Creating a Cross Canada Overland Route

[deadly99]

And it started to rain...big time rain..cold rain driving in sheets. It had been raining for some time but not like this. The kind of rain that soaks threw any type of rain gear in seconds. Bummer I don't have alot of photo's from the rest of the day but I'll do my best to tell the tale.

The rest of the ride to Goose Bay went by fast, no lolly gagging, just riding hard with next to no visibility at times. It's hard to enjoy yourself when the weather is like this. The road was in decent shape, a bit muddy at times but nothing that really slowed us down.

When we got to the pavement stretch near Goose Bay you could feel your spirits rise. We hadn't ate breakfast and left at 6:45 am. We thought we'd be at a Tim's within a few hours and had decided to hold tough. SO when the pavement came I gave her some good throttle, yehaa...warmth and coffee on the horizon The speed limit dropped from 80 km/h to 50 all of a sudden and sure enough there's a police car coming the other way. We make eye contact...damn.....what to do, a quick look shows I'm doing about 130 km/h in a 50 zone.....hmmm.....hmmm...crack the throttle and let him hear the roar from my exhaust. Bold choice, quick decsision. Play dumb and say I didn't see him if he spins her around or he'll just say screw that I'm not chasing this guy. Yehaa he didn't chase........but....Dan is behind me...sorry Dan What was I to do, turn around and pass him to get to you to warn you? No sir. So on I pushed into town and found the Tim's. It was 3 in the afternoon. Instead of three hours it took us over 8 hours to get here, no food, no coffee. Soaking wet and very cold I stripped down and order lunch. Half an hour later dan shows up......again sorry Dan. Yes he got a big ticket, the cop informed him half of it was for "your buddy on the white bike". Dan happy? NOPE

 

[deadly99]

The obligatory sign coming into Happy Valley

Rain rain and more rain

SO me and Dan have a serious non fun chat. Our ferry leaves the next day at 3pm, we need to be there by 2pm at the latest. If we stay in Goose Bay for the night there is no way we'll make it tomorrow. Not the end of the world but it means we won't catch up to the other guys and Pelvis was to join us for a week of riding around NFLD. I can't do that to him, we'd both been quite excitied about the trip and we'd had many garage beer nights talking and planning the trip together. So the only we'd make it would be to push on and do at least half of the new section of road in order to have a fighting chance of making the ferry. It was raining VERY hard and it was very cold. Dan wanted to stay in Goose bay and I wanted to push on. a wee bit of tension between friends So we came to an agreement, we'd push on and do the new section of road (about 400 km's) and not stop until we came to a motel. No way did Dan want to camp in the rain in the middle of nowhere and I kind of agreed with him. We'd had a long day already and both wanted a warm shower and a hot meal. So at 4 pm we left Tim's and headed to get fuel. Filled the bikes and my aux fuel bladder and made our way out of town and found the new road.

 

[deadly99]

The new section.......


It was in great shape, fast and smooth for the most part. There is a bridge that is worth mention ing shortly after beginning. One of those metal grated surfaces that makes the bike a challenge to keep going straight.

We came across the section that was still under construction, about 18 km's long. It was in rough shape, very muddy. 1st and 2nd gear type of terrain.

After this we started making good time again. A quick stop to fill up my fuel tanks and we were off again.


The more it rained the bigger the potholes became. Some were about 6 feet across and the depth varied. Due to the muddy water you couldn't tell if they were 2 inches deep or 18 inches deep. As we were racing along up on the pegs the deeper potholes would rip your legs right off the pegs. A few pucker moments indeed.

All in all the new section is in good shape, had it not been so slick from the rain it would have been a nice ride.

My fuel light came on.....well we must be almost there. I get about 40 km's out of reserve on my bike, I know I've run it dry before (another story for another time ). After 10 km's of being on reserver I see a sign post that says 94 km's to Port Hope Simpson. I stop and wait for Dan. He asks what's up and I relay the sad info, I'm not going to make it. Dan says his fuel light has been on for the last dozen km's as well. Dan "guesses" that his will go longer due to the shape of gas tanks which are aftermarket and says he has 2 liters of spare fuel on board. With no choice in the matter this becomes the plan. I'll ride until I run out, Dan will continue on and IF he makes it to town and IF the gas station is still open he'll come back and bring me gas. This will mean a couple of hours sitting on the side of the road wondering if he'll come back.

