|
FAQ |
Articles (non-tech) |
Product Reviews |
Ride Guide |
Technical Articles
Advertise With Us | Media Coverage | Privacy Statement | Sponsor List |
BC Nickel Mine Road IIHope AreaApril 2/05 Written by Greg Photographs by Storm and Greg XRC wanted to hit the trails, so on Friday I posted a last-minute note to the just-repaired Quads.ca forums to see if anyone else was interested. The House said he might come, and maybe Jazz as well. Storm said he'd be our dedicated photographer. The weatherman promised a miserable, rainy day. Around 6:30am Saturday morning, The House sent a message to my phone saying that he and Jazz were coming. When I called him back, he said that since he knew that I lived so far from the trailhead, he figured that I'd already be awake. Unfortunately, he was right. I live close to work and far from anywhere I can ride. When I headed out to my truck, I saw that it was raining, as promised.  XRC and I conducted a somewhat complicated truck/trailer/quad swap between several locations, resulting in us taking his Chevy extended-cab long box and my trailer to transport the two quads. XRC would be riding my Arctic Cat 300, and I would be doubling Storm on my Rincon. That swap took a while to execute, so we were a little late getting to the trailhead. While we were unloading the quads, The House and Jazz rolled up, having just returned from a warm-up run. However, the weather had cleared up once we were past Langley, and it was almost sunny. Things were looking up!I observed that the guys known to flip their quads were present; The House with his 2005 Honda TRX400FG, Jazz with his Kawasaki 700, me with my Honda Rincon 650, and XRC with my old Arctic Cat 300. In his defense, XRC hadn't flipped a quad yet, as he was a new rider. Things might get interesting! We eventually hit the trail; the old washout had been repaired and we reached the FVDRA campsite without incident. I led the group to the hill climb, then we wandered through some of the green-flagged trails and the inter-connected loops. We stopped to play in a few spots, and Storm busied himself with his camera gear, which was worth more than any three of our quads put together. 
After cresting a hill we found some puddles in the middle of the trail. When I hit the water, I couldn't even see my racks in front of me, so I quickly let off the throttle. 
We did a quick run up one of the powerline access roads, a "shortcut" between two sections of the main road. XRC had some issue with a rut and getting stuck off-camber in 2wd, but by the time I had gotten turned around he had located the 4wd lever and had gotten out. On the hillclimb under the powerlines, we amused ourselves by getting a bit of air at the top of the hill. 
We then headed off to the old bridge to see if the trail beyond it had been repaired since the washout; it had not. We returned to the bridge and stopped for lunch. This bridge had a railway car placed across it, followed by a new wood deck and rails. We figured that whoever had repaired the bridge would be back to repair the washout at some point. 
We then headed into the next valley, and quickly encountered snow. The others were playing in the snow, sliding their back ends around. I didn't try it as I had Storm and his camera gear on the back of my quad. We stopped for a couple of group shots along the way before starting to climb in elevation. As usual the deep snow eventually got the better of us and we had to turn around, but not before The House got his quad into one of those tippy situations. 
We checked out some of the powerline access roads on the way back; all were short and most were muddy. 
We then headed off towards the old mine. Storm tried taking a few photos over my shoulder as we bounced along the trail; the photos turned out pretty good, considering that he was holding on with one hand and holding the camera out and to the right with the other hand, and couldn't see through the viewfinder to know what he was shooting. 
Instead of taking the actual road to the mine, we decided to take the other old bridge across to see if we could see the mine from above. There were a few minor slides on the way up; some were a little more exuberant than others getting over the slides. We carefully rode across the narrow remains of the bridge, but the snow was getting pretty deep and it was difficult to tell what was under the next crossing, so we decided to turn around. 
We checked out one final trail; it was full of logging debris, and ended abruptly. We then took a little half-pipe-shaped side trail that started at a powerline access and descended to a main trail. Somewhere along the descent, The House apparently dumped his quad on its side. Unfortunately for us, and fortunately for him, he seemed to have plenty of experience with these sorts of situations, and he got himself righted before any of the cameras were deployed. We finally made it back to our trucks, where we spotted Glenn and his Grizzly. Apparently he had arrived very late, and had spent the day looking for us. Sounds like it's time for us all to get two-way radios. Glenn spent some time playing in a logged cut, and Jazz pulled a few wheelies for the camera. Somebody then pointed out the 3" steel spike in my rapidly-deflating left rear tire (darn!). 
I think we all had a good time, and weather even cooperated. It was good to finally meet The House and Jazz. |
|||
|
| |||
|
Copyright © Quads.ca. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced without the express written permission of Quads.ca. |