Hello From B.C

[Highwaystar]

Thats British Columbia, Canada for all you who dont know:jump:


I just found this site this morning and have spent quite some time looking at it. I am 24 years old and having grown up in very rural area in the kootenays and spending my youth tripping over old miners shacks and mines hunting for huckleberrys I have an intrest in exploring backwoods on day or weekend trips in the southern interior of the province. I am lucky as alot of intresting sites are undisturbed around here.

I dream on a daily basis of doing the mojave road, as well as other trips down in the states:roost: but as my old pickup is not getting any younger and i am starting a new career that will probably be along time from now when im done my apprenticeship and can afford a new FJ Cruiser

Anyways I enjoyed all your pictures and hopefully some of mine will be interesting to some of you! Keep up the good work.

Old Homestead in boundary country

Ghost town called "city of paris" Close to U.S Border.

All buildings had newspapers from early 1900s glued to the walls for insulation

Grave at another ghost town of Pheonix. Never ended up rivaling its american namesake in Arizona.

My truck in abandoned mine west of Hedley B.C

Frenchmans mine, circ 1930-40. Note the jacket still hanging on the nail to the right.

Overnighter up off the abandoned KVR Railway

Thx for looking. Hopefully this summer I will get to do some trips i am researching involving ghost towns and mines high in the Canadian Rockies. Snowbound until mid july obviouslyeepwall:

Looking forward to learning much about how to explore properly

 

[articulate]

...the kootenays and spending my youth tripping over old miners shacks and mines hunting for huckleberrys I have an intrest in exploring backwoods on day or weekend trips in the southern interior of the province. I am lucky as alot of intresting sites are undisturbed around here.

COOL.

The Kootenays are incredible. I avoided getting a job and joining real life for a while in Spokane, Wa and made few treks into BC and the Kokanee Glacier. That's a land that, well . . . um, gives me the scientifically unsound belief that God exists. I blame it all on British Columbia. What an incredible place, those Kootenays. You can drink the water right off the ground and breathe air so crisp and pure that it makes my chest pound just remembering it. BC offers some of the most remote and beautiful territory available in North America and I envy you. So please. . . please, post as many photos as you can.

Enough of my blabber. Is that a tent in your truck bed I see? I like your style. Simple and rugged.

:beer:
Mark

 

[paulj]

I've been through SE BC a couple of times. I've driven some back roads, but nothing challenging.

I've climbed up from the highway at Hedley, past the working mine, and on to Apex ski area.

On another trip, I took the 'shortcut' past Phoenix mine, and looked a bit at the cemetery. The next day I tried the Old Cascade road east of Christina, but turned back because signs said it was closed, and dark clouds threatened. Then a few days later, I drove 12 km up the Idaho Peak Rd, till I hit old snow patches. And after a loop through the National Parks, I returned to the Kootenay Lake area by way of Grays Ck Pass.

paulj

 

[mountainpete]

Welcome to ExPo!

I spend at least a week or two touring through the Kootenays every year. :wavey:

 

[cruiser guy]

Highwaystar, your truck isn't that old compared to some. My truck is an '82 LandCruiser with nearly 500,000 km's on the clock and we'll be heading down to Guatemala from Cranbrook in the next month or two!

 

[mountainpete]

Highwaystar - I sent you a PM :26_7_2:

 

[Skillet]

holy cow. that is just plain good stuff.

Welcome.

the baby's headstone is the kicker.

thanks for the pics. I would be there right now if I could.

I could spend the rest of my life exploring old homesteads and mines and such.

:beer:

 

[pnwadventurer]

Now that I have a decent vehicle for travel, I need to drive a few hours North to see more of BC. I've been limited to a few trips to Whistler and Big White in the winter except for one beautiful trip about 20 years ago through the BC Okanogan.

Steve

 

[Highwaystar]

thanks for all the kind words and replied to PM.

The bed tent is great but doesnt provide much protection from grizzlies or wolves so limited on where you can spend the night if I get too far from home. Nice and cool in the summer tho.

The kootenays are indeed beautiful beyond words.

paulj too bad you never got up to the top of idaho mt. its a 2km hike to the old lookout tower and supposed to be quite worth it view from the okanagan all the way to the rockies they say. I was there when i was but 4 or 5 years old so cant really remember haha.

This summer i have big plans of exploring the trout lake area just southeast of revelstoke, as well as hopefully driving the entire length of the abandoned kvr railroad (as much as possible anyways) from castelgar to hope. If anyone has any info be glad to hear it.

