Rosedale - Harrison Traverse |
Thursday, November 26, 1998
Participants |
Well, the road from Rosedale to Harrison Lake actually exists. It is a fairly flat road, easy 2wd for most of it, making for a nice run for stock vehicles. We left for the high country at 9:30 am, with nice-looking weather. Stopped at the usual Subway in Chilliwack to pick up lunch, and headed out. Naturally, it started raining heavily when we got to the trailhead on Lougheed Hwy (Lougheed Hwy-Ruby Creek FSR). Shane and I got out to lock our hubs, then we all started up the road.
Although our actual destination was the Rosedale-Harrison traverse, we took a right at the fork to check out the road to Slollicum Peak. This is a winding, overgrown, poorly maintained road, in urgent need of cross-ditching; throughout our climb we were constantly driving in what resembled a fast-flowing creek. I think that once the rainy season is over the road might actually present a challenge due to washouts and erosion.
We encountered falling snow at 700m, and shortly after this we encountered a large amount of fallen trees across the trail (we had just had a week's worth of 120km/h winds). This, in combination with the fact that the snow was getting deeper, made us decide to turn around. We stupidly elected to eat lunch here, freezing our butts off while shielded from the large, white flakes by Brad's liftgate. I, of course, was drinking an ice-cold lemonade/7-up mixture, which didn't help matters. After lunch, the trip back down was uneventful save for a wayward branch that surgically removed the center section of Shane's factory rear wind deflector.
We decided to check out some more spurs as we had plenty of time left. One road we tried had a washed-out bridge; looking across the creek we could see that no road maintenance had occured lately as evidenced by moderate-sized rocks on the road at the creek exit point. Brad and Shane took their *stock* IFS 4Runners through the creek, and climbed up the rocks with no problems. When I crossed the creek, I picked a crummy line, and wound up snagging a front U-bolt on one of the rocks. I had to reverse into the creek and over some rocks (*bang* *crash*) to try out a different line.
After several attempts, I eventually got out of the creek and up over the rocks, much to my embarassment. Shane was grinning, and Brad was cackling away like the Wicked Witch of the West Coast. I am thinking of swapping out my solid front axle for IFS now! =) The road went in for a while, and got too overgrown and snowy for our liking, so we turned around and headed for the traverse. I got my revenge at the creek crossing though, as I heard Shane's "slightly worried" voice on the VHF saying "Help, I think I'm going to roll." I was already across, so I quickly reversed and spun around in case the winch was required. Looking across the creek, I could see that Shane was off-camber on the rocky hill leading back into the creek, in one of those tippy feels-worse-than-it-actually-is situations, due in part to the extremely long travel of his rear suspension. I guided him off the rock he was resting on, to the relative safety of the creek.
The majority of the Lougheed Hwy-Mahood Creek FSR traverse was easily-travelled in 2wd, with numerous spurs into logged cuts that we did not check out. There was lots of standing water on the road from the rain, which we slowed down for, so as not to soak our electrical systems. The bridge at Mahood Creek was washed out, necessitating a creek crossing via an off-camber entry. The creek can be crossed with a stock vehicle if you are careful and the water isn't flowing too fast (otherwise, the creek will dump you over a 3' waterfall and you'll be hating it); just be wary of the water depth with respect to the height of your air intake. When we crossed it, the water got to near the top of the 4Runners' 31" tires.
We drove past Deer Lake and Hicks Lake, and finally ended up at Sasquatch Provincial Park. Our egress here was blocked by a large ditch, but somebody had made a bypass around it. The bypass was off-camber and quite narrow (I had at least .5" clearance between the trees and my roofline, Brad had about 4" clearance (no lift, rounded corners), and Shane had, uh, -.5" by the look of the two dents at the rear of his truck (roofline and body line). Is this called "tree-hugging"? =) We attributed this to the fact that Shane has 1.5" rear Downey coils (okay, so he's not quite stock, but I still should have made it out of that creek!), and a more square body shape than Brad (his 4Runner, that is).
From there, it was a quick jaunt out of the park to the Harrison East FSR, and then back through Harrison Hot Springs to civilization, with a stop at the Maple Ridge White Spot for dinner.
Also read Shane's trip report.
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