thethePete
Explorer
This trip took us in a small loop through several regions of British Columbia's beauty. It was about 750km, roughly half gravel.
https://goo.gl/maps/VyJ6T8mcPfu < Our loop
Having packed all our stuff and organized it in the living room on Thursday, Friday's pack up after work was a breeze. My fiance is about 8 months pregnant, so this trip was to be a little on the mellow side, and definitely to be played by ear.
I recently did a pile of suspension work to my truck, which netted me a full 10" of travel front and rear, with new rear leafs, and shocks all around, as well as a new traction device in the form of an LSD in my shiny new diff. This was also a bit of a shake down run for the truck, so again; nothing too crazy.
We loaded up and the truck sat pleasantly fairly level, and rode great on the way out. I managed to get off from work a touch early, and we opted to take back roads the whole way out to avoid the freeway parking lot that would be inevitable on a long weekend Friday; this let us make good time to the trailhead. Everything felt smooth and all was well. Stopped outside Mission to fuel up the truck and top off the jerry can. Carried on another 45 minutes or so and finally hit gravel. Aired down a bit for the 180km or so of gravel roads and off we went. Our goal was to make it to somewhere near 20-Mile Bay and set up camp for the night. We hadn't been past km55 on this road and were unsure of the conditions beyond, so we wanted plenty of daylight and time to work with in case we needed to do any road-building or possibly change course.
We found a small pull-off with an abundance of campfire material right there. Set up our little camp and built a small fire. Stupid me; we used up the last of the bug spray last year and I never replaced the stock in my pantry tote. The bugs were there, but not horrible, once the fire got going they were tollerable. Rachel was more bothered by them than I was, but I've certainly seen worse. Cooked some S'mores, looked at the stars, and packed it in for the night.
Saturday morning, we woke in our usual fashion, I was up around 5:30, brewed my coffee and puttered around, getting the fire going again for the breakfast hour while we packed up, and after organizing our gear a bit, I sat and enjoyed a cup of coffee in the morning peace with Gabby. Rachel and Annie rolled out around 7, and we quickly had ourselves loaded and ready to go. I smothered the last embers of fire, and we rolled out. We quickly arrived at the point we'd previously turned back from and soldiered on. The road stayed fairly good for another 5-10km, but as we lost elevation and got nearer to the lake, things got a bit gnarlier. Dropping to first gear, we made our way up the first of several lumpy climbs.
A quick note about my new suspension work; I swapped an Explorer 8.8 with a factory LSD in it, this is good. It has 3.73 gears in it. This is bad. I knew I'd be happier with the 4.10s I had in my truck from stock, they had good pick up and reasonable highway mileage; perfect for the 31" tires I run. But time dictated we'd take this trip with the gears that were in the axle. I can confirm, they suck. I was always at the wrong RPM, and shifting way too much. 4.10s will be going back in before the next camping trip.
I'd been previously cautioned about this stretch as being exceptionally rough, and my source wasn't sure how I'd do with 2wd. I can say if I had my open diff, it probably would've sent me turning back, but with the LSD, I didn't even spin a tire. Proof that with proper tire pressures, good driving skill, and good tires; you can get yourself a lot of places. Now I just need to replace these (awesome) winter tires with something a little knobbier.
Not many pictures as I was busy driving, and Rachel was busy holding my unborn son from bouncing around too much. She's a trooper and I'm blessed to have her as the mother of my child and my partner. I'll be back through here in the future and will be sure to take some pictures.
We made it through the worst of the road and quickly found ourselves in Tipella, a logging camp and small native community. After passing through an active logging yard, we happened across a pair of very skinny dogs. Not realizing how close we were to the res community, we thought they may have been abandoned, so we stopped and gave them some of Gabby's food and discussed what to do. Rachel wanted to bring them to town and to a shelter, but I felt we should at least see how far from the native community we were and if they were simply missing. We pulled in with the usual stares of an outsider coming into an area that doesn't see many guests and I quickly spotted a few locals on their porch. We stopped and I asked if they knew the two dogs; they did. We released them back into their care, Rachel quite distraught at the idea of leaving them there, and me reserved in the fact that they were res dogs, that looked like every other res dog I'd ever seen and while they seemed a little malnourished; they didn't seem unhappy or unloved. Both were very social and full of energy. The locals told us they had probably just gone for a wander looking for something and hadn't even been noticed as missing yet. Had I realized how close we were I'd have just left them alone and assumed they were out for a trot.