Did I mention it was cold? Dan was getting concerned for me. He has a heated vest and grips where as I have notta. I was wet right threw and freezing. My lower lip started to go blue, my teeth were chatterring and I couldn't use my fingers anymore. Dan had to do my zippers up on my coat as I couldn't make a fist anymore. I was using only palms on the grips as I couldn't get my fingers to bend anymore. "**** Dan this isn't looking good". When I run out I'll quickly setup my tent on the road and get my cook stove out and try to warm up the inside. I have one change of dry clothes left and my sleeping bag should be dry.

So off we headed, it was starting to get dark. Why did our bikes get such crappy fuel mileage I can only guess. We knew fuel was going to be an issue but our math showed we would have some to spare. Other than the construction zone I had been keeping the bike in the bottom of 6th gear the entire way, low on the revs trying to limit my fuel consumption. This meant riding pretty darned fast around corners in the mud with bad vsisbility. I think maybe all the potholes and loose mud created drag, also the front/side wind that was gusting played a major role as well.

I think you can imagine what was going on in my helmet. It wasn't pretty at all I rode, crouched down behind the windsheild staring at my odometer. I saw Dan run out behind me along the way and thought "crap no way is 2 liters going to get him the rest of the way". My bike just kept going and going. Doing the math every 30 seconds in my head trying to keep my frozen brain concentrating on how far I was from town. I saw 85 km's on my odo, 85 km's on reserve ! I may just make it ! Now I am not a religious man, more of a Darwin fellow but I prayed to God. First time in my life outside of funerals. "Come on buddy, I don't ask much, 5 more km's is all I need" kind of a prayer. No sooner had I said amen then I ran out of gas. Lights out, almost dark, hadn't seen a car in a long time and don't suspect I will until morning. Dan is somewhere behind me probably out of gas as well. SON OF A B&TCH, you've got to be kidding me. How far to town? 5-8 km's based on my math. 2 hour hike in mx boots in the dark and freezing cold. Do it or set up camp?

The new section.....SLICK :Wow1:

 

[deadly99]

Well I'd decided to setup camp. I was simply to cold and tired to push on. No sooner had I came to this choice when all of a sudden I see headlights coming from the North. Hell I hadn't even see a road back there. This real nice fellow drives up in a truck and says he saw my headlight go out and thought I'd maybe had an accident. I asked if I could siphon a liter of gas from his truck and he says he can do one better, he has a gerry can with 4 liters in it.

Yehaa! I put a liter in my bike and explain that Dan is back behind me somewhere. No worries he says. As he's heading back to give Dan some gas Dan's headlight comes around the bend. Unbelievable ! After getting such crappy gas mileage both our bikes go the distance on the last couple of liters. An honest offer to buy this guy beers at the hotel later that night and we're off.

One more turn in the road and voila ! The lights of Port Hope Simpson across the bridge at the bottom of the small hill. I can't believe I was going to camp a 15 minute walk away from town.

Damn were we stoked. High fives and loud cheers !!!

Got to the hotel and the lady says she is full but to hang tight for a minute. A few minutes and Pelvis comes out of the restaurant. Hells bells baby we're warm and food and beers are only minutes away

The small hotel was full so I threw my thermarest of Pelvis's floor, spread my gear out to dry, got changed and hit the bar. Damn fun night. Got to meet the guys I had barely met and in Martin's case had never met. Did a bit of bench racing, had some average at best food that went down as if it was fine cuisine. Beers and whiskeys and beers and more whiskeys until only Pelvis and I were left. Eventually they got sick of us and closed the bar.

Pelvis is a tequila guy and I'd brought a special bottle just for this occasion. A friend brought the bottle to me from his home town in Mexico. It did not dissappoint ! Thanks Huey !

A bit of background. Pelvis is on a personnel quest...to get drunk in every province and territory in Canada. Seriously. He's even flown into Nunavut with a case of beer for a day. Well, Labrador was the second one left and I feel we didn't disappoint . Late night doing shots until it was empty and then I passed out with a big warm smile on my face....or something along those lines I think




Woke up the next morning and had the first relaxed start of the trip. Breakfast, repack all my gear now that it has dried out, even lounged around drinking coffee. The hotel in Port Hope Simpson is...well.....really....a bunch of portable's strung together. Warm and dry ? Yes Cheap? Nope

I think some of us were feeling a bit groggy this morning

Pelvis....

