Friday, April 13 - Sunday, April 15, 2001

Who's idea was it to go 'wheeling on Friday the 13th, anyways? Oh wait, maybe it was mine... We started planning for the trip about a month in advance; by the week of the trip our 12 trucks had dwindled to five. Doug and I installed my newly-rebuilt 1985 front axle housing, ARB locker, and front driveshaft on Wednesday night. I left work early on Thursday to get the front wheels aligned. Terry and I were up until 02:00h Thursday night, getting all of our last-minute preparations done. We woke up at 05:00h, packed the truck, and were finally out the door by 07:00h. Gas was 71.9/litre in town, so I decided to wait until we were out in the Valley before fueling up. A quick stop at McDonald's for a drive-through breakfast, and we hit Hwy 1. I detected a slight pull to the right, and attributed it to a shoddy wheel alignment at the shop.

We stopped for gas in Aldergrove (57.4/litre), then continued on. It started snowing just past Hope, and as Hwy 5 climbed in elevation, we could see the snow at the side of the road starting to accumulate. Somewhere along the big hill, barely audible over the howling tires and the wind noise at highway speeds, I heard a *bang!* What was that?? Hm, nothing indicated on the instrument cluster, and the engine was still running, maybe it was one of those strange drivetrain noises you hear once in a while. By the time we neared the toll booth, the snow was several feet high, so we didn't bother checking out the toll-booth bypass road (it's typically snowed in until May or June). The windshield wipers started to freeze near the Coquihalla Summit, and weren't doing a good job of keeping the snow and road grime off the windshield, so I pulled over to clean the wipers and the headlights once we were through the toll booth. The snow kept up until just past Coquihalla Lakes, and then we were into warm sunshine again.

We picked up Jud and Norm on the VHF radio as we were just north of Kane Valley Rd; they had camped Thursday night near Hwy 5 and Coldwater Rd (exit 256). They took Coldwater Rd into Merritt, paralleling Hwy 5. Ryan and Craig had left from Kelowna the same morning, and we heard them on the VHF as we descended the grade into Merritt. We all met up at the Merritt Chevron for fuel (10:00h), then headed off to the A&W for lunch.

We took Hwy 5 north out of Merritt, and headed to Kamloops. Terry and I went to the Sears to pick up a chainsaw that was on sale during Friday and Saturday only, while Ryan went to Costco to buy a voltage inverter (is this a 4x4 trip, or a shopping trip??). The saleslady at Sears gave me a funny look when I asked her where the hockey masks were. :)

We finally left Kamloops, and headed south on Hwy 5A (the Kamloops - Merrit Hwy). We turned right onto the Roche Lake Rd (watch for cows on the road), a well-maintained gravel road. We passed the Bleeker Lake FSR (8315 Rd), and as we passed a frozen lake, Terry read the sign and wrote down the location as "Lake Aeration". I pointed out the large square hole cut into the ice, surrounded by fencing, with a pump bubbling the water in the middle, and told him that the process was called "aeration" and that lake was actually called Rose Lake. LOL!

The snow soon reappeared on the ground, and we turned left onto the Black Lake Rd, where we aired down. It was then that I discovered the source of the pull to the right; my right-side hub was locked! Who knew! We continued on with Jud in the lead (14:00h), crossed a rusty red cattle guard, and Jud soon found himself stuck in the show (14:13h). Norm gave Jud a tug, then the two of them pulled over to let me by to break the trail. I drove past them, then continued about a km down the trail, with Jud close behind. We stopped when Ryan (tailgunner) announced that he was stuck. I turned around on the trail, but he got himself freed before I got back, so Terry didn't get a photo.

We pressed on; we encountered numerous forks to the left, but we kept to the main road which appeared to always be on the right. We passed beneath power lines, and it soon started to bcome difficult to see the road. At one wide-open area near a campsite I had to guess where the road continued through, as all I could see was snow. The snow was around 3' deep by now, but I could keep driving as long as I stayed on top of the crust and avoided the tree wells. Once in a while I broke through, which necessitated backing up and taking a different line. Just past Bog Lake, on an off-camber incline, I broke through the crust into about 4' of snow; I tried a couple of different lines but kept sliding back into my hole, so I decided to turn around (15:15h). The snow on my driver's side was up past the bottom of my door, and was just getting deeper as we slowly climbed in elevation.

