Greg's 4wd Page

Trip pictures have been thumbnailed starting with the 1999 trip reports. Mousing over the thumbnails will give an explanation or comment; clicking on the them will you give you the full-sized versions. Pictures will open up in a new browser window; click the "X" in the top right-hand corner to close the window and return to the trip report. This allows the bandwidth-impaired to return to the trip report without having to wait for the whole thing to load again.

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Note: Starting May 2003, all new ATV trips reports will be posted at Quads.ca, my ATV website.

2003 | 2002 | 2001 | 2000 | 1999 | 1998 | 1997 | Short Takes

2003

Cool Trails and Hot Springs in the Kootenays (Kootenay area) - April 18

Spinal Tap (Chilliwack area) - ATV - February 23

Technicalities (Chilliwack area) - ATV - February 9

The Beaches of Harrison County (Harrison area) - ATV - January 26

Triple Dunk (Harrison area) - ATV - January 19

2002

Vedder Ridge (Chilliwack area) - ATV - October 27

Coquihalla Toll-Free (Coquihalla Hwy area) - ATV - August 25

ATV Weekend (Chilliwack and Squamish areas) - ATV - August 17 & 18

A Chance Encounter (Whistler area) - May 26

Heading to Hedley (Princeton and Hedley areas) - May 17 - 20

Peer Pressure (Squamish area) - April 14

The Easter Bunny Road Trip (Salmon Arm area) - March 29 - April 1

Cheakamus Canyon (Squamish area) - ATV - March 24

Learning at Liumchen (Chilliwack area) - ATV - March 17

Searching for Sasquatch (Harrison Lake area) - February 23

Tamihi Trail Tour (Chilliwack area) - February 17

Hiking in Yale (Fraser Canyon) - February 9

2001

Brackendale Snow Run (Squamish Area) - December 1

Off the Deep End (Hope area) - November 18

Remembrance (Merritt area) - November 10 - 12

Deroche Mountain Quest (Harrison Lake area) - November 4

Pilgrimage (Walhachin to Boston Bar) - October 6 - 8

Summer Mine Exploration Trip (Greenwood area) - July 22 - 28 (please be patient; contains 523 thumbnails)

Into the Great Wide Open (Boston Bar, Merritt, and Spences Bridge areas) - May 18 - 21

Friday the 13th: The Rattle of Death (Kamloops and Merritt areas) - April 13 - 15

Solitaire (Chilliwack area) - March 10

2000

Beyond Hope (Hope area) - December 3

Botanie Valley Exploration (Lytton, Lillooet, and Pemberton areas) - August 5 - 7

Garnet Creek Play Day (Hope area) - July 16

A River Runs Through It (Hope area) - July 9

Logging Frogmoore (Merritt, Kamloops, and Boston Bar areas) - June 29 - July 2

Relaxing at Mamquam (Squamish area) - June 18

Upper Hut Lake With Guests (Squamish area) - June 4

A Bird's Eye View (Eagle Ridge, Coquitlam) - May 28

Okanagan Trestle Tour (Manning Park to Kelowna) - April 20 - 24

The Lost Boys (Thompson River Valley to Coquihalla) - March 20 - 23

Eagle Ridge Snow Crawling (Coquitlam) - February 6

1999

Cam's Folly (Stave Lake West) - December 30

Boxing Day Run (Stave Lake East) - December 26 (Includes the Tale of Jon Bruce's CJ7 from Dec 17)

Waterworld (Dewdney and Stave Lake East) - December 12

Poison Mountain Expedition (Pemberton to Boston Bar) - September 3-6

The Gold Rush Tour (Coquihalla to Princeton) - July 22

North of Princeton (Princeton to Pennask area) - July 15

Stave Lake Canada Day Trip (Mission area) - July 1 (Located on the BC4x4 website)

Stave Lake Stocker Run (Mission area) - May 20

The Magical Mystery Tour (Fraser Canyon and Thompson River Valley) - April 2-4

Broken Toys on Blue Mountain (Maple Ridge) - March 28

Revenge of the Waterfall (Blue Mtn; Maple Ridge) - March 20

1998

Rosedale - Harrison Traverse (Harrison Lake area) - November 26

Clear Creek (Harrison Lake area) - September 27

Starvation Lake (Squamish area) - September 24

Return to Blue Mountain (Maple Ridge) - August 22

Blue Mountain Bronco-Busting (Maple Ridge) - August 3

Upper Hut Lake (Squamish area) - July 1

The Picnic Run (Coquihalla to Boston Bar) - June 13

Squamish River Valley (Squamish area) - April 30

Blue Mountain (Maple Ridge) - April 25

Princeton - Peachland - Spences Bridge - April 9-13

Stave Lake (Mission area) - April 1

1997

Mamquam FSR (Squamish area) - September 24

Whipsaw (Princeton area) - August 22-24

Sunrise Lake (Harrison Lake area) - April 24

Short Takes

Jeep Thrills

September 10/00: It was supposed to be a routine Jeep rescue mission. I got home from an all-day scavenger hunt/dinner party around 01:00h, checked my email, and saw that Jason Ramsey had broken his rear D35C at Upper Hut Lake during the day. Larry Soo had sent out a request on the BC4x4 mailing list for a backup rescue vehicle to head up the trail at 06:00h, so naturally I volunteered. Got no sleep that night. Ryan Comber had never been to Hut Lakes before, so he wandered over to my place in the morning and we met up with Larry on the highway. Jonathan Yim also came out; and met up with us in Squamish. After Jason's YJ was repaired, Larry, Jonathan, and I decided that we might as well do the last two obstacles since we were there. The above photos show what happened when Larry picked the wrong line, and fell off the ridge on the way out of the Trench. Since he was unable or unwilling to exit from his vehicle, I pulled his winch cable, attached it to a large tree about 80º to the right (via a tree-saver strap of course), took some pics with Ryan's camera in case he tried to deny it later, and winched him sideways off the embankment while he steered. No damage! I had to try out a few different lines, but I eventually made it up (I usually have no trouble). Jonathan was having some difficulty picking a line, but after I described a line for him, he had no trouble. Jonathan is famous for keeping all four tires on the ground, so when he got his driver's front tire in the air at the top of the climb, he said "You didn't see that!". :) While turning around, I backed into a large tree hidden by foliage, smashing my passenger taillight and cracking the paint on the box, and then just to spite me, something put a large V-shaped hole in my driver's front sidewall (good thing I have Big-O tires!). I was too tired to drive home, so Ryan played chauffeur while I passed out.

Two Wheel Drive

June 11/00: While out for a Sunday drive at Eagle Ridge, Doug, John, and I decided to tackle the optional climb up to the microwave reflector. Doug and I had made the climb last time, and since this was John's first time here, we got him to try it first. The terrain was quite wet, and after several attempts with different lines he decided he'd quit before he broke something. I was next, and after a couple of attempts I thought I had the right line. As I was climbing a rain-slicked rock face, the front tires suddenly slid to the right, dropping the right front tire into a hole on the down-side of the slope. The truck leaned precariously to the right as both of the left-side tires lifted a couple feet off the ground, hung at the break-over point for a second, then dropped back down on all fours. *whew* Good thing I didn't have somebody sitting in the passenger seat, adding an extra 150-200 pounds to the right side! And too bad you can't make out the expression on John's face in the picture. :) This time, the hill won. Thanks to Doug for the shot-from-the-hip action photo.

Slippery Sidehill

November 99: Somewhere near Dickson Lake, at a landslide on a little shelf road high above "something" in the darkness below: I did this with the lockers off; you can see where I started, and then how far over I slid once I hit that bump on the right. Reversing just slid me more to the left. We attached Doug's truck to my rear bumper via a tug strap and a couple of D-shackles. We tried pulling my truck back, but the front end still wanted to slide down. We attached my winch cable to a large tree approximately 91 degrees to the right (it was slightly behind the front of the truck, but the roller fairlead and ARB front bumper made this angle possible), and as Doug pulled me backwards, I operated the winch from inside the cab and let the cable out a little at a time to "pendulum" the truck off the sidehill. Who says "stocker" runs aren't fun?? :)

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