Friday, September 3 - Monday, September 6, 1999

After much discussing, Brad and I decided that a trip to Mud Lakes and the Poison Mtn/China Head area was in order for the September long weekend. The area was big enough to allow us to spend the entire weekend on the road, and the mixture of terrain would be entertaining for both stock and modified trucks. We put the word out to the Toyota Collective (you will be assimilated, resistance is futile!) and very shortly had about a dozen trucks willing to head out into the wild unknown.

I got up early on Friday to get a few last-minute things done before our 18:00h rendez-vous (oil change, diff fluid change, laundry, packing, etc.). During my travels, August called me on the VHF and said that the front driveshaft I had loaned him a few days ago did not bolt up to the flange on his transfer case! Since I had a few spare t-cases, I had him meet me at my place to see if we could find a flange that would work. Of course, all of my flanges were the same as his, so with time running out, we raced off to Breeze Industries in Coquitlam to see if they could help us out. Mel at Breeze removed and drilled out August's flange, supplied some new Grade 5 bolts, and we installed the shaft and refilled the t-case. Whoo-hoo, 4wd! A huge thanks to Mel. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. We got back to my place around 16:00h, and I still had to pack and drive through rush-hour traffic to West Vancouver for the 18:00h r-v. Terry was already at my house, and had started the packing process.

We met up in West Vancouver at the church at Taylor Way and the Upper Levels Highway. Once everyone arrived and finished checking out each others' trucks, we headed into the sunset along the Sea to Sky Highway. Our destination was the Owl Creek campsite, a BCFS recreation site located about 5 km's north of Mount Currie (east of Pemberton). We arrived at the Owl Creek campsite well after dark, and found it to be surprisingly full. We left the Owl Creek campsite and took the Owl Creek FSR just up the road. We took the right fork, and shortly thereafter found a really nice open area at the side of the road where we set up camp. We retired early as we wanted to get an early start the next day.

I actually never did get to sleep that night; I am used to being awake from around 2:00 pm to around 6:00 am, so it was "conversion night". The rain started up around 5 am, so I got up and moved my gear and a box of firewood under my truck. Strath had woken, and was in the process of putting a tarp over his tent. Once the sun had risen, and I heard others stirring, I got up, and started packing the truck. Since there were only a few still sleeping, I cranked up "Let It Rain" (Amanda Marshall) on the stereo to wake them up. Doug served bacon and eggs for breakfast, and August discovered he had left his utensil box at home (doh!). We loaned him a plate and some cutlery, and elected him to be the official dish washer. :) During his pre-trip, Jud noticed that his brand new driver's front shock had detached itself from it's upper mount (again).

We left Owl Creek, startled a couple of lazy dogs lying in the middle of the road in Mount Currie, and drove through to Pemberton to get fuel at the Petro-Can. Zero to 11 trucks in 5 seconds, as we decended upon the parking lot like a crowd of mosquitos spotting fresh blood! The gas attendants looked a little harried; I guess they weren't expecting to be so busy first thing in the morning. We drove up the Pemberton Meadows road, encountering a long-distance bicycle road-race that ran from Pemberton to just before the turn-off to the Hurley Pass (which probably explained the full campsite the night before). A logging truck was stopped at the first bridge, and I asked the driver for the Hurley road frequency so we could monitor them on the way in. He radioed ahead and warned the other trucks that we'd be on the road. We pulled over at the first wide opening a couple of km's in, and aired down for comfort. Our next destination was Gold Bridge, at the west end of Carpenter Lake.

We took a brief detour along the way (in the vicinity of Lone Goat Creek, I think), trying to find a route that Jud vaguely remembered, but were unsuccessful. We took the road left at the Hurley River campsite, passed Gwyneth Lake, and eventually arrived in Gold Bridge where we bought fuel at the two-pump station for 69.9/litre. We left Gold Bridge, and headed east along the smooth Carpenter Lake road. Carpenter Lake was once a valley with a section of the Bridge River meandering through it, until it was dammed (damned?) by BC Hydro about 15 km's west of the Yalakom River junction, at what is now the Mission Dam. If you look carefully, you can still see the tops of trees poking up from the water in some locations. Terry spotted a small sign that said "Avalanche Radio 96.5 FM".

We took the Mowson Road FSR north from Carpenter Lake, and stopped in at the Mowson Pond recreation site for lunch, delicious barbequed smokies provided by Arminder and Patti. Colin elected to leave us after lunch, citing clutch problems with his Ranger. We drove past the Gun Creek FSR and Tyaughton Lake, and took the Mud Creek - Taylor Creek FSR up towards the Mud Lakes area. Somewhere between Relay Creek and Mud Lakes, Jud led us off the mainline road onto a barely-visible, overgrown track to the left. Jud said on the radio: "If I didn't know this road was here, I wouldn't know this road was here!" Apparently, this was the same road that Doug broke a Samurai leaf spring during a previous trip.