Chris, eager and keen as always

Martin...if I was a betting man I'd say he was looking forward to the end of the gravel

A look in the daylight at the hotel. It looked like paradise the night before

Had a look at the damage the beemer bike's had occured. Scratched, dented and broken but still rolling along


Now....I am not sure how to even approach this subject without offending anyone. The folks of Labrador and Newfoundland (from what little I saw and I hate to generalize but this needs to be said) are some of the kindest and most friendly people I have ever met while travelling. Real salt of the earth type of folks. BUT.......a percentage of them have what I can only describe as "The East Coast Glaze". I sincerely am not trying to be rude or to offend anyone but it seems like a small percentage of folks out this way have a "far away" look in their eye. The staff at this hotel seem to have this unique characteristic. Like when they put a menu in fornt of you then just stare off into outer space for...well forever until you snap your fingers and get their attention. Something in the water? Not enough gene's in the pool ? This seems to only affect a small percentage of the population from what I saw but it seems to come in clusters. Go and have dinner and a night's stay in Port Hope Simpson and you'll see what I mean, it's kind of spooky, like a weird sci fi movie or something Stephen King would better describe in one of his books. On the ferry, on the rock, heck even in Nova Scotia we encountered these clusters of folks. Again, not trying to offend just felt it needed to be said. The majority seemed like real quick, smart everyday folk.


Perhaps someone local to the area could add some input here? was it just us who noticed this? Is it a real issue and just never spoken of? Were we dreaming...was it too many miles in the cold rain that messed up our heads and we were the odd ones?
__________________

 

[deadly99]

We all fueled up and hit the road. First day in a while that it wasn't raining Still damp and misty but not raining.

It was good to finally be riding with everyone. No more rushing to catch up, no more dakar rally speeds, just cruising and enjoying the vista's. This section of the road was my favourite, I suppose I'm biased based on the weather and whatnot but finally the tree's started to dissappear and the views were what I was hoping for. Very rugged terrain, rocky and windy. Really felt "out there" and "up north".

Renaud packing everything but the kitchen sink

The winds REALLy picked up for a stretch. A strong cross wind only added to the feeling of being out there. It was quite strong and from other ride reports I've read of the TLH this wasn't unique for us to encounter.

Don't buy whatever gloves Pelvis had

Yehaa First view of the Atlantic Ocean. Mixed feeling for me, excited to get to the coast but a bit bummed that the gravel was going to be over.

 

[deadly99]

So we got to the end of the gravel. My bike had been making a heck of a rattle for the last hour or so When we got to the small town where the ashpalt starts I got off to have a look. My exhaust pipe had cracked right through just where it comes out of the rear cyclinder. This was causing the bike to run bad, overheat and casuing a heck of a noise. Renauld had a few o clamps and I was going to get a soda can and rig something up, no worries. Then a local tells us what time it is...**** we forgot about the time change. We now barely have enough time to catch the ferry. Given my bikes condition I take off for the ferry leaving the other fellows changing brake pads on one of the GS's.

The asphalt ride to Blanc Sablon was great. Nice road, fun twists and excellent scenery. The small fishing villages are fantastic, right out of a post card.

I did not realize that we would be entering Quebec again along this road. Of course I could have guessed a town called Blanc Sablon was french.

Now I also did not realize how small of a town Blanc Sablon was going to be. For some reason I just assumed it was a small city. Ferry and how many times the name had been spoken due to it being the last stop in what we thought would be Labrador. Blanc Sablon is wee, not much there if you were thinking along the same lines as us.

In the backtground is downtown Blanc Sablon in the above photo


We got to the ferry, checked in and got in line. Worth noting is that you don't really need reservations for this ferry. The lady at the counter told me they would never leave a bike behind I like that attitude. Driving a truck? make a reservation ! Blanc Sablon doesnt look like the nicest spot to get stuck in, beauty scenery for sure just not much else to do.

So.....................

Not exactly sure what took place here. Dan was trying to get his rain pants off, a nice stranger saw him struggeling and offered to help.

So............................ somehow they ended up in this position. As everyone was staring I blurted out (yes I have no control over my tongue)..."Hey Dan, bet you didn't think you'd find love in Labrador". Renaud spit his drink out, Dan's face went red, the stranger looked..well...shocked and embarassed...and me...I had water rolling out of my eye's I was laughing so hard. At this point I hear someone ask how it tasted and this just set me off laughing again. Man if the stranger is watching I am truely sorry to have such a laugh at your expense, but damn was it funny. Dan.....what the hell was going on?

Got on the small ferry (it's about a 1.5 hour ride) and tied down our bikes (they provide straps).