 

[paulj]

Hasn't most of the Kettle Valley Railroad been turned into a bike trail? And didn't a big forest fire destroy a number of the trestles around Kelowna?

I've camped by a couple parts of the trail - at Kettle Valley Rec area and Otter Lake PP.

I have attached a view of the historic mining camp Sandon from up the Idaho Peak road, and a view of the decommissioned road east of Sandon.

I'm familiar with the road past Trout Lake, a provincial highway that is still gravel, but haven't tried any side roads in that area. I've have added a view of the lake. The east half of the road is an old railroad bed, and hence quite flat, while the west half traverses the slope above the lake.

Re. your campsite photo along the KVR, was that a bit off Hwy 33? The setting reminds me of a forest rec site that I checked out (Arlington Lakes).

paulj

 

[mountainpete]

This summer i have big plans of exploring the trout lake area just southeast of revelstoke, as well as hopefully driving the entire length of the abandoned kvr railroad (as much as possible anyways) from castelgar to hope. If anyone has any info be glad to hear it.

I had the same plans - I think it was last year. My wife and I had 5 days to explore the Trout Lake area - I was looking forward to it for months! And then the floods happened... we knew the weather was calling for rain, but that was a lot of it.

We drove from Calgary to the Nelson area and stayed at Kokanee Creek campground that first night. It rained a lot, but I had a tarp city going to keep us dry. The next morning we the rain let-up a bit and we drove up 31 past Kaslo. The river that flows into the lake was very, very high. At each of the bridges where the road crossed the river there was a guy with a big pole to push logs under it. The water was lapping the bottom of the bridge. We then got to about Poplar Creek and there was a roadblock with a worker stationed there. He said we probably could have made it through in our Truck but he couldn't legally allow us to go. I didn't want to argue - he was doing his job to keep us safe. So we turned around.

We then tried to drive to New Denver via 31. What a mess - the valley of the ghosts was a soaked! The rain started coming down so hard we had to stop. I'll never forget the bear we saw up there - this big black bear bouncing from under one tree to another to get out of the rain. After some time there we turned around and went back to Kokanee Creek campground to wait it out. Well you know what happened - the weather got even worse and reports were that the entire Trout Lake area was closed off. Every trail that was close to a creek was just too dangerous. So we packed up and went east - spent a few nights at one of my favorite family type campgrounds - Surveyors Lake (the hot showers were great!).

So I have been dying to get back to the area to explore Trout Lake ever since! There are so many abandoned mining towns, lakes, etc in the area. Weather and time permitting, I could spend weeks up there. Not to mention Trout Lake has the oldest operational fuel pump in Canada. It is one of the vacuum bubble pumps that is almost 100 years old!

Can you tell I'm a bit jealous of you going to Trout Lake? :jump:

Pete

 

[Highwaystar]

no need to be jelous, theres always the unforseen who knows if ill even get to go? I had planned on it this year but kept getting held up.
but thats quite a disapointing story you had.

Apparently the bridge on the (incomplaix sp?) fsr that leads a long ways up a valley to two ghost towns has been buried in a mudslide and has a very slim chance of being repaired. There is no way around it since the dangerous part that gave in is a bridge or sorts on planks driven into a cliffface apparently.

heres a pic i borrowed off the funinbc.com site of a fellow named kootenaykat at the old gas pump in trout creek. Hes the expert on anything mines in the kootenays

while he was exploring some mines in the area inside one they found bottles of ketchup from the 30s:chef:

My main reason for wanting to go there, even moreso than the history, is to watch the sunrise over the rocky mountains at 8000'

(another kootenaykat picture)

hopefully itll happen!

Paulj cool pics hope you dont mind one is the new wallpaper on my computer

 

[paulj]

I have larger versions of some of these pictures on my pbase gallery
http://www.pbase.com/paulj3/kootenays_2005

 

[datrupr]

Welcome to ExPo!!!!:beer: I don't think your truck is too old, and it is a Toyota, so it should keep you exploring for many more years to come. Great pictures. Exploring mines and ghost towns is one of my favorite things to do, I just love to be there in the middle of the history. It is nice to see so much of it untouched up there, it is very rare to find such treasures down here in the states. Please, keep posting those pics and sharing your travels with us.

 

[Scott Brady]

BajaTaco and I will be coming back through B.C. on our Arctic Expedition. Maybe we could have a dinner with some ExPo members. :beer: