|
FAQ |
Articles (non-tech) |
Product Reviews |
Ride Guide |
Technical Articles
Advertise With Us | Media Coverage | Privacy Statement | Sponsor List |
The 2007 Valley Trail Riders Pitt Lake ExpeditionMaple Ridge AreaJuly 21-23/07 Written by Treds Photos by Paul T., Treds, and Wow-wee It was proposed at a meeting earlier in the year that a ride up the far end of Pitt Lake might be possible. The interest was there and it was made into reality. For many years I have read about Slumach's lost mine and various other stories that emanate from the Pitt Lake and River area. The Sasquatch sighting, massive bear populations, rivers with an abundance of fishes, it all held a fascination for me. I had to go there; this was my opportunity. Seventeen people were the maximum we could get on the barge with seven trailers. These spots were quickly filled. About a month prior to the launch of our expedition a meeting was held at Christine & Darcy's to organize who could or would be able to supply the various components to make the trip a worthy endeavor. A fine particularly fine meal with a nicely cooked salmon was provided by our most gracious hosts. 
After eating we got down to business. Friday August 3rd we launch by 5pm, return on Aug 6th leaving Pitt River at 3pm. Three camp stoves deemed essential and the associated kitchen wares that go hand in hand were quickly offered up. A toilet was to be constructed and a crew designated to dig the pit. Group meals discussed and menus were decided. A few buckets of the Colonel's finest will be our meal as we cruise Pitt Lake. Chain saws, firearms & tools were volunteered by various individuals. All shelters & sleeping gear were to be individually provided. The planning done, it's time for some pie & ice cream. Anxiety the week before we go. Where in the heck is a guy going to store all the crap on a quad for four days supplies, tents, coolers, bedding, clothes and of course a few wobbly pops? The task seems overwhelming. I have a practice load of the ATV to ensure it's capable of handling all of the items. It looks like we have a working unit. One of the original members for this ride has a Doctors appointment that can't be missed and has to cancel out of their spot on the ride. Paul T. quickly offers himself as a replacement and lets me know "he's in YEE-HAH!" August 3rd arrives; the weather outlook seems a bit spotty according to the various weather services. I have a secret rain dance I hold during the morning shower to appease the rain gods. I attempt to do a days work but find myself going over and over the check list in my head. The morning was gone in a flash and so is the early afternoon. I scurry back home to load quads and camping supplies. Wow-wee shows up and we quickly load his quad and gear into my truck and trailer. Good-byes are made and the excitement begins, only to be dashed as we creep onto the freeway west-bound to the Port Mann Bridge. A slow crawl ensues until we pass the weigh scales then traffic and our spirits pick up. We arrive at the Pitt Polder boat launch to see various configurations of gear racked, stacked and in some manner attached to quads and trailers. It's an eye-popper seeing the stuff people are packing onto their machines. Lots of grinning taking place by all parties, all eager to get underway. Parking paid for and one last security check of the vehicles we are leaving behind. We meander down towards the boat launch. My quad handles like a wheel barrow of cement – poorly. I can't see behind me with the big quad box and a cooler on top of that. The front of my quad has two full flat packs and my tent and bedding on the front rack, it feels like, and is, a heavy load.   Some peoples coolers are massive. I wonder what they contain to solicit such behavior. The boat and barge arrives and we find Singleton helping the skipper rearrange the loading ramps of the barge. Ramps ready we begin to load. The quads with the trailers are loaded first and everyone else after that. I run around taking pictures of the loading and find myself to be the last one to load. The barge is almost full, I can get my front tires on it, and the rear will have to stay on the loading ramps for the trip up, more than a wee bit disconcerting to say the least. Ramps up we say "adios" to Singleton and leave him to watch us sail into the sunset. 
The Expedition begins ... There are lots of grinning faces as we make our way up Pitt Lake; a few beverages are broken out as we make headway. Dinner is finger-lickin' good as we pass the buckets of the Colonel's finest around the barge, everyone getting their requirements of bear attractants smeared on themselves. 
The scenery is as expected – spectacular. Lots of finger pointing at various points of interest on the way up. I swear the ramps are creeping lower into the lake as we progress north (visions of the Kingquad slipping quietly to the bottom of Pitt Lake enter my mind). 
Silly me - I find myself holding onto its rack to keep this from happening. 
