Re: post up your camping pics
 

yup, i think so...
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time to hike, and i mean hike, really had to bushwack to get to John George lake, this is what i'm going thru...
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been not drinking much lately cause i'm on the quit smoking bandwagon, and nothing goes better with a brew than a smoke....but my buddy gave me a couple Russian beer (?!?) and i brought them with me. figure i'm safe drinking them here when the nearest store is a couple hrs away...:lol:
have to say they taste like s**t (mostly) i'll stick to my bud thanks...
all the way from St Petersburg to way out in the middle of nowhere bc...lol
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they were my little celebration for getting to John George finally. been over 30 yrs since i was here
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the mountains around John George
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that little black thing in the creek where it leaves the lake was a beaVER swimming around and slapping his tail
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had my ruskie beer and a sandwich, did'nt hang around too long, pretty sure a bear was watching me, keeping me company. could here something in the bush, never saw anything, but there was bear skat everywhere...
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perfect, clouds lifted for one last nice parting shot...:metal:
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with the bridge gone, it will be a real bushwack to get to Stukolait lake, or Kha and Klept. maybe one day load up the 303 and hike the rest of the way in, will not be easy...
on my way back tried to get to Antimony lake and Skihist mountain, one of the tallest around here (almost 10 000 feet)
who ever pays attention to these...
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few miles in....hmmmm, no road or trail left. guess it's foot only now too....
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well, no bears stole my truck...:lol:
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heading out
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Awesome as usual Dawg! I would love to join you on a trek one day. Get the old 1 tons and campers rolling! This was the rig we took on the off grid fishing trip in northern Sask. No clue why it posted sideways.

Re: post up your camping pics
 

couple more leaving Kwoiek. kinda disappointed all the roads and trails are gone. it's a long valley with big mountains that requires more than a day on foot. prob wont be back this way for a bit, it's not like how i remembered it....
was quite a chore getting to John George, just for a sandwich, but the beauty and serenity of it was well worth the effort-3rd times a charm....:lol:
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even on the way home the canyon was empty....:metal:
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hey Bilf, that Kodiak sure looks good on there!
no sag with the trailer either...nice!
you would like cruising around the back 40 out here Bilfman, hardly ever run into anyone, good fishing, still got some wildlife kicking around.
fuel costs in the 'ol 1 ton would be brutal to get here.....but ya only live once!

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Great pics guys! You're right Dawg that's a buddy's toy hauler. Good luck kicking the smokes.

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going on 6 mos MTCK!
quit mar 18, tough, but i'm done wasting 20 bucks a day on them....
i also learned a couple things today. one, i'm old. not the go-anywhere young buck anymore, just a 50 yr old roofer...hiked close to 30 miles today, with almost 4 of them strait up and down, and man oh man, i'm really feeling it right now. also learned a bear banger can work pretty good too...
our province has been burning big time this yr. the smoke from wildfires has blanketed the valley again, can barely see the mountains around my place
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so i decided to get out of the smoke today, and headed up the Coquihalla.
seems to be some smoke at the bottom of the Coke too..
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you never know what you'll run into on the Coke, like this truck-less load of 2x4's going up in flames
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lots of construction going on the Coke right now. fixing the bridge at Dry Gulch
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headed up to Vicuna/Guanaco Peaks
first glimpse of Guanaco
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it's a bit of a drive in...
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road is starting to tighten up, left some more paint out there...
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and this blows, still 12 miles to go and it aint going to be by truck....
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upon closer inspection, pretty sure the stepper don't have the clearance to drop off one log, and up the other...not really interested in finding out being a solo run, yeah my truck riding buddy Dieseldawg is at home. he's still recovering from his cancer op.
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and here's where i made my first screw-up, thinking i can hike all the way in, up the mountain, and all the way out...a few spots the road was'nt too bad
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don't think the truck would have made it this far anyways....
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brought 2 bottles of water with me, sure glad there was lots of fresh water to refill, cause in the 90 degree heat i was going through it fast
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that's Alpaca peak, rode my quad into it last yr, but had no batts for the cam...:waah:
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Lamb mt
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Vicuna peak beside Alpaca
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Guanaco
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getting closer to Alpaca, trail curves right by it
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after about 12 miles of humping, here's the trailhead up Vicuna, almost hiked right by it. pretty much 2 miles of strait up threw some heavy bush...well at least a 45 degree...:lol:
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some of the other peaks around there.
the huge slab of rock is where i learned a bear banger actually does work. on my way down i ran into a blackie here, so i hucked a banger at him and slid down the rock on my ass (ouch...) never seen him again..:lol:
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more of this 45 degree carp...coming up to the col between Vicuna and Guanaco
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on the col looking up at Vicuna
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Guanaco
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the Anderson range. if you kept hiking in a strait line for about another 80 miles, you would hit Nahatlatch
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after all the work of getting up here, i did'nt actually climb either Vicuna or Guanaco, just hung around the col. if i had'nt had to hike in so far.... looking at least another 3-4 hrs back to the truck. and i dont really feel like being out here after dark with just some jerky and bottles of water...
\some arsewhole just had to hang up a distance sign.... just what i need to know, ya-hoo...
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like i said, aint no spring chicken anymore, stopped and soaked my feet in this nice little creek
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whew!! thank jebus, finally, old legs are feeling it now...:lol:
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back on the Coke heading down into the smoke again...
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this guy did'nt quite make it too the top of the Smasher
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after last yrs record winter, there constructing everywhere on the Coke. been nibbling away at the mountain to improve access to one of the runaways on the smasher
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and there really opening up the chain on/off at the bottom of the smasher. after last yrs cluster schmuck on the hill, i think there really going to clamp down on truckers attempting to run the Smasher in the winter without chains
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remember the burning b-train of 2x4's?
usually when a vehicle catches fire on the Coke, the wrecker drivers just wait for it to cool down then haul it away. with no water for fires on the Coke, it's a long slow trip to bring up a tanker of water, so there aint too many burn saves. they did'nt save the trailer on this one, but they did get some water up to it, still burning after all day
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and in the 90 plus heat, i was hauling azz down the smasher, fast enough to create a draft that picked up and held my floor mat off the floor,all the way down the hill...just thought it looked kinda neat
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little less paint..:metal:
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how's the smoke up there? any fires?