Had a walk about deck as we took off. If I couldnt ride bikes I'd ride boats, I love being out on the water.

Met this fellow from the Toronto area (forgot your name, sorry). He was riding a vstrom and had also just finished the TLH. He was two days ahead of us and said he had percet weather, nice and sunny and dusty. He'd said he did the museum and stay in red bay and mentioned it was great. We'd met before at a few riding events in Ontario. Cheers, see ya next time, small world

 

[deadly99]

So.....a hard decision was made. I decided on the ferry to end this trip short and head home. This was not an easy choice for me by any means. A few factors lead to me to this choice. The surgery I was recovering from was acting up and the idea of being "out here" and having it kick in again and needing a specialist scared the crap out of me My bike was running like crap and needed work. My budget for the trip was blown to hell because of hotel sleeps instead of camping (no regrets I hate camping in the rain when a hotel in nearby) and bike repairs, I was catching a cold (runny nose and sore throat) and this was not a good thing for a recovery from said surgery, we had done the TLH and that was one of three ticks for the trip and the only tick for most of the fellows, the weather forecast showed one good day then another week of rain on the island, my wife is trying to get her business up and running and I promised I'd have the construction phase done for her but left before completing it (yes she was pissed), I have alot of trips left to come and the extra bucks not spent could go towards this, next year SkiBum69 will have the Newfoundland section done and I'll come back and ride it with him.

So a hard choice was made, not one I was proud to announce but one I felt needed to be made.
__________________




After getting off the ferry pelvis and myself headed south to deal with the ferry situation while everyone else headed north to the viking museum. Having a photo of a viking on my bike (ya not a real one but hey) was one of the ticks I wanted on this trip. I'm a geek at heart and love anything to do with swords and medeval times Pelvis had no more rear brakes and was scraping rotot and I believe he felt he'd had a good trip and was willing to join me for the drive home...thanks Pelvis Would have been a long drive home by myself.

We had been hearing rumours of how crazy bad the ferry situation was. Four of the guys had made reservations for two days later leaving from Port Aux Basques but we (Dan, Pelvis and myself) hadn't as we figured we would do it once we got to the island and looked at the weather, the calendar and how we were feeling. So we called the ferry terminal and were informed the next opening was 3 weeks away Jeepers this just won't do. We chatted with a few other bikers at some gas stations and they were telling us tales of people waiting in line for 9 days on standby Jeepers this won't do either. The newspapers were telling how the next day the local trucking companies planned on blockading the ferry terminals so no one could get a ferry As I understand it a broken down boat and bad weather had screwed uo the schedule big time. Also a coouple of big trucking companies booked every available commercail spot on every ferry for the summer and then would cancel at the last minute if one of their trucks wasn't going to be on it, this was really screwing the small trucking companies over. In years past it used to be a first come first serve...but the government in all their wisdom implemented this new reservation system and it sure didn't seem to be working out. So without many choices we headed south down the island and figured we would see what we could do.

The drive down the highway was absolutely gorgeous. Breaking waves on our right as the sun set over the water horizon, nice granite looking rock faces on our left, very little traffic and a very smooth road with some nice bends. Picture perfect.

We spent the night in a small town called Rocky Harbour which is tucked into the bay on the left of the above photo. I needed to get on the web and see what I could do about the ferry situation. Nice hotel, good food, cold beers (yes this was Pelvis's last province/territory to complete his list, CONGRATS on fullfilling your dreams Pelvis ) and the lady at the concierge let me use her computer.

We tried phoning the ferries but a message simply said we are too busy, try another day please...****** ! I logged into their site and was greeted with all red x's showing every ferry was full except for tomorrow at 6pm...well I quickly picked two people and a motorbike, then i realized that meant they would think two people on one bike, I added this to the shopping cart and went back to add another bike/person but the ferry now showed full. Screw it I went to the shopping cart and hit buy, the price dropped and the bike was removed. Screw it I hit pay and got a reservation for 2 passenegers with no vechicle. Went back to the site and it now showed that ferry as full and no other ferries as having a spot open (even for passenegers for the next 2 weeks). So good/not good news. The plan.......SMILE...it's hard to get mad or deny people with big grins


Woke up the next morning and had a great drive down the rest of the island. Have I raved enough yet about how beautiful NFLD is?

