Clear Creek |
Sunday, September 27, 1998
Participants |
The Clear Creek of old used to be a very difficult trail before it was closed down. The BC Forest Service recently reopened it, so we decided (the night before) that we would check it out. The weather was nice; sunny but not too hot. We met up at the Guildford Chevron and headed out towards Harrison Lake, stopping for fuel and food in Chilliwack.
We eventually arrived at the Harrison East FSR, where we decided to air down for the washboarded road, more for comfort than of necessity. Several trucks passed us while we were airing down; they were also on the way up to Clear Creek. We ended up passing them later as they had pulled over to enjoy the view or something. We were also able to talk via CB to Jeff Franchuk, who was leading the gang from the BC Off-Road Mailing List through the trails on the west side of the lake. The Harrison East FSR is a logging mainline, and as such was a very easy (albeit dusty) drive. I somehow missed the turn at the Pretty's Timber logging camp, and we ended up driving up the Talc Creek FSR for a short while before Wil realized we had gone the wrong way. We backtracked, took the correct fork, and eventually found ourselves at the start of the Clear Creek FSR (approx 36 km from the start of the Harrison East FSR).
The first few km's were easy; even the cross-ditching had been rock-stacked (not a good sign!). We arrived at the wash-out, where three stock-looking trucks were parked. The wash-out has now been built up, so that the road surface resembled a V. It was easily crossed by placing our tires on each side of the V and just driving through it. The road was rougher from then on, but it wasn't anything really difficult. Many parts of the road were covered in light grey rocks, most of them ranging in size from 8" in diameter to 3' in diameter. Several bypasses around the creek had been built, to stop silt from being stirred up by tires and possibly causing problems with fish. At one spot we were passed by a few dirtbikes.
We finally arrived at the cabin and the hotspring, where we met up with our friends Dan ('82 Toyota pickup) and Dave ('75 Bronco), who had driven up a couple hours earlier. We had lunch, chatted about trucks and trails, and cooled down in the creek. The hot tubs were fairly full with the bikers, a group of hikers, and some campers (owners of the trucks at the wash-out), so we elected to not join the crowd. A few modified Suzuki's drove up a bit later, as did a near-stock Bronco II (3" body lift and 31" Mud-Terrains; one of the trucks from the wash-out). Also later driven up were an old Land Cruiser, an early-80's Toyota pickup, and another early Bronco. Everyone checked out each others' trucks, and our group chatted about the usual things 'wheelers chat about while hanging out at the end of the trail.
Wil told me a bit about the history of the place; the cabin ("Ruth's Reach") was once owned by a couple of prospectors; when her husband died, Ruth kept on prospecting. She died back in the seventies. Wil mentioned that friends of his had built the front stairs and shored up a corner of the cabin, back before the road was closed. Dan and Dave checked out the cabin, and made some plans for repairing sections of it now that 4-wheelers are being allowed into the area again.
We decided to head back to town while we still had light; the drive out was uneventful. On the way back along the Harrison East FSR, we stopped to play in the huge sand piles, and took a couple of pics after we all successfully climbed the hills. I think we had more fun there than on the Clear Creek road, judging from the grins on everyone's faces!
Verdict: Clear Creek is essentially "paved". Stock trucks can make it if they don't mind a bit of undercarriage banging. Rock stacking is NOT necessary. The road is fairly wide, so you won't incurr much pinstriping (some people care about this; I don't). We were all pretty disappointed at how easy the road was; in fact, nobody even wanted to bother writing up a trip report. Hopefully the road will be better (ie. tougher) after the winter and the ensuing spring runoff.
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