We arrive at the logging camp at the north end of the lake and make preparations for unloading. I'm the first one off the barge (or was I technically ever on it going up?) and back off the ramps, park my quad and watch the mayhem unfold. Lots of physical tossing of the quads around to make the unloading easier. The trailers got unhooked, spun around, and quickly reattached to their tow vehicles. Everyone get off the barge uneventfully. There is a quick meeting as to where we are going and who to follow. A slow 5 kilometer ride will ensue with a left turn at that point to be expected. The ride begins, the first most of us have experienced with our fully-laden ATV's. No one is sure of their handling capabilities as we head out widely spaced down the dusty road. The pace is a brisk 25 to 30 kilometers a hour. Rod and I sweep the rear to see if we can find any dropped items as we progress to the camping area. No treasures to be found; everyone did a good job of securing their loads. We arrive at our new home for the next few days. We all scout out the ideal locations for our humble abodes, commodes and social areas. Everyone gets busy with the tasks at hand and soon we have a small village of tents popping up on the sandy beach we have chosen to camp on. A pit toilet is dug and a box and seat placed over it, and a wall of material draped around it. The gals on the trip are delighted with the results. It's starting to get dark by this time as we fine-tune our various campsites to accommodate our needs. Time for a wobbly pop! There is firewood-a-plenty as the river has left lots of debris scattered about. Not once during this weekend did we have to chainsaw or axe a piece of wood for the fire. A real nice feature. The fire gets started and the lawn chairs magically appear to ring the fire. A few more pops and some story telling and it's off to get some sleep. The stars are not visible on this night as a light overcast sky prevents a view of the heavens. Morning comes and there is a rustle of activity around the camp as we all seem to have a dependency on a java pick up. No Kentucky-fried-encrusted individuals were consumed by the bears overnight, although there is a suspicion that Albert would have been the first candidate if this was to happen. Stoves are set up and pots of perked coffee permeate the air. The fire gets stoked and we enjoy a cuppa prior to making "barf in a bag" breakfast: Christine had grated cheeses, cut ham, mushrooms, bacon, onions and peppers and put them in individual zip lock bags. Five dozen eggs were produced. I enter the unknown realm of cooking the assorted contents of my choice – ham, mushroom and cheese; I crack a couple of eggs into the Zip-lock bag and drop it into a pot of boiling water. The description of my forthcoming meal is never as obvious as it is at this point; its name is an understatement. At the three minute mark I remove the bag and squish the ingredients and drop it back in to squeeze the uncooked center to the outside. At eleven minutes I take it out and empty the contents onto my plate. A very impressive omelet appears; in fact it's the best looking omelet I have ever produced. Damn! Such fine culinary skills I had no idea I possessed. It tasted as good as it looks! The first ride... It's decided that Ken will lead us up to the heights of the east side of the Pitt River valley initially so we could get an overall view of the weekend's places to cover. 
We load up and head out, we space ourselves accordingly as to not eat too much dust. The forests are thick with moss; it's everywhere, trees, rocks and ground. It seems eerie; I'm thinking Sasquatch country, if there is such a place this is it. We travel the main FSR down past the lodge we've all heard about. Funny, almost all of us had expected to see something really luxurious. It's just a nice cabin from the exterior that we saw. We go through a working logging camp and turn right; the dust is really thick around the camp, so we space ourselves a little further apart. The climb begins immediately after the camp. We come across a bridge that gives us a spectacular view of the ravine and the water course that has cut into it over the eons. 
The first six riders are snapping pictures or just enjoying the view when a loaded logging truck pulls up onto the bridge coming down from where we wanted to go. 
The most cordial driver suggested we should find another way to get to our destination as they had some much larger trucks working the area and we would be a hazard to them and would not fair too well if any encounter should ensue. He offered us a work around to get to our destination which we gladly accepted realizing that fourteen foot wide logging trucks on a twelve foot wide FSR wouldn't work out too well for the ATV's or us. We descend back down to the logging camp and travel a little further north to make the right hand turn to cut back up into the alpine areas. Once up there the view is amazing. We travel a little further along and my quad makes a horrendous noise – it sounded like my belt stretched and snapped and rang off the housing. I come to an immediate halt and shut it down. I jump off and do a once around it to see if there is anything visible – I see nothing. I start it again and it moves OK but the power just isn't there. I do another couple of hundred yards when it stalls and I decide I'd best look at the belt as this is where the noise originated. 
