Sunday, July 16, 2000

Note: Grumpy's real name is Dave, but I will refer to him only as Grumpy to avoid confusion with Dave Arthur from Ontario. This trip report was written on March 24-25, 2001, eight months after the fact, so it won't be nearly as detailed as most of the trip reports, and some of the route details may not be exact. My problem is that these trip reports take so long to write, they impact on my 'wheeling time, so during the peak 'wheeling season they just don't get written.

I think this was one of the monthly Lionsgaters trips. If it was, we would have met at the Park & Tilford White Spot restaurant in North Vancouver, then headed out after breakfast. I'm not sure who's idea it was to head to Garnet Creek, as we had just been in the area the week before.

Much of the first part of the trip was the same as the first part of the last trip; we took Hwy 7 (Lougheed Hwy) out past Agassiz, then got onto the Lougheed Hwy - Ruby Creek FSR and hit the power-line access road. At the start of the descent to the Garnet Creek crossing (the road we had trouble finding last time), Pam suddenly noticed a whole lot of steam billowing from beneath her hood, and discovered that she had blown a heater hose. Fortunately, the break was right near the end of the hose by the clamp, so she cut the end of the hose off and re-clamped it. She gently eased her Jeep down the trail to the first stream she found, where she refilled her radiator.

The water level at the Garnet Creek crossing was lower than last week, and we all made it across without incident. We switchbacked up to the American Creek FSR, and turned left to check out the Garnet Creek area. This entire area had been logged years ago, which left plenty of roads and spurs for us to explore.

We followed the main road, checking out a few off-shoots on the way. We noticed a really rough-looking road to our left, and made a mental note to check it out on the way back if we returned via this road. We switchbacked up across the mountain face, and the lead vehicles could see the middle and last vehicles on the road below. The road eventually ended high up in an old logging cut, so we turned around and headed back to the rough-looking road. On the way back down, we stopped to play on some rocks at the side of the road while we waited for the stragglers. :)

We headed back down to the rough-looking road and checked it out. A deep, rocky ditch was between us and road, and it looked like the road was all torn up. There were dirt mounds and loose rocks, and it looked like it continued on in that fashion for a while as it disappeared around the corner. Just what the doctor ordered!

I think Doug went first, and Grumpy went second; I can't remember, but I don't recall either of them experiencing any problems. Pam went next; she firmly planted her front bumper into the rocks and bent her new license plate and knocked a bumper-mounted off-road light out of alignment, but made it through. I was next; I got out to take a look at the terrain, and it looked like I'd have to enter the ditch, climb out up a steep dirt mound, and turn hard right in the middle of the mound to get onto the flat part of the road. I don't remember it being too difficult, but I do remember banging my rear bumper on the rocks on the road side of the ditch due to the steep entry and exit angles of the ditch.

Dave was next; he had some difficulty with the ditch sides as he was stock height, with more overhang than the Jeeps. However, with some spotting and a lot of metal-on-rock noises, he was able to make it through. For a stock-height vehicle, he's sure willing to take it through some rough obstacles.

Finally it was John's turn; John entered the ditch, and on his way through he banged the bottom of his spare tire on the rocks, which managed to unlatch his swing-away tire rack. Doug yelled at him to stop, and re-latched the rack. This happened a couple of times, and then he was through.

We started up the rough section of road, getting a bit off-camber in one location. I think Pam got a stuck momentarily here, and it was at that time that I noticed that her passenger front shackle had inverted itself. We suspected that this had occured when she ran her front bumper into the ditch, where she most likely also hit the shackle. Grumpy and John helped her fix it, while Doug, Dave and I continued along the trail to see if it went anywhere.

The road smoothed out shortly, but it was extremely overgrown at this point as nobody else had driven past the earlier obstacles since they were placed there. We followed the road through thick saplings that were growing up through the middle of the travelled portion of the road, skirting a couple of rock slides and climbing slowly up the mountain. At times it was quite difficult to see where the road actually was, due to all the overgrowth. In a couple of years, this road will be totally gone, having been reclaimed by the forest. The road forked; we checked out both forks but they both ended at old logging cuts. The rest of the group had finished with Pam's shackle by then, so we turned around and headed back out.

We did our usual bumper-banging to get through the ditch again; I managed to plant my front bumper into the rocks with a loud *CLANK*, proving to Pam that it's not just a Jeep thing. :) We headed off back down the road to the Ruby Creek FSR, where we went south and took the south end of the American Creek FSR back to Hwy 7. Another nice, relaxing day in the sun.

Photos by Doug.

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