Heck they even brag about how clean their washrooms are at gas stations

We stopped off the highway to get gas in this small town. The local kids all showing off doing wheelies, etc The lady at the pumps says "you must be roasting".....I still had the liner for my coat on, windy and about 15 degrees celcius...she informs me it was the warmest day so far this year Coming to NFLD, bring warm clothes, summer is a relative term

While driving down the road I spot this guy in the middle of nowhere and spin her around to have a chat.

Meet Joe. Joe has been walking for a year and a half. He left Victoria BC in the fall of 2008. A real cool guy and he had made a real neat rig. Perfectly balanced, nice sun/rain cover etc. Joe only plans one day at a time and if it rains he stays put. Wow what a difference than the last week of my life. I was very envious of him at this point. Real interesting fellow to say the least, if you see Joe, stop and say gidday Of course I had to take his rig for a spin

When we got to Port Aux basques we headed straight for the ferry and got in line to get our tickets. Now.....Pelvis isn't always the most smiley guy I re-enforced to him to just keep grinning. We got to the front of the line and played dumb with the sweet gal. "But I picked two motorbikes on the drop down", "well then I'll just pay the difference", "well no worries we'll wait and get the next boat". Boat full, no way, next one, full no way, etc She says hold on I'll get my manager, this grouch of a lady comes up (yes I understand these people have been yelled at all day everyday by pissed off people but seriously that isn't my issue is it, cheer up my taxes are paying your salary ) and says right out of the gate, no way no chance in fact I don't even want to see those bikes cross this line. ARG..."keep smiling Pelvis". The sweet heart in the ticket booth leans out and says "Just drive, ignore her when she screams and drive right by the food and immgration people, DO NOT stop. There is a building down on the left where people can complain. I'll phone ahead and tell them you are coming." Smiling worked. A quick thanks and vroom. "Hey, stop those bikes" Vroom


When we get to the complaints department you can tell people are pissed off and have been waiting a LONG time. "keep smiling Pelvis". This over the top gay fellow seems to be in charge and is telling his employee to keep telling people the boats are full, nothing they can do about it. He looks up and down the line up and spots me and Pelvis smiling like idiots (the only people smiling in the whole place), leans over to the young girl and says something, she replies "Susie from up front called and said these two would be coming here". Well he looks us up and down, winks and rolls his eye's in that gay I'm checking you out manner So without breaking the smile off my face I wink back.....wow shivers up and down my spine, I can hear pelvis freaking out behind his perma grin, lol The fellow tells the yound lady that me and Pelvis will be getting on the next boat and winks as he walks away Hells bells baby, we're on. Not only that but he gives us a cabin with two beds, a tv and a private bathroom

 

[deadly99]

We had a few hours to kill so we drove back into town and hit up a Canadian Tire to do a "get home job" on my exhaust.

The break

The tools

The after

While doing this Pelvis notices my chain guard is all bent up and inside the spokes of my rear wheel. Well that explains some of the rough running behaviour my bike has been having for the last 20 minutes. I cut out the chain guard and WOW is my chain loose. I had tightened it a few times during this trip and prior to leaving and wasn't having any issues. When they start to go they go fast I could almost remove the chain from the sprocket by hand. We tried getting a longer bolt to replace the tightening bolt, contemplated placing a nut between the bolt and plate but in the end none of these solutions would work for a 2000 kilometer ride back home. Screw it let's have a coldy and some food and just get on the boat, we'll deal with it on the main land.


You can see in this photo where the chain was slapping. Rubbing through the mudguard and getting dangerously close to the rear wheel. Also started rubbing on the spring of my rear suspension.

A quick burger and beer in town then off to the ferry. I sincerly felt bad for the guys on bikes who were in the standby lane. They didn't get on this ferry, god knows how long they ended up waiting in that parking lot.


Tieing down the bikes (they provide tie downs)

A great boat, hit the bar up before heading down to crash in the cabin and watch some tube.

Adios NFLD, I WILL BE BACK

Got a last minute room in Nova SCotia as our ferry came in at something like 2am. Luckily it was less than a mile or so from the ferry. Chain was bouncing all over the place. Crashed for the rest of the night and got on the phone first thing in the morning to see what I could do aboout getting some parts. Well, I could get a new chain delivered in 3 days. My back sprocket looked like it would make the ride home but the front was in rough shape. Past point, past hooking, starting to crack from the loose chain jumping I assume. So stay in Nova Scotia and visit a friends friends who was willing to come pick us up, buy a 380 dollar chain and wreck it on the drive home on the worn sprockets OR get Uhaul and get the hell out of here?

Sure enough the minute we head out it starts pouring rain and winds of up to 90 km/h the radio was saying. I'm not a big cage fan but damn the heat and windsheild wipers were real nice Not much else to say, am 18 hour drive home without anything to write about. It was real nice to get home and start planning the next trip Two more weeks and I head out with some guys to do a section of route we've planned heading to northern Ontario. Time to order some parts and give the beast some serious tlc

 

[deadly99]

And what happened to the other guys? Dan spent a week in Newfoundland, went through 6 more fuel pumps (jerry rigging snowmobile pumps onto the bike and vapour locking the cyclinfer;s everytime he stopped and forgot to turn of the fule lines), got rained on alot but generally had himself a good time by the sounds of things. The other guys went north up the island to check out the viking museum, spent a night in gros Morne park camping then headed home uneventfully.

All in all it was a great trip. Has the weather of been nicer the Trans Labrador would have been fun and dusty. But this is the way the cards played out...you dont always get to pick the weather when your on a trip. We made the best of it and in the end we all felt a certain sense of accomplishment which was great.

So that's the Labraodr section of the route. One lllooonnnggg road. I think it's about 2300 km's long of which about 1700 of it being gravel. A very cool place in the world for overland travelling in my opinion. Lot's of wilderness, some nice scenery, great people to meet along the way, etc

I need to get back to work now but I'll post up another province soon

:smiley_drive:

 

[HMR]

All in all it was a great trip. Has the weather of been nicer the Trans Labrador would have been fun and dusty. But this is the way the cards played out...you dont always get to pick the weather when your on a trip. We made the best of it and in the end we all felt a certain sense of accomplishment which was great.

RIGHT ON!

Looking forward to the rest of your adventure.

 

[The Adam Blaster]

This is a fantastic project, I'm thankful that you guys have taken on such a daunting task, and especially thankful you've decided to include us "4-wheelers" in your plans and records!

I have barely read any of this thread yet, but I wanted to jump in quickly and say that Canada's population has topped 33 million now, we can't have anyone thinking we're only 31 mill!!! lol

 

[deadly99]

This is a fantastic project, I'm thankful that you guys have taken on such a daunting task, and especially thankful you've decided to include us "4-wheelers" in your plans and records!

I have barely read any of this thread yet, but I wanted to jump in quickly and say that Canada's population has topped 33 million now, we can't have anyone thinking we're only 31 mill!!! lol

33 ! Who are the new people :bike_rider:

 

[deadly99]

Ontario

Here comes the Ontario section or what we have completed of it so far. Grab a beer or three...it's a long read.

The route for Ontario begins at the Quebec/Ontario border in the city of Ottawa. Ottawa is a city of approximately 1 million people. The decision to have the route cross a major city was made soley based on we felt folks may need a break from the boonies and also to get access to parts/tools/mechanics, etc by this point in the route.

About 50 km's of ashpalt will bring the route out "into the country" and some gravel roads, eventually bringing them into the town of Merrickville, Ontario.

Scotch Line coming into the town of Merrickville, Ontario.

The route has intended spots to spend the night. Of course this bases the route on a schedule, some folks will find the schedule much to fast and others way to slow. Nothing we can do about that I suppose. The places to spend the night are being choosen based on things like campgrouns,motels, laundry mats, beer stores , restuarants, grocery stores and so on. Merrickville is a small touristy town and seems to have most of what is required for a nights stay.

This is the first installement where the route splits into the main route and the technical route. I'm not going to differentiate between the two in this thread but if something looks a bit too "serious" for your vechicle or skill lvele, know that the section your looking at "may" be on the technical sections. make sense?

 

[deadly99]

The route takes some gravel roads and a few short jeep trails before ending up in a town called carelton Place, Ontario. A short section of gravel/jeep roads ...

leads past the town of Almonte and follows a nice double track through the bush

before ending up on this powerline (NOTE:technical section)

 

[deadly99]

Some water crossing are inevitable. Nice on a hot sunny day not so nice when it's cold.

Depending on rain the water levels can change. Use common sense and walk what you can't see, always a good rule on thumb :ylsmoke:

Good example of too deep ....

Please remeber not every photo here will be on the route. Some days we got stumped and deadened, some days the terrain just became unsuitable or trails led us in the wrong direction.

I don't want to give the wrong impression...this is the go around or "main route" past the hydro lines

Back to the good stuff

Flat tires, like taxes and death are inevitable

Off the hydro line for a stint around some bogs before getting back onto it

More flats .....