue Mtn FSR is located in Maple Ridge, and is accessed from McNutt Road, north of Dewdney Trunk Road. Blue Mtn is gated; instructions for obtaining a key are posted at the start of the road.
We locked our hubs, Wil unlocked the gate, and we drove through. We drove up to the first parking lot, where those of us with 33" tires aired down to about 10 psi. A young guy in a stock-looking black '88? Toyota pickup came down the road, and asked us if we knew of any good mud holes in the area! We sent him off to Stave Lake... =)
We put our trucks in 4-Lo, exited the parking lot, slowly drove up the road to the powerlines, and turned left onto the powerline access road. The soil on this road has been eroded by water, leaving mostly rock. The road requires good ground clearance to avoid body and undercarriage damage; I would recommend 33" tires and a 3" suspension lift at minimum, although going too high will make the off-camber sections tricky, if not dangerous.
The road wasn't too bad to begin with, although careful placement of the tires was required to avoid banging diffs on rocks. If you like twisty, rocky, climbs, then this is an excellent trip for you. Wil's plan entailed following the powerlines for a while, then branching off south and doing a loop back to the powerline road.
Brad decided that the road was getting too rough for his stock-height 4Runner, so he parked it at the start of the loop and rode with me, leaving the 4Runner in Ascomb's capable hands (paws?).
Some of the sections were a little tricky, requiring spotters for correct tire placement. On one off-camber downhill section, Ray slid his 4Runner sideways, making for some interesting video footage. I got a rear tire about 45 cm in the air and a good view of a large rock out of the driver's side window; Ray said the expression on my face was priceless! Wil gently rocked my truck back and forth, to show that it was in no danger of rolling.
We came to a large mud puddle in the middle of the road. I was the last truck, and I did not see where Wil and Ray had crossed it, so I picked the left side as it looked pretty good. Ha! Halfway across, my progress was suddenly halted. The mud was up to the top of my tires on the passenger side, and past my hubs on the driver's side. After Ray took some video footage of this, Wil then informed me that he knew the left side was deeper, and that he had seen a truck with 35" tires get stuck here, but he decided not to say anything! Thanks, Wil! =) After sitting there for a couple minutes, I rocked the truck forwards and backwards, and tried to escape. I ended up just spinning the tires, and coating the driver's side of the truck with watery mud. After a few more attempts, I was able to finally drive out. I think the motivating factor was not wanting to get out into the muck and hook up the cable! We stopped here for lunch, and I wiped the mud off my side window.
Down towards the south end of the loop, we encountered the remains of a collapsed log bridge. The sides of the bridge were still intact, spanning the creek, but the bridge deck had fallen into the creek. We carefully drove over the fallen logs and through the shallow creek. Good thing we had narrow vehicles.
Shortly after this, I heard the sound of dirtbikes. We stopped to let the bikes pass us, and continued on. At the southern end of the loop, we had a view of a new housing development.
Once we turned to the north again, we arrived at Wil's Waterfall, a series of stone steps with water running down them. The weather was nice, so there wasn't too much water flow. Wil, who was showing us how to properly scale this obstacle, engaged his ARB lockers and climbed his front tires up the first step. When his back tires contacted the step, they spun, and his truck slid sideways. When he tried to move forward again, he managed to contact the embankment with the driver's rear corner of his box, and break his tail-light lens and crease the box. This prevented him from backing up, and committed him to the line he was on. Once he was clear of the step, he had no problem climbing up the rest of the way.
I chose an easier route, not having lockers. However, I was unable to make it up one of the steps, and had to get tugged over it by Wil. Near the top, I couldn't make it past a log, and got some wood jammed between my driver's front rim and the tire. I removed most of it with my knife, and I had the rest removed at Big-O the next day. Picking a different line enable me to easily get past.
Ray engaged his ARBs, and made it up without incident, although he got a front tire and a rear tire in the air at the same time when he bounced over one of the steps.
Near the end of the trail, Ray slid off a rock, and peeled off a 12 cm-long section of the inside bead of his driver's front rim. He drove up to a flat section of the road, accompanied by the hissing sound of escaping air, and we Hi-Lifted his truck up and changed the tire. Ray says he's going back to steel rims.
While we were changing it, we heard some yelling from up the road, saying that there was a problem, and asking where we were. Wil went to investigate, and found that a mountain-biker had broken his chain. Luckily, the mountain-biker was able to repair the chain, and did not require our assistance.
We had travelled about 14 km in total, all in 4-Lo, in about 6 hours. It was a welcome change from the logging road exploration-type driving that I am used to, and served as a useful educational experience which showed me some of the abilities and the limitations of my truck.
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