We switchbacked down, and a thick, low branch snagged my passenger windshield-wiper blade, snapping it off at the plastic mount (doh!). We arrived at the creek crossing, where I was elected to be the first vehicle to cross. It looked like there was a bridge spanning the creek at one time, as the road surface on each side was well above the creek level. The crossing consisted of a steep, off-camber drop about 12 feet down to the creek with a large log to avoid on the way down, some 1 to 2-foot-diameter rocks in the hub-deep creek, and a steep 12-foot climb out of the creek on loose rock to the base of a rockslide, where you'd have to make a sharp right turn. I slowly crept down the off-camber section, entered the creek, and tried to climb up the other side. I made it part way up, then just spun the tires. I backed down a bit, engaged the rear locker, then gave it some gas and quickly climbed up and out. I needed a two-point turn at the top, and then I parked the truck and got out to watch the next truck.

Jud was next; he had no trouble decending to the creek, but was unable to make it up the other side. I turned my truck around, and drove up towards the edge. The extrication required a near-90° pull; there was no way to use a snatch block, so I'd have to move up close to his 4Runner, winch his front tires up over the edge, move back, then do a second pull to bring his rear tires up. Jud had recently replaced his poorly-mounted (2 bolts!) Smittybilt front tube bumper with a stock Toyota bumper, and no longer had any front tow hooks. I attached my safety chain around his front IFS crossmember, and attached the chain to my winch cable. I had Brad apply the brakes on my truck, and I winched Jud out with two pulls. During this winch session, I walked backwards and managed to trip and do a slow-motion fall backwards over a large rock that had magically moved itself into my path. I landed on my butt on the rock, but was still off-balance and was still hanging on to the winch remote, and instead of attempting to break my fall, I slowly toppled backwards off the rock onto the ground. Apparently, it was quite hilarious for everyone else. There was enough time for Arminder to say "Hey Patti, check this out!" as I was falling, for her to see it happen. I blame it on my lack of sleep the night before.

Brad, Shane, and Ray all had lockers, which allowed them to climb up and out without a hitch. Ray cut his approach a bit close to the log, but some spotting allowed him to squeak by it without making contact. He got about 2 feet of air under his driver's front tire on the way out of the creek, but we didn't get a picture as we were busy staying out of his way. I think the creek is where Brad got the large dent in the driver's side of his factory rear bumper; yet another incentive for him to get something tough fabbed up. :)

August and Strath had to get winched up the hill, as they didn't have lockers and couldn't get enough traction to get out under their own power. Strath banged his tow-hook and front valance on one of the rocks in the creek, but other than that they didn't have any other problems. Arminder, Doug, and Brian wimped out for various reasons, and drove back to the mainline road to take the bypass.

The road from the creek crossing to the mainline was a rough, narrow, twisting shelf road that bumped and switchbacked up around a couple of mountains before it rejoined the mainline. It was a nice change from the mainline roads we were on before, and gave some really nice views of the surrounding mountains. Our VHF radios allowed the two groups to maintain contact between valleys (and in fact also allowed us to spread out to avoid the dust from the previous vehicle while travelling the mainline roads). We met up with the rest of the group, then got off the mainline again onto another barely-visible track that cut through a logged area before entering the forest.

We eventually arrived at Mud Lakes, where we set up camp in a wide-open field north of Mud Lake South. Dinner was tasty fajitas by August, supplemented by an awesome potato salad from Arminder and Patti. After an entertaining session of jokes and riddles around the campfire, we retired to bed. I had no problems sleeping that night, although I woke up a couple times when the wind whipping the tarps got really loud. Shane and Josee actually got up and packed their tarp away in the middle of the night due to the excessive noise.

Bright and early the next morning, we awoke to a cold wind. I heated up some soup on Brad's stove, and got some bacon and eggs from Doug. Arminder had complained of an intermittent squeaking noise in his driver's-side front end the night before; Doug dismantled the hub and diagnosed a loose wheel bearing. It was quickly fixed, much to Arminder's relief. Shane had to start a new job in Duncan on Tuesday, and Brian's Cherokee was having an electrical problem, so they headed for home after breakfast. The rest of us headed out along the twisty dirt road towards Swartz Lake.

We drove down a steep section with a off-camber, water-eroded rut carved into it; Jud and Doug just zoomed over it like it wasn't there; Ray asked me to suggest a line for him, and Arminder spotted Ray, August and Strath through it. Strath, a relative newcomer to 4-wheeling, was absolutely thrilled when he got his rear tire a foot off the ground. Arminder said he didn't require any spotting, but managed to get his wheels turned the wrong direction on the bank and was in danger of rolling; a quick reverse and correction avoided the problem. I just crawled over the obstacle and didn't even get a tire off the ground. Brad zoomed over it, and bounced his driver's rear tire about 2 feet into the air. His 'wheeling experience stopped him from applying the brakes at that time, which would have probably flipped his truck.