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oh man SNJ, this is now offically the worst fire yr on record up here.
in 2 months over 2.4 million acres gone up. and the worst part is most of them are caused by people being IDIOTS. a lot of people have lost their houses, barn's, vehicles, pretty much the opposite of what is happening to Houston. We would LOVE to take some of that rain off Houston's hands....our backcountry literally explodes it's so dry
around where i live we're lucky and only have 1 fire going right now. We have a big lake (Harrison) near us, so water bombers can get on top of them pretty quick, but with our mountainous terrain, it's still a big challenge... and the idiots are a challenge too. some yahoos lit up Bear Creek at Harrison on july 1st. the fire crews told the people camping at Bear creek, Silver creek, and Cogburn beach to evac. When the fire crews went in to fight the fire, they had to stop and put out 3 unattended fires from the campers-like jeez, how stupid can you be?
they almost have it under control now, 'bout 70%, then last Sat (can ya belive this???) some bigger idiots went up there and lit up another fire. it's only been blasted all over the tv, radios, newspaper, massive fines, and they still do this...
just saw on the news, normal rain for july/aug-75 mm (3") this july/aug so far-10 mm (.3")
smoke comes and goes depending on the winds. some of the fires burning are so massive (Elephant Hill, half a million acres) they create their own winds, and when it's outflows, we get smoked.
we just went through 3 weeks of this at the beginning of the month
surrounded by 8000ft mountains and can't see a single one
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smoke really made the sun red in the morning, redder than my cam can do..
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this is one of our job sites at 1 in the afternoon...
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ha! check this out, but it was'nt plywood..
http://www.100milefreepress.net/news...la-southbound/

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jeez, with the humidity it's climbing over 100....we just can't seem to catch a break
much too hot to be in our non air conditioned house, so took the fam damily to Andy's lake up the Coquihalla. took wife's truck too, so nothing but pavement and gravel roads....:lol:
when i went to Vicuna last week, there was 9 choppers parked in this field (fire fighting). only 3 today but no traffic so i snapped some pics. looks like (not a chopper expert...) a huey, and a bell 407 and a bell 212
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this thing was parked across the street (nice e-brake...lol)
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and with the kid, had to once again stop at McDicks. while sitting in the drive-thru line up, this thing rolled up. i got no idea what it is. looks like some kind of redneck road grader rat rod...it had 4 slicks on the arse end, but was gone by the time we got thru the line up...
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the usual puppy pit stop at Hunter creek. sure is low with no rain for a couple months...
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just deep enough for dawg to cool off his belly. he's still quite slow from his cancer op the other week
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handed the cam off to my son to get a pic of me and dawg. should have known better....:lol:
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here's what i was really after... (the little turd...)
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Nak and Yak peaks at the Zopkios brake check
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we take the Brookmere exit and head back down south again
some nice country, really quiet, did'nt pass no one
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stopped at this little creek so Dawg could cool down again
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was a nice drive till we hit some logged off areas. ya, i'm well aWare we live in wood houses and wipe our butts with paper, but cmon, this is disgusting, and then they go burn about 30-40% of what they don't take. what you see in the pics will be going up in flames come a wet fall. no need to log like this and really is no excuse to be logging like this. europe has been select logging for yrs and they get top dollar for their wood, so their "expensive" theory is just s**t.
sorry, rant over, just hate this...
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actually took these down by Hunter creek earlier, but was not going to post them cause of piss-poor logging practices, but what the hay...yup, that looks real scenic for the tourism industry...
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some nameless lakes on the way in
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almost there..
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last few miles were rough. smacked the front skidplate on wife's truck twice, once real hard enough to get out and check....she of course was not impressed and did'nt like the road....
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and here we go, Andy's lake
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one last stop in the Coquihalla river for Dawg
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no idea what yr this is, all's i know is i had to slow down to less than 50 so the kid could snap a pic. must be a s-l-o-w go heading anywhere in this...:lol:
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tomorrow me and the kid are going to hike into the old Ladner creek train trestle bridge on the Coke :metal:

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any rail buffs?
there used to be a railroad (Kettle Valley Railway) running up through the Coquihalla, from pioneer days till around '59 or '60 i belive. was just too expensive and tough to keep open, slides everywhere constantly and immense snows, plus a "easier" route threw the Fraser Canyon. there is quite a bit of the old railbed left up here, which is used by atv'ers, sledders, hikers, bikers. it passes through some beautiful country, quite a bit of what i have posted is off the KVR.
me and the kid went for a short but sharp hike to the Ladner creek train bridge today. from the bridge down to Hope has got some of the best features. There is the Othello tunnels, 5 tunnels blasted right threw the mountains with 5 bridges between them over the Coquihalla Canyon, very impressive area. been there many times, we went there today, but there was like 7 or 8 chinese tour buses with about 2 bajillion chinese everywhere....:waah:
Rambo First Blood was filmed here, where Stallone launches himself off the cliff

cool old film of one of the last trains to run the KVR. Ladner bridge looks much better then...lol
it starts not too far from my house at Ruby Creek
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cw3bRlFkJqY

also found some old web pics of the Ladner bridge. old school, what safety lines...:lol:
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some more of the bridge
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passed this nice sub on the way out
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turned off at Carolin mine, up to Ladner creek
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the Coquihalla hiway over Ladner creek
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we have to get up to the old railbed, steep and rocky, but not very far.
up to the hiway
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some lose rock at the beginning
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then it turns into about a 50 degree trail
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then we hit another rocky area
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and some more steep stuff...
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and here we are pretty quickly at the railbed....
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here's a big old concrete retaining wall that held up one section of the tracks...
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found part of an old railroad tie
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after a quick 20 min hike we hit tunnel #11, on the other side of this tunnel is the Ladner bridge
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not sure when the orig tunnel was built (late 1800's maybe?), but they left the first timber framed tunnel and put this concrete one over it later in '49. i climbed up to the roof and could see the orig tunnel threw a bunch of holes. don't ya just love (NOT) the fairy little graffitti some loser did on our history.....
when they stopped using the line, for safety's sake (?) they tried to blow the mountain down over the tunnel, which didn't really work so they filled up the tunnel instead, again for safety, their theory they will never be liable if the tunnel falls in on some poor slob walking threw it. now, you have to do an extremely dangerous climb over the tunnel, which i guess they figure is safer (?)
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as you can see, extremely steep and loose ground every step
going up beside the tunnel
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as you can see it's pretty much strait up and down
there is no way you could climb this loose dirt without the wire strung up there
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not a lot of room at the top, got to watch my son on this loose stuff- prob about 350 feet down to the creek.....
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i'm guessing around 350 feet cause there is the bridge, it's around 250 feet off the creek and we're 'bout a 100 feet above it
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unfortunately this was as far as i could let my son go. he's got quite a collection of conquered peaks and is real agile and good in the bush, but it was a reverse slope with a real loose surface going directly into a 350 ft fall down the mountain, with no gear to stop. belive me, it is worse than it photo's.
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we tried everything we could, but that slope was just too slippery. we even tried going up over what was left over the tunnel, but we only got as far as the trees up there, the whole side of the mountain has come down, also took out part of the lose slope trail, we're not going to cross it without a rope
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i've been climbing mountains and roofs for 40 yrs, so i slid myself down to the slide and got some bridge pics. my son was very disappointed, can't blame him, we got right to it.......
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so close, yet so far.....we will be coming back with some of my safety gear from work. dont know if i could handle having my son tumble down the mountain to his death, especially with school startin' tomorrow....:metal:
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