We marched on.
We continued to Sloquet Hot Springs, our initial hotspring destination. Upon arrival, it was quite busy, so we opted to carry on to possibly stop at Skookumchuck (St. Agnes Well). We made a planned detour to Port Douglas, a former logging town. Snapped a picture of the plaque; Annie, Gabby and I wandered and explored a bit, and we continued on to find a slightly more sheltered area for lunch. We continued up the In-SHOOK-Ch Rd and found a nice overlooking spot with some shelter from the wind and pulled out the grill for some hot dogs. Sufficiently fed and watered, we carried on to the Skookumchuck Hot Springs, the road at this point was wide, and fairly well groomed, but washboarded in spots and slightly potholed. My suspension was paying itself off in short order.
We stopped at Skookumchuck and despite not having any cash on me, we were able to pay the day use fees via the magic of Visa. In the middle of the forest. On an iPad. Oh what a world we live in.
There was some casual nudity at the springs, and it was a conversation we didn't feel like having with Annie on that particular day, so Rachel took her and went for a little walk along the river while I took a short soak in the springs. St. Agnes Well is a little different than most springs I've been to, the springs aren't beside the river, so there are several little hot tubs of various sizes, with piping feeding the hotspring water into them, and boardwalks between them to keep it all from turning into a mudpit. Kind of nice to have semi-private tubs, but the larger pool, near the river ones that I've been to elsewhere are nice in their own way, and having access to the cold river is nice.
Feeling relaxed and de-tensioned, I dressed and headed back to the truck. We carried on the short distance to pavement slightly north of Pemberton. We aired back up for pavement and turned towards the small community. Stopping at the gas station for a bathroom break and stretch, a lovely black example of a Sportsmobile 4WD van made its way into the parking lot. I complimented the owner and quickly fell into conversation with him. I got a mini-tour of the rig, and talked about road manners and ease of maintenance since it's an F350 under the body. The conversion was impressively done and definitely looks factory. Very nice unit. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture or catch the gentleman's name, but he's from Washington and said he's on ExPo, so maybe he'll see this.
After the girls used the washroom, and I grabbed a small snack, we hit the road again, bound for the Hurley FSR, a spot we'd been to a few times, but had never gone through the whole road. We got to "our spot" on the side of the road and set up camp for the second night. The weather here can be a bit fickle, so we set up camp accordingly. Again, the bugs were present, slightly worse than the night before. Rachel managed while I set up camp. Once I had camp mostly set up we got a small fire going again, and I began to make supper. Nothing tastes better than camp food, and when camp food is good food too, it just makes everything alright. Whipped up a quick stir fry and we made short work of it. By this time it was getting to be 7-8pm, so we started getting things set up for the evening. Annie and Gabby wandered and played for hours, wearing themselves out and doing what kids and dogs should be doing; enjoying nature. The girls retired for the evening and I hung out to let the fire burn down. Around 9pm, the light through the clouds did some neat stuff and everything turned blue. I managed to get a decent shot of the range across the valley with no tripod. It really was quite a neat sight.
No filters, everything was actually blue.
In the morning, we discussed options: we could head back the way we'd come up, hit pavement in about 20km, and slab it back down the Sea to Sky back home... Or we could drive the Hurley -something we'd come so close to and turned back on several times now. Well, Rachel was feeling up for it, so we loaded up and headed out. Quickly gaining more elevation we were soon surrounded by snowbanks and clouds. Pretty impressive that we slept warmly only 10km or so back down the road. Getting over the top of the pass, we saw the snowbanks dwindle and as the stream came close we also saw our opportunity to get some glacier water. We filled the water bottles, and I filled the big jug to bring home for Rachel.
We made good time across the Hurley, it was in good shape and there was no traffic. I enjoyed myself.
Coming up to Downton Lake, we found a nice viewpoint for a couple pictures of the visibly depleted reservoir. We continued on to hit pavement once more and found a "lakeside" spot to stop and air up and snap a couple pictures.