A check of the belt showed a little dust in there but there was no damage to be found. Seems serious so I let a few others with more mechanical savvy then myself test drive it. They do a couple of hundred yard bursts and figure it's also running leaner than it should be. It now begins to blow some blue smoke and is starting to chatter. It gets shut off. Thirty eight kilometers into our weekend and I'm dead in the water. Wow-wee steps up to the plate and offers to tow me back to camp. 
The others continue on to search for the lost mine and other more realistic treasures. As we descended from the higher elevations I lost the tow strap off Wow-wee's quad, he heard it clinking and looked over his right shoulder. The downhill momentum was so great I passed him on his left as he was doing this. Coming down off the mountain in free fall mode was a blast. It was so quiet and it had to have been at least ten kilometers in length. Back on the tow line we stop at the fisheries to watch some of the lodge patrons try some fly fishing. The setting they were fishing in was nothing short of a National Geographic magazine cover. Just jaw-dropping gorgeous. We could see many fish in the river and found one guy underneath our bridge trying his luck. 
We saw another guy hook into a rather large fish and was putting up a decent battle with the monster but lost his footing and went ass-over-tea-kettle backwards into the river. 
Wow-wee and I both had a good chuckle at the poor guy's situation. 
Wow-wee tows me back to camp and stops just so my quad is right on top of the fire pit. The wiener wants to burn my quad!!! 
Bastage! He has a good laugh. I decide to hang around the camp and gather fire wood while Wow-wee goes off exploring to see if he can locate the hot springs. As I gather the fire wood a few locals on quads start driving around in and around where we are camped. At first I'm a little leery of their encroachment. Then I decide I'd better go and talk to a group that had stopped beside the river to have a beverage. It seems the whole community there was aware of a group of ATV enthusiasts were up for the weekend and they had come to see for themselves. Some of the talk led to the whole group of us being invited to the annual pig roast that is held up there by one of the locals. The gang starts coming back to camp well spaced and a wee bit thirsty. Some wobbly pops are opened and consumed. Everyone pitches in to make dinner preparations. The briquettes are lit. Potatoes were cleaned and wrapped in foil. It's steak night at the VTR corral. 
A bottle of Matheus wine and glasses and salads appear. 
The spuds are cooked the steaks begin to sizzle, mushrooms get fried – damn this tenting is tough! Some hors d'oeuvres of venison sausages go over extremely well. Dinner's on! The conversations cease; it's time to chow down! We sit around the campfire feeling a tad bloated and enjoying a beverage when a guy comes riding into camp wondering why we haven't made it to the pig roast. A group of eight of us decides that we'll walk up to the pig roast. The others are content to sit around the fire. It's a twenty minute walk to the location of the pig roast. There are people everywhere. Who'd have thought there were this many people here!?!? Estimates are two hundred people at the party. We quickly introduce ourselves to the host and let him know who we are and why we are at his party. He's a funny bastard, he tells us "I didn't invite you!" looking seriously at Don and myself takes a swallow of beer from his beer stein and laughs at our stunned expressions. He then makes us feel like long lost friends and begins to show us around. At this point I am sworn to secrecy as to what may or may not have happened at the pig roast {insert anything your imagination can handle here} under threat of banishment by the eight who attended this event. Don did manage to convince a local to loan me a ATV for the next two days. We could come back to the house in the morning to pick it up. We staggered back to camp being extremely quiet (at least WE thought so!!) and had a night cap around the fire, chuckling about the nights events, and it was there we took the oath of silence and then called it a night. Morning came early on day two of our expedition. For some reason my head hurt and my mouth was really dry (must be the mountain air!). A couple of Tylenol and a litre of juice, I'm ready for coffee and pancakes. Mmmm pancakes with blue berries. A few accusatory stares at "the eight" who apparently weren't as quiet as they thought they were the previous evening go unnoticed by most. A full belly and all is forgiven. We clean up and decide on the days objectives. I'm back in the game; I have a quad! Yee-hah! Don doubles me back up to the location of the pig roast. It's very quiet (I don't know why – a decent pig roast should still be going!) We locate the Polaris and back it out of the garage where it is kept. We start it up and the host's dogs come up to us. I'm looking UP at them seated on the quad. One is a Italian guard dog (Neapolitan?) that's name escapes me and the other two are Mastiffs – big and bigger! The host gives us a wave and a nod, the dogs give us some room and we are out of there without any puncture wounds. Today's destination is on the west side of the valley, past the hot springs and the farthest north we can go up to the fringes of Garibaldi Provincial Park. We leave camp and head upstream. Redoubling some of the previous day's journey, we do not make a right turn today but keep on going. Thankfully the morning dew is keeping the dust down a bit; you can actually see the rider in front of you. I'm testing out the Polaris trying to see what can or can't be done as we boogie along. I'm already missing my 700 cc's but am thrilled to be back in the saddle regardless. On the way up Szilvia flushes out a black bear and gets a little excited about finding it. Greg and I passed her to get a little closer but it took flight and went down a steep slope. We get up as high as we can on the Steve Creek FSR fairly fast and have a terrific view of the various glaciers that dot the ridgelines in all directions. 
