Friday, August 22 - Sunday, August 24, 1997

It was a nice, sunny day. Some clouds. Hank and I left civilization Friday afternoon, met up with Brad, Jud, Nick, and Jeff in Abbotsford, and headed east. We fueled up at Eastgate Esso, and drove out to the Copper Creek Recreation Site where we met Dave and set up camp. Hank suddenly realized he forgot his sleeping bag (doh!). Steve and Sue arrived around 10:00 pm, and graciously offered Hank their spare bag. Richard arrived at camp around 2:00 am.

Kari arrived at camp the next morning, and after airing down, everyone left camp at 10:00 am. Brad had his GPS feeding data to the mapping program on his laptop computer, to keep a map of where we had travelled (nothing like roughing it!). We took the Friday Creek FSR (Forest Service Road), which was fairly uneventful until the steep downward hill. One truck at a time went down the hill, which was in urgent need of brushing out. It was so steep that I had my brakes fully locked, and I was still sliding. My shoulder belt was actually holding me back; if I wasn't wearing it I would have been falling onto the steering wheel. On the way down, I stuffed the passenger front tire into the wheelwell, bending the fender and ripping off the mudflap. Once everyone was down the hill, we admired everyone's scratches (and my fender) and then continued on to join up with the Whipsaw FSR.

Much of the road was slow-going, with dips, ruts, some rocky areas, and a bit of mud. Some steep 4-low areas. Excellent scenic views, marred only by hooligan-created mud bogs in the meadows. A light rain had started, and we arrived at Wells Lake at around 3:00 pm. We took a vote, and decided to continue on to the "big hill," rather than camp at the lake at such an early hour.

The first truck up the hill was Dave in his open-diffed, winch-equipped Ford. He was doing fine until he got to the holes just before the turn to the right, where he just couldn't make it over the rocks. At one point, he was unable to open his door due to frame flex. After a few attempts, he decided to winch himself up. This same spot would stop most of the non-locked trucks. The Ford was elected to be the official "winch truck", and Dave positioned it to winch trucks past the difficult point via a pulley.

Brad, Kari, and Jeff, each equipped with lockers, made it up the hill without incident. Nick, Jud, and I got caught in the dips, and had to be winched past them. Richard made it up unlocked, using his E-brake to fool his truck into thinking that all wheels had resistance. Sue piloted the unlocked Landcruiser up like it was nothing at all, to the annoyance of those of us who had to be winched. Nick observed that the solid-axle trucks had much more articulation than the IFS trucks.

Once we had recuperated from the hill, we continued on and camped in a clearing a few km's away. We sat around the campfire and talked about "important" things like trucks, trails, television, and the milky way. Hank spotted some recent bear tracks , and the two dogs were barking at "something" in the bush that was quietly crashing around, so Sue set off a bear banger. It got fairly cold that night (there was frost on the grass in the morning), and other than somone's loud snoring (which started at 2:14 am), it was pretty quiet.

After making all signs of the campfire disappear, we left camp at around 10:00 am, via the Badger Creek road. The "tough" mud hole on the way out had dried up, so other than some undercarriage banging, nobody had any problems. It took about an hour of driving the steep, narrow shelf road with it's numerous switchbacks before we arrived at the dirt road that led to Coalmont. We had a brief rest while Dave fixed his windshield wipers, then continued on to Tulameen. We bought ice cream at the general store while the Fords gassed up, and some of us decided to do a run to Treasure Mtn. We said good-bye to Steve and Sue, Richard and Grace, and Dave and Tabitha, and headed out of Tulameen along a well-maintained dirt road.

We stopped for lunch at a waterfall, and spent some time climbing around the interesting rock formations before continuing on. We eventually arrived at the Britton Creek FSR, which wound it's way around the mountains and allowed us to access the Treasure Mtn area. The entire area was full of mine shafts, both active and filled. One interesting-looking road was washed out (unfortunately, as we could see the rest of the road wending its way up to the top of the mountain). The road we took went right up the side of the mountain, with many two-point-turn switchbacks and steep rocky 4-low sections. We encountered an exceptionally bad section near the top of the mountain; the lockered trucks made it up, and Jud and I were winched up by Jeff's Ford. Nick elected to park his truck and hike up. Kari led the way up towards the peak, picking up Nick on the way. Just below the peak we encountered an extremely steep gravel stretch, and although Kari gave it a valiant effort, he was unable to make it up. Jeff hiked up the road, and disappeared around the corner. He reported back that the road got even steeper, and ended at four new mining claims. We decided not to bother winching up the final bit, only to have to turn around.

Kari and I backed down the steep section to the switchback below (getting nervously off-camber while turning around). Jud, Brad and Jeff turned around at the switchback below us, and Brad and Jeff headed back down the hill. Jud suddenly discovered that his starter motor would not shut off, even when he switched off the ignition. Hank quickly disconnected his battery, and they discovered that Jud's ignition switch was shorting out. Hank, the locksmith / automotive electronics technician that he is, rebuilt Jud's ignition switch on the spot and we were on the way.

We drove back to the Britton Creek FSR, travelled it to the Coquihalla Hwy, and reached pavement north of the toll-booth. We crossed over the highway, and followed a reasonable dirt road to a steep, overgrown gas pipeline road leading straight up a mountain. We followed this road (only one minor difficult section) to a nice view of the mountain that graced the cover of the BC Tel White Pages a few years ago. We decended through a barely-visible track, and finally popped out on the Coquihalla just before a rest-stop south of the toll-booth. The weather had been good for most of the trip, usually raining only when we were out of the vehicles. We drove down the Coquihalla into Hope where we separated to air up at different gas stations. After airing up, we went for dinner and gas in Chilliwack, then home for a shower and much-needed rest.

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