We were now spread out over several km's, so each truck waited at the forks in the roads for the next truck. We did several minor creek crossings, and during an uphill climb, we found Camilo Aguiar's red S-10 parked at a switchback. In fact, I was so busy looking at it, that I drove into a water-eroded rut on the road. I gave a couple of yells to see if he was close by, then left a note saying "hi" on his windshield. Strath got stuck in the same rut, but after some coaching from Brad he was able to continue on. We drove through several km's of dusty roads high up at the tree line, and finally spotted the barren hulk of Poison Mountain towering up above the surrounding landscape. We met up with some BC4x4 list members at the bottom, including Camilo, Ryan Gates, Wes Remple, and some others. Apparently, Camilo had broken a torsion bar, and they were going back to the truck later.

We began the steep climb up Poison Mtn; I climbed up with open diffs until I felt the wheels start to slip, then I engaged the rear locker. Ray complained that it felt that he either didn't have 4wd or his lockers weren't engaging. Brad said he saw Ray's front tires spinning, so we decided to check out the ARB system later on at lunch. We arrived at the stone cairn at the top of the mountain, where we exited our trucks and stepped out into a wild, rushing wind. I had to put my jacket on inside the truck as the wind would have ripped it out of my hands if I tried to put it on outside. Terry, on the windward side, couldn't even open his door, and had to exit the truck through the driver's door. We were 2256m above sea level, at the peak of the tallest mountain in the area. The view from the top was spectacular, and words can't decribe the feelings we felt standing at the peak. The wind was so strong we could lean into it and it would support us. If we stood straight up, we'd get blown over. I spent a couple minutes facing into the wind, eyes closed, arms apart, hair blown back, jacket whipping around me, totally enjoying the sensation. Ray said that the wind effect was very similar to jumping out of a plane. The wind grabbed Jud's camera out of his hands, and sent it crashing to the ground, breaking off the back cover (doh!). When Jud picked up the camera pieces, he received an electric shock. We had to press on, so it was with regret that I climbed back into the truck. I turned the truck around so that the passenger door was on the leeward side for Terry to open; Ray and Marc weren't as coordinated and when Marc opened Ray's passenger door, the wind ripped it out of his hands and it creased and bent Ray's fender (DOH!). On the way down, Strath commented that standing at the top of Poison was the coolest thing he'd ever done.

We left the mountain, wound around through the forest, and pulled into a pleasant creekside spot near the Yalakom River for lunch. I checked out Ray's ARB setup, diagnosed a flakey compressor power switch, and got it working again. Near the end of lunch, droplets of rain began sprinkling us. Looking up, we could see no clouds above us, but there were some dark grey clouds a few km's away above a mountain range. We figured that the wind was blowing the rain towards us, so we quickly packed up before it got worse. Somebody spotted John Edgar and Sue Duxbury zooming along a road above our location, and August briefly talked to them on CB Ch-4.

The rest of the Poison Mtn - China Head traverse was uneventful. We followed South French Bar Creek for a while, crossed over to the next valley by Ward Creek, and we soon found ourselves winding down the switchbacks towards the Big Bar ferry at the Fraser River. The descent was long and extremely steep; Doug went down in too high a gear and had smoking brakes by the time he reached the bottom. I put the truck in 1st gear 4-low, and crawled all the way down at 4000 RPM without using any brakes; I think it took about 30 minutes. The view of the Fraser River canyon was excellent; Arminder commented that the terrain looked like an alien landscape. The Big Bar ferry has a two-vehicle capacity, and is a free service provided by the BC Highways Dept. It is a "reaction" ferry, and uses the water current against large directional rudders to power itself across the river. Once across the Fraser, Ray mentioned that his newly-installed clutch was chattering all the way down the descent. Doug quickly adjusted the freeplay, and the chattering went away.

We headed south down the east side of the Fraser River, along a narrow shelf road. We climbed steadily, and eventually found ourselves high above the Fraser. Much of the area is an Indian Reserve, and we spotted a circle of white teepees on a bluff overlooking the river. The switchbacks were numerous and steep; we spotted a wrecked '60's pickup truck at the bottom of one of them. We passed by the High Bar Ferry Road, which Jud said led to the ferry the kids at the Dunroven Ranch across the river utilized to get to school, a daily trip of several hours each way. Just past Barney Creek, we started up a series of very steep switchbacks; the sign at the bottom said the grade was 23%. The first switchback had an abandoned two-story lodge and a detached cabin; the carved sign over the driveway said "Bavarian Ranch". When Terry was walking backwards while sizing the view in the camera, he almost stepped off the edge of the switchback (oops). As we crawled up the switchbacks in 1st gear 4-low, I noticed that the edges of the shelf road were cracked and were in danger of collapsing if there was a good rain, or if a vehicle got too close to the edge.

