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Stewart Lake to Pine RiverFort St John AreaMay 19/07 Written by Scrubbs 2farnorth, WhoamItoday, Mudlover and Scrubbs decided to head out for a fairly long ride. Three of us met at Safeway at 7:30am to find a restaurant that is open on the long weekend, and end up at Siver Creek cafe. After a bit to eat we headed down to the Esso in Taylor to pick up WhoamItoday. A brief chat and we were on the way. It was on the way that I thought I had left the key to my quad at home, so I pulled over to look for it, and after a few minutes of frantic searching and a call to the wife, I found I had actually brought it, and continued on my way. We drove down towards the end of the Gagne Rd, and on the way, WhoamItoday had to pull over to unload his quad from his trailer, as his car would not make it in past one of the upcoming hills. 2farnorth and Mudlover kept going, and I led WhoamItoday as he had not been here before. We unloaded at about 9:40am and lined up the quads for a photo...  Machines left to right - Mudlover's, WhoamItoday's, 2farnorth's, Scrubbs' and away we went! Five kilometers down the trail, we stopped to explain to WhoamItoday just where this side trail goes, in case he comes back on his own, and to just give a general "sense" of what we are riding today.  Left to right - WhoamItoday, Scrubbs and 2far Back on our quads, we continued straight down the trail, across a small stream, and further on we came to the Pipeline. We made a right turn and headed to the first road-crossing (intersection one) and WhoamItoday marked this spot on his GPS for further reference. We continued down the Pipeline for about 4 km, and came to the second road-crossing. (intersection two). As WhoamItoday marked this one, we informed him that this is the road to Stewart lake, and if he turned right, and followed the road, it will bring him to Stewart Lake. We continued across this road, and followed the Pipeline further to a metering station, where we made a gentle turn to the right at a Y. 
We came to a steep hill (not pictured), and took a moment to figure out if we're going to go down it, or around. We walked the hill for a bit, then decided to try. For some reason, no one thought to grab their cameras and document the 4 machines sliding down the hill to the bottom. At one point, the Pipeline is above ground and we stopped to shed some of the layers of clothing we had on, as the day was warming up.  2farnorth grabbing a rag out of my pack to wipe down his glasses  WhoamItoday sits for a photo op  Mudlover (aka "The Muppet") gets jealous  It is interesting to note that the above picture is one of the few times the Kawis were in the lead that day!! :) After we had a drink (non-alcoholic) we continued down the trail for about 10 km, and decided to stop for lunch around noon. 
 Lunch break After lunch we continued along the trail for another km, then made a right turn onto another Pipeline right-of-way. I explained to the guys that had we turned left we would have come out back at the metering station on the "left" fork of the Y. After our turn, we headed out for a few more kilometers and started down a slope...   When we got to the bottom of the Valley, we sat on the road close to the river, but did not want to ride on what looked like privately-owned land.  In the bush behind us is what looks like part of an old rock truck... We took a left on the road, and traveled along for about 2 km, when we came up to a smaller river crossing, but decided to forgo this one, and traveled back up the hill to find Stewart Lake. Back along the same way we came in, and we found a Pipeline right of way heading to the left. We took this line, and continued along for a bit. We came across a downed tree, and went around it thru the bush. I came across a log and tried to go over, but forgot to put it in low gear and smoked my belt breifly. Low gear, and away I went! We came out of this line at km 29 of the Stewart Lake Rd, and turned right and went to km 23 where we stopped for a rest on the shores of the Lake. 
After the lake, we travelled back down along the road to km 13 which just happened to be intersection 2. We made a left turn back along the Pipeline to intersection 1, and another left to follow this road from km 13 to km 30. Back into the bush we went, and after a few km's we came across MUSKEG!!! :)  Of which, WhoamItoday promptly got stuck in... Although, at this section, ALL of us got stuck... 
  2farnorth gets down and dirty  Is this fun... or work? BOTH!!  Some say I am stuck, but I'll never admit it. Okay, at this point, I'm stuck! We cleared a few more sections of muskeg, and we arrived back at the first stop where we explained to WhoamItoday what we would be doing. We headed back to the Pipeline to wash the quads off in the creek, and followed the pipeline back (opposite direction) to a different path that lead back to the truck. After saying goodbye to WhoamItoday as he still had to head back to his car, we loaded our quads after what turned out to be 140 kilometers of great scenery, and a lot of fun. |
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