Thursday, April 24, 1997

The weather was good; sunny with a slight cloud cover, moderately warm temperature, dry ground. We fueled up at the Harrison Mills Petrocan; and headed for the Harrison West Forest Service Road. Went north about 26km to the Sunrise Lake turn-off, and locked in the hubs.

Sunrise Lake used to have a large sign proclaiming "Four Wheel Drive Only," which has since disappeared. The Sunrise Lake trail has an easy-going first section, with a couple of very minor creek crossings. The trail is slightly overgrown, and the branches and brush gently put the first scratches into my new paint. Further on, two deeply-rutted sections of hill really showed the benefits of axle articulation. With the driver's front tire stuffed up into the wheelwell, I ripped off a mudflap as I attempted to crawl, then managed to scrape a rear rim on a tall rock as I slid sideways into it. Brad with his factory rear locker just walked up over the section... although at the lake itself, he banged something under the 4Runner on "the rock."

Once at the lake, we noticed that the picnic table was gone. Stopped for lunch (Subway sandwiches!), remarked at how smooth and clear the lake was (like glass) and reminisced about doing the same trip one winter while it was snowing. Seemed a bit easier ten years ago! After lunch, we headed back down the trail, teetering on two wheels (one front, opposite rear) on the rutted sections, where I almost inverted my truck when I applied the brakes a little too hard during a teeter (nice view of the ground from the driver's window!). Brad does the two-wheel teeter, and adds a sideways slide for good measure like he planned it.

Back at the West Road we proceeded north, and encountered snow on the road after a few km's (at the 1600 foot level, according to the GPS). We powered through it for a bit (farther than the last truck, based on where the tire tracks stopped), then decided to turn around as it wasn't getting any easier. We back-tracked a couple km's south on the West Road to the Harrison Lookout turnoff, and followed the steadily descending road around the base of the mountain down to the logging camp at 20-Mile Bay. After a snack at the beach at the end of the airstrip, we continued along the road and re-joined the West Road, having by-passed all the snow.

At the north end of Harrison Lake, we took the turn-off and the bridge over to the east side of the Lillooet River, and continued north, checking out various off-shoots along the way. The "auto graveyard" just before Skookumchuk has been totally cleaned up now, with absolutely no evidence of their ever having been dozens of wrecked vehicles there... no broken glass, no rust particles, nothing. Great job to whoever accomplished this feat. I pointed out the old church in Skookumchuk to my navigator/spotter/branch-mover Hank, who had never been in this part of the country before, and also pointed out the hotsprings and the five-or-so graveyards (the human type) along the way. By this point, the road is easily travelled by car, and we made good time up to the pavement at the Duffy Lake Road. Drove back to civilization via the Sea-to-Sky Highway, with a brief stop at the Whistler McDonalds for coffee and burgers. Total time, approximately 14 hours.

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