The boundary for the Provincial Park is very obvious; there has been clear-cutting right up to its edge. We can see lots of older overgrown roads and trails from our vantage point, but have no idea as to how to get to a point to access them. Having reached the end of the trail, we descend back down to look for another trail to check out. We find the Pinecone FSR and follow it for a bit. There is an old abandoned road we turn off, and begin some bush whacking. Maybe a kilometer into it Ken has had enough of the dense brush and old cross ditches. He chooses to turn around, and two others in front of me follow Ken's lead. I'm just starting to like what I'm seeing and keep going further on and up into the general direction of Pinecone Lake. I stop at an old bridge made of massive old trees to get a photo and Darcy passes me while I'm checking out the waterfalls and bridge. I jump back on the Polaris and follow Darcy deeper into the jungle. The others had somehow gotten the impression that there was a insurmountable wash-out where the others had turned around and they had followed them out. Meanwhile I was in pursuit of Darcy and finally caught up to him. We both agreed this is the best riding we've found since we had gotten off the barge and to keep on climbing up this trail. At one point we come across a eight-foot ditch wash-out. There is a off camber descent down into it, and a very steep chute to climb on the other bank that would require a forward and backward realignment to get your quad straightened out to be able to do this. Darcy went first and his familiar Kodiak did a masterful job making it look easy. It's now my turn on the unknown borrowed Polaris. It slides down into the ditch and I align it to make the shot out of the hole. I pin it and almost make it up, but the little quad that could wasn't going to make it, and I'm over the handle bars as far as I can reach, the forward momentum has stopped. The wee beast is going nowhere, Darcy grabs the front rack and starts pulling it up the last foot as I'm contemplating which way I am going to bail if it doesn't start moving forward. His assistance was all the Polaris needed; it slowly starts to move forward and crests the lip of the ditch. Whew!! A good chuckle ensues and we continue our advance. The bush is getting thicker the higher we climb. The slashing, sawing and clipping is taking its toll. We stop for a water break. As we re-hydrate we look over the bank and see skunk cabbage leaves just below us. Strange, they are all upside down and lead into a large opening under the trail which we are standing on. Damn! It's some animals den! Was it a bear den or perhaps a Sasquatch's? We weren't hanging around to find out. We make haste and return to our onward and upward journey glancing nervously backwards occasionally. We continue whacking bush for another kilometer or two. We were wondering why nobody else was following us up the trail and decided we'd best turn back. We dropped back down the newly reclaimed trail and came out on half of the original group. The others had decided it was time to give the hot springs a try and had departed much earlier. Here we learn of Wow-wee's diabolical plan to hide in the bush and jump out to scare the crap out of us as we came back down the trail. Apparently he hid in the bushes for half an hour waiting for us to return but got bored and abandoned his plan. If only he'd done it near that den, I'm sure we would have found a land crossing over into the Indian Arm just by adrenalin. We pull into hot springs just as the other half of the group is leaving. They all have a nice glow about them. Four of us proceed to walk the last hundred yards into the cliffs above the hot springs. There is a knotted rope with which you rappel down a thirty foot drop onto a rock near the hot springs. Darcy goes first to coach Christine as this is her first experience at some thing like this. 
She makes it down OK. 