We finally left the switchbacks of the aptly-named Edge Hills, but due to all the photo stops Terry and I had made, we were about 30 minutes behind the rest of the group, and could barely hear them on the VHF. We soon caught up with Brad and Ray, who were waiting for us at the Porcupine Creek mainline. The rest of the group was scouting out a campsite near Downing Provincial Park, south of Kelly Lake, so we zoomed down the road to meet up with them. I dropped back a bit to minimize the dust from the forward vehicles, so by the time I arrived at a gate marked "Please close gate" it had been closed by an oncoming car. Terry got out, unlatched the gate, and opened it for me. I drove through, and waited for him. I heard him say "Doh!" so I turned around; he had closed the gate and latched it, only to discover that he was on the wrong side of the gate! LOL!! I guess somebody should add "Pass through gate" to the sign for those that aren't bright enough to figure it out for themselves. :)

We set up camp at a small roadside clearing along Kelly Creek; a passerby told us we had just missed seeing a bear at the site by about 20 minutes. Dinner was barbequed hamburgers cooked up by Doug; he had some pretty good flames going in the barbeque which rivaled the campfire. Some of the dripping grease started a small grass fire beneath the barbeque, so I grabbed my water container and we quickly extinguished it. Ray had picked up 40 patties, and we managed to polish off all of them. After dinner, we told bad jokes while Strath amused himself by melting Heineken bottles in the fire in an attempt to make conversation pieces. It started to rain around 01:00h, so we let the fire burn itself out and retired for the night. The rain kept up, getting heavier as the night went on. I woke up a couple of times when the drumming of the pouring rain on my canopy got really loud. The rain stopped some time during the early morning, and we awoke to a damp but sunny campsite. Arminder, August, Ray, and Strath wanted to head for home via the quickest way possible, so they took off for Clinton for gas and breakfast. From there, they'd be able to jump onto Hwy 97, join up with Hwy 1 at Cache Creek, then follow the Thompson River canyon to Lytton where they would take the Fraser Canyon to Hope and then home.

The rest of us made breakfast at the campsite, then headed out down the mainline road towards Pavilion. We passed through the Diamond S Ranch, a huge mega-acre property straddling both sides of the road owned by somebody in West Vancouver. We took Hwy 12 from Pavilion to Lillooet, and stopped at Lightfoot Gas for fuel and ice cream. We got on to the west-side shelf road high above the Fraser River, and headed south towards Lytton. We passed by numerous Indian reservations, some of which contained old cabins and other old buildings. Caution should be used on this road; while it's not difficult it is narrow and twisty, and the drop-offs are sudden and severe. I was travelling a bit too fast in one spot, and bounced my passenger side up on a rock and nearly bounced over the edge. It's a long way down. We found a car part way down the cliff in one spot; not an experience I'd like to have. When we were past Texas Creek, I picked up the other half of the group on the VHF radio; they were on the highway just south of Spences Bridge.

Somewhere in the vicinity of Nesikep Creek, we encountered several RCMP Suburbans (15A units out of Lytton), a Tribal Police Suburban, and an RCMP helicopter. They were all parked at a wide section of the shelf road near some abandoned cabins; no idea what they were doing there. We continued down the shelf road, spotting dual 7-element VHF yagi's (directional beam antennas) on one house on a reserve. The beams were pointed in opposite directions up and down the river, and I was able to spot another pair of antennas at a house on the next reservation south. The most-probable frequency is listed below for those 'wheelers who have scanners; the communications system is likely in use by Tribal Police and fire services.

We stopped for lunch at the Stein River, where we ate sandwiches and barbequed sausages. Brad figured out what was wrong with Jud's camera, and Jud quickly put it back to together and tested it on a huge, bright-green caterpillar. We continued along south down the west-side road to North Bend, where we crossed the bridge to Boston Bar. We aired up at the Boston Bar Esso, then got on to the highway and headed for home. I stopped at the old Alexandra Bridge to show it to Terry, while the others continued on. This is the second Alexandra Bridge; the first bridge, built in 1863, was damaged in 1894 by spring runoff which raised the height of the river by almost 30m. This bridge was built in 1925, and was retired in 1963 when the current bridge was built to handle a higher volume of traffic (pics of the bridge can be seen in the Magical Mystery Tour trip report). We finally headed for home, stopping for dinner and fuel in Sardis. Had a blast as usual, and I'm already thinking of more camping-related mods for the truck.

If you've been linked to this page, please check out the rest of the site!