We definitely need to come back up here and spend more time exploring. So many things to see.
https://goo.gl/maps/VyJ6T8mcPfu < Our loop
Having packed all our stuff and organized it in the living room on Thursday, Friday's pack up after work was a breeze. My fiance is about 8 months pregnant, so this trip was to be a little on the mellow side, and definitely to be played by ear.
I recently did a pile of suspension work to my truck, which netted me a full 10" of travel front and rear, with new rear leafs, and shocks all around, as well as a new traction device in the form of an LSD in my shiny new diff. This was also a bit of a shake down run for the truck, so again; nothing too crazy.
We loaded up and the truck sat pleasantly fairly level, and rode great on the way out. I managed to get off from work a touch early, and we opted to take back roads the whole way out to avoid the freeway parking lot that would be inevitable on a long weekend Friday; this let us make good time to the trailhead. Everything felt smooth and all was well. Stopped outside Mission to fuel up the truck and top off the jerry can. Carried on another 45 minutes or so and finally hit gravel. Aired down a bit for the 180km or so of gravel roads and off we went. Our goal was to make it to somewhere near 20-Mile Bay and set up camp for the night. We hadn't been past km55 on this road and were unsure of the conditions beyond, so we wanted plenty of daylight and time to work with in case we needed to do any road-building or possibly change course.
We found a small pull-off with an abundance of campfire material right there. Set up our little camp and built a small fire. Stupid me; we used up the last of the bug spray last year and I never replaced the stock in my pantry tote. The bugs were there, but not horrible, once the fire got going they were tollerable. Rachel was more bothered by them than I was, but I've certainly seen worse. Cooked some S'mores, looked at the stars, and packed it in for the night.
Saturday morning, we woke in our usual fashion, I was up around 5:30, brewed my coffee and puttered around, getting the fire going again for the breakfast hour while we packed up, and after organizing our gear a bit, I sat and enjoyed a cup of coffee in the morning peace with Gabby. Rachel and Annie rolled out around 7, and we quickly had ourselves loaded and ready to go. I smothered the last embers of fire, and we rolled out. We quickly arrived at the point we'd previously turned back from and soldiered on. The road stayed fairly good for another 5-10km, but as we lost elevation and got nearer to the lake, things got a bit gnarlier. Dropping to first gear, we made our way up the first of several lumpy climbs.
A quick note about my new suspension work; I swapped an Explorer 8.8 with a factory LSD in it, this is good. It has 3.73 gears in it. This is bad. I knew I'd be happier with the 4.10s I had in my truck from stock, they had good pick up and reasonable highway mileage; perfect for the 31" tires I run. But time dictated we'd take this trip with the gears that were in the axle. I can confirm, they suck. I was always at the wrong RPM, and shifting way too much. 4.10s will be going back in before the next camping trip.
I'd been previously cautioned about this stretch as being exceptionally rough, and my source wasn't sure how I'd do with 2wd. I can say if I had my open diff, it probably would've sent me turning back, but with the LSD, I didn't even spin a tire. Proof that with proper tire pressures, good driving skill, and good tires; you can get yourself a lot of places. Now I just need to replace these (awesome) winter tires with something a little knobbier.
Not many pictures as I was busy driving, and Rachel was busy holding my unborn son from bouncing around too much. She's a trooper and I'm blessed to have her as the mother of my child and my partner. I'll be back through here in the future and will be sure to take some pictures.
We made it through the worst of the road and quickly found ourselves in Tipella, a logging camp and small native community. After passing through an active logging yard, we happened across a pair of very skinny dogs. Not realizing how close we were to the res community, we thought they may have been abandoned, so we stopped and gave them some of Gabby's food and discussed what to do. Rachel wanted to bring them to town and to a shelter, but I felt we should at least see how far from the native community we were and if they were simply missing. We pulled in with the usual stares of an outsider coming into an area that doesn't see many guests and I quickly spotted a few locals on their porch. We stopped and I asked if they knew the two dogs; they did. We released them back into their care, Rachel quite distraught at the idea of leaving them there, and me reserved in the fact that they were res dogs, that looked like every other res dog I'd ever seen and while they seemed a little malnourished; they didn't seem unhappy or unloved. Both were very social and full of energy. The locals told us they had probably just gone for a wander looking for something and hadn't even been noticed as missing yet. Had I realized how close we were I'd have just left them alone and assumed they were out for a trot.
