Sunday, December 12, 1999

Got a call late last night from John saying "We're going 'wheeling tomorrow to Dewdney, meet at the Mission Arco at 8:30am, are you interested?" Hm, that would mean I'd have to wake up earlier than I would normally wake up to go to work! *#%&! I thought weekends were for sleeping in and relaxing! Okay, twist my rubber arm, I'm in, see you tomorrow.

I woke up the next morning, checked the time, 7:30?? CRAP! I slept through my alarm... Oh well, Doug slept in too; we coordinated with John via VHF radio and we all managed to arrive at the Arco shortly after 8:30. Gassed up for the very reasonable price of 42.6 cents/litre (compared to 63.9 in town!), waited to see if anyone else was going to show up, then headed off to the Inch Creek FSR in Dewdney. Aired down at the quarry in the pouring rain, and I took the opportunity to remove a piece of my muffler that had been rattling around for a while (it was the entire outer skin; time for an exhaust I guess).

After a couple of km's we took the long-cut off the main road (well, it sure wasn't a short-cut!); it's a neat little diversion off to the right that climbs down and winds around, crosses a couple of creeks, splashes through some mud puddles, and climbs back up to the main road. Nothing difficult unless you had a bone-stock vehicle, which we did not. :)

We were looking for the short-cut which turned right off the main road and dropped us at the powerlines; I was leading and accidentally turned at the Cyr Creek FSR instead, and we found ourselves heading up to a logged area. We turned around just past a narrow sidehill that forced us to drive between a door-eating stump and a drop-off, while crossing a little creek.

We eventually found the short-cut, and soon took the turn-off to Dickson Lake. We hit snow less than a km off the main road; a wet, heavy snow, and it was raining/hailing/wetly snowing all during this time. Heck of a lot more snow than last week, and it was slippery. I slid off the road at one cross-ditch; we figured that it would only get worse and since Dickson Lake lies at the bottom of a very l-o-n-g drop we turned around a short distance later. Back to the main road; we hit snow again within a couple of km's. We drove through the snow until we couldn't go any further (well okay, Doug was still making forward progress). While Doug was plowing the road up ahead with his front bumper, John was backing up in the snow ruts. Trish said "Okay, you can turn the wheel now" to which John replied that the wheels had been cranked for the last little bit and the ruts were preventing him from turning! I had the same problem, but we eventually were able to get out of the ruts and get turned around.

It was still early, so it was off to Stave Lake via Sylvester Road and the Lost Creek FSR. We checked out a little offshoot to the left just before the Davis Lake Provincial Park boundary; it wound down a ways then got extremely tight when it reached the big trees. It looked like it was more a motorbike trail than anything else, so we turned around. We had lunch on the beach at Davis Lake; a good strong wind was blowing off the lake and it was quite cold. There was lots of water on the road; most of the roads were under a couple inches of water, and some of the mud puddles were almost deep enough to swallow a passenger car or a stock Jeep. The terrain was still fairly easy; the rocks weren't slippery despite all the water, and most of the mud puddles had a solid bottom (except one).

The road that the creek took out (see the July 1/99 trip report) was a bit higher than last time (near the top of my 33" tires) and was flowing VERY quickly; it pushed our trucks downstream in Neutral, and I could hear my rear tires rubbing against the mudflaps which were being pushed forward by the water flow.

We finally got out of the water, and into the muddy, off-camber section. John later said that he really enjoyed this section, although while we were in it he was muttering about how much he hated being off camber. :) At one point he was attempting to climb out of the ruts and up onto the level part of the trail; the back end of his 4Runner decided it liked the ruts better and promptly slid sideways back into the ruts, his roof narrowly missing a tree. Trish pointed out that his tilt-meter was pegged. The mud flats at Stave Lake were still totally flooded; I snapped a couple pics of the dead tree stumps sticking out of the water, and we turned around. Doug and I tried to get John to take the left branch on the way out; unfortunately John remembered the mud festivities from July and elected to ignore our directions. *darn!* :)

We took the right branch through the water; it was only around hub deep or so, and it led down to another debris-strewn area at the edge of Stave Lake. Back up to the main "road" and back into the deep water, this time against the current.

We had to travel upstream a lot slower; the water was flowing extremely fast towards us, and the rushing water was periodically cascading over our hoods. We could feel the current pushing against our trucks; when I took my foot off the accellerator, the truck came to a stop, and started moving backwards. I pulled my truck sideways across the "road" (river??) to take a picture of John's 4Runner in the water, and had water shooting through the holes of my Outlaw II's. I opened my door, and looked at the raging, crashing water just inches below. I put my right foot on my door handle, my left foot on my door sill, and stood up to take the picture. John stopped next to a dead, rotted tree that had fallen into the creek, and opened up his door to get a better angle to see what I was doing. For some reason, he then stepped out onto the fallen tree, and decided he'd jump up and down on the tree to test it (let's see, rotted, fallen, in a creek, duh), and of course it broke *crack* and sent him into the creek *splash* (holy crap, that was funny!!). John was hanging on to his open door so he wouldn't get swept downstream, and was laughing so hard he couldn't pull himself back into his truck. Trish was killing herself laughing as well ("I have to pee!!"), and of course didn't do anything to help him out. LOL! I was stunned for a second, then I started laughing and had to do my best to not to drop the camera into the water. John eventually stopped laughing long enough to pull himself back into his truck (wailing "I'm soaked!!" over the VHF). It would have made a great video clip! Sorry, the pic didn't turn out. :)

I tried to straighten out and discovered the current had moved some rocks around; I was now sitting in four low spots and couldn't move (not stuck, merely temporarily immobilized). I engaged both ARB lockers, and was able to spin my way out. *whew* Doug got his distributor a bit wet which caused his engine to run rough; we quickly cured it with a quick spray of moisture-displacement-in-a-can when we reached dry land. Even though my truck was running just fine, I popped my hood for a quick inspection; EVERYTHING was wet (coil/ignitor, distributor cap, MAF box, air cleaner housing...). Hm, I see a waterproofing project coming up. Doug had the same thought.

We went up to the bridge over Lost Creek to check out the creek crossing that we went across last time; Doug was first; he drove out and promptly dropped his front end into a hole and had fast-flowing water above his top bumper tube (6" lift, 35" tires); we decided it was too deep and too fast for today.

It was starting to get dark by now, so we headed back along the main road, stopping to play around at the sand pile. I got myself off-camber on a sidehill, stopping when my driver's rear tire lifted up off the ground, and John and Doug amused themselves by attempting the hill climb. Doug crawled his front tires up on top of a large log, and we finally headed for civilization. Dinner at John & Trish's, where we planned and plotted more truck mods and future trips. What an excellent 'wheeling day! Had a great time, and it was nice having everyone driving essentially the same trucks (all solid-axle Toyotas, 6" lifts, lockers, and Big-O MT's).

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