I was able to turn my truck around right there; the others backed out to convenient spots to turn around. Norm accidentally backed too far off the trail when he was turning around, and got stuck when he broke through the crust. As we checked out the snow that was packed beneath his gas tank and diffs, it started snowing again. Some shovelling and a couple of tugs from Jud extricated him (15:40h), and we proceeded back to the Roche Lake Rd without incident. We took a quick break while we decided where to go; it was still snowing even though the sun was shining and warming up my black t-shirt. The melting snow on the ground was turning the dirt into mud. We decided to head over to the west side of Coldwater River to find a camping spot, so we drove back to Hwy 5A (16:17h) and headed south towards Merritt. We were supposed to meet up with Dave and Kelly on Saturday morning; either near the toll booth or near Merritt. Camping near Coldwater River would enable Dave to contact us on VHF once he crested the last hill before Merritt, so we could give him instructions on where to meet us.

Along the way, Terry and I were looking at the body of water to the left, trying to figure out if it was a river or a lake. Parts of it were fairly wide, and parts were as narrow as a stream. I checked the map as I wrote this; apparently it's a chain of three lakes (Trapp, Richie, and Napier). Who knew! I spotted a bald eagle sitting in its nest atop a telephone pole, so I pulled over just past it for Terry to snap a photo (17:10h). Unfortunately, it flew off when he opened his door. I'm always amazed at the size of these nests when I see them. The Douglas Lake Ranch had several large warning signs posted, telling travellers to not get out of their vehicles if they had been in Europe recently, due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

The rest of the group was several km's ahead of me by now, but we were still in contact via VHF radio. I noticed the rattle from my engine getting louder as I pulled into Merritt. As I sat at a stop light at a downtown intersection, my engine died (17:30h). I started it again, and it died again. Huh? I started it again, gave it some gas, and stalled it. I started it one more time, gave it lots of gas, limped it across the intersection (barely), pulled over to the curb, and shut it down. I could smell a burnt metallic smell, the same kind of smell that you'd find at a steel shop. I called on the radio, "I think my engine's toast!"

Once we were all together again, I started it up so they could hear it. It idled extremely rough, with a loud metallic rattle. It almost sounded like rocker noise, so they pushed my truck into a nearby parking lot and I removed the valve cover. Everything looked good; nothing was obviously broken or loose. Jud pulled the coil wire and I turned the engine over; the rockers seemed okay, which meant the problem was bigger than we were prepared to fix. It did turn over nicely though. I phoned a tow truck, and we transferred some of our food to Jud's truck (we were sharing with August). I phoned Doug, and arranged to have the truck towed to his place. I phoned Dave, and left a message on his answering machine telling him what happened, and to meet the group at the Merritt Chevron at 10:00h the next morning. The tow truck arrived; Terry and I said goodbye, and headed back to town. Friday the 13th indeed!

Doug loaned us his Toyota pickup, which we used to retrieve Terry's 4Runner which was parked at my place. We transferred all the gear from my truck to the 4Runner, then headed back to my place. We were done by 23:30h, by far the shortest camping trip that I'd ever done. In fact, we didn't even get to use any of the camping gear or the chainsaw, and we missed out on the communal chili that Craig had made for that night, and the communal fajitas that August had made for Sunday night. Dang! As we sat at my place eating dinner with the gas fireplace warming us, Terry commented that at least we weren't camped out in the snow, freezing our butts off. :)

August was supposed to write the rest of this trip report, but hasn't had the time... Ryan and Norm have pics from the remainder of the trip.

Addendum: Dave and Kelly met up with the rest of the gang in Merritt the next morning, and apparently everyone had a good time. Ryan broke his rear shock mount, got it welded, then broke it again (since replaced with a really beefy mount from TrailMax). From the photos, it looks like they had a good time around the campfire, and ended up on the KVR around Brookmere. Doug and John checked my truck out, and decided that the engine needed a complete tear-down. I ended up towing my truck over to John's shop, where he pulled the engine and discovered that I had a cracked block, a broken piston, and scoring on the camshaft and camshaft center main bearing. John had the engine completely rebuilt at Magnem in Burnaby, and reinstalled it. Good as new, and more power too!

Photos by Terry and Ryan.

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