We marched on.
We continued to Sloquet Hot Springs, our initial hotspring destination. Upon arrival, it was quite busy, so we opted to carry on to possibly stop at Skookumchuck (St. Agnes Well). We made a planned detour to Port Douglas, a former logging town. Snapped a picture of the plaque; Annie, Gabby and I wandered and explored a bit, and we continued on to find a slightly more sheltered area for lunch. We continued up the In-SHOOK-Ch Rd and found a nice overlooking spot with some shelter from the wind and pulled out the grill for some hot dogs. Sufficiently fed and watered, we carried on to the Skookumchuck Hot Springs, the road at this point was wide, and fairly well groomed, but washboarded in spots and slightly potholed. My suspension was paying itself off in short order.
We stopped at Skookumchuck and despite not having any cash on me, we were able to pay the day use fees via the magic of Visa. In the middle of the forest. On an iPad. Oh what a world we live in.
There was some casual nudity at the springs, and it was a conversation we didn't feel like having with Annie on that particular day, so Rachel took her and went for a little walk along the river while I took a short soak in the springs. St. Agnes Well is a little different than most springs I've been to, the springs aren't beside the river, so there are several little hot tubs of various sizes, with piping feeding the hotspring water into them, and boardwalks between them to keep it all from turning into a mudpit. Kind of nice to have semi-private tubs, but the larger pool, near the river ones that I've been to elsewhere are nice in their own way, and having access to the cold river is nice.
Feeling relaxed and de-tensioned, I dressed and headed back to the truck. We carried on the short distance to pavement slightly north of Pemberton. We aired back up for pavement and turned towards the small community. Stopping at the gas station for a bathroom break and stretch, a lovely black example of a Sportsmobile 4WD van made its way into the parking lot. I complimented the owner and quickly fell into conversation with him. I got a mini-tour of the rig, and talked about road manners and ease of maintenance since it's an F350 under the body. The conversion was impressively done and definitely looks factory. Very nice unit. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture or catch the gentleman's name, but he's from Washington and said he's on ExPo, so maybe he'll see this.
After the girls used the washroom, and I grabbed a small snack, we hit the road again, bound for the Hurley FSR, a spot we'd been to a few times, but had never gone through the whole road. We got to "our spot" on the side of the road and set up camp for the second night. The weather here can be a bit fickle, so we set up camp accordingly. Again, the bugs were present, slightly worse than the night before. Rachel managed while I set up camp. Once I had camp mostly set up we got a small fire going again, and I began to make supper. Nothing tastes better than camp food, and when camp food is good food too, it just makes everything alright. Whipped up a quick stir fry and we made short work of it. By this time it was getting to be 7-8pm, so we started getting things set up for the evening. Annie and Gabby wandered and played for hours, wearing themselves out and doing what kids and dogs should be doing; enjoying nature. The girls retired for the evening and I hung out to let the fire burn down. Around 9pm, the light through the clouds did some neat stuff and everything turned blue. I managed to get a decent shot of the range across the valley with no tripod. It really was quite a neat sight.
No filters, everything was actually blue.
In the morning, we discussed options: we could head back the way we'd come up, hit pavement in about 20km, and slab it back down the Sea to Sky back home... Or we could drive the Hurley -something we'd come so close to and turned back on several times now. Well, Rachel was feeling up for it, so we loaded up and headed out. Quickly gaining more elevation we were soon surrounded by snowbanks and clouds. Pretty impressive that we slept warmly only 10km or so back down the road. Getting over the top of the pass, we saw the snowbanks dwindle and as the stream came close we also saw our opportunity to get some glacier water. We filled the water bottles, and I filled the big jug to bring home for Rachel.
We made good time across the Hurley, it was in good shape and there was no traffic. I enjoyed myself.
Coming up to Downton Lake, we found a nice viewpoint for a couple pictures of the visibly depleted reservoir. We continued on to hit pavement once more and found a "lakeside" spot to stop and air up and snap a couple pictures.
We definitely need to come back up here and spend more time exploring. So many things to see.