I go next followed by Wow-wee. Ken is still soaking in the springs. There are two tubs one was colder than the other and shallower. We decide the colder one we will use for washing up in and the other warmer one for relaxing. We all have a nice scrub and relax in the tub for awhile. 
It's really nice having a hot bath after a sweaty ride. I stick my head into the rushing river just a foot away from the springs, WOW! Is that stuff cold! Any remnants of the previous evening's hangover were exorcised from me by that act. It's getting late in the afternoon, it's time to return to camp to begin the Chili cook off. Szilvia and I had both brought large portions of chili; we set them both up to simmer on the stove and the gang sat in the shade closer to the river having a pop or two while the chili cooked. A few tried their hand at fishing during this time and did receive a few bites. The fish were jumping out mid stream. Darcy put a salmon on the BBQ and Al cooked up some more of his venison sausages. Salads appeared once more and the feast was on. Ed was over near their tents and was attempting to light the camp stove to make coffee, and some how managed to get five foot flames out of it getting lots of laughs from the gang – Don't let him in your kitchen! He then had to clean the blackened pots and dumped all the soapy water onto his crotch, releasing another burst of laughter through out the camp. Shortly thereafter we celebrated Ed's 65th birthday around the camp fire with the cheese cake that Christine magically came up with (remember this is tenting it and roughing it supposedly!). It was fairly subdued around the camp fire on this evening, the conversations low as we watched the embers glow. There is speculation that some people got out of control the previous evening resulting in this slower, quiet evening; I wouldn't know as I'm sworn to secrecy however. Day three It's porridge for brekkies! Everyone is up a little earlier this morning having gone to bed a little earlier. The plan is a ride until noon then we come back and pack and get to the dock for three. Ken recalls a old road that has a waterfall cascading down across a bridge, it's quickly chosen as the ride for the morning and is relatively close by. We cross over the river and whip up a FSR for a few kilometers, hang a left, and drive into the jungle. No one had been in here since the LMATV bunch was in here years ago. It was severely overgrown; the trail tools come out and we ascend through the jungle sawing, clipping and whacking our way in and up. 
Before too long we find the spot with the bridge but the water flow isn't the same as before. The water doesn't break over the bridge but was still a gorgeous waterfall. A couple of hours to go, we look at maps and GPS's. A small lake is supposed to be up the old road and we've been playing peek-a-boo with an alpine valley every now and then when the bush thins enough for a glimpse of our surroundings. We keep hacking and whacking at the dense bush. A few fun cross ditches add some interest to our ride. 
We climb up to a clearing to see there is still a long way to go. It's getting near our turn-around time and half of us decide to descend while others want to keep going for a half hour. I jam and go down early knowing I have to return the quad to add to my tasks prior to leaving. We get back to camp and I fill the borrowed Polaris up, pull the leaves and sticks off of it and drive up to its parking spot in the garage. Don meets me there and we go say thanks to the host of the pig roast. We double back to camp. There is furious activity. The tents are dropping all over the place. Items getting stuffed everywhere. I get Wow-wee to tow my quad closer to the tent to load it and its contents onto it. We pack, load and go to the campfire area to marshal prior to leaving. A stove is left out and we cook hotdogs. No forks or knives to be found it's a stick to retrieve the hot dog from the boiling water. One has to pour relish onto it. Now this is more like camping! Everyone loaded up we begin our return journey back to where we were put ashore with me being towed down the road by Wow-wee. We arrive at the boat ramp to find no tug or barge and none in visible sight. A pop or two appears as we watch the logging trucks and boom boat busily do their days business. The Boom boat operator docks his boat to take a break. I speak to him he tells me he's a Quads.ca member, its TRAV35!! Ahhhhh! You can't get away from them!  (Nice meeting you Trav!) Finally Ray and his boat clear the point and he makes his way toward us. Trav35 clears the booms blocking access to the boat ramp and Ray backs the barge in. We load the quads with trailers first, then the quads with quads (Wow-wee towing me). Then just quads. 
It all gets done quite quickly and we are under way. Some more pops appear and everyone's secret sugar stashes come out. The jujubes and chocolate bars and other junk foods make their rounds along with pops via air mail, there is too much stuff on everyone's quads to move around much. 
Lots of boats out on the lake during our return, some girls out enjoying the sunshine decide to get a rise out of the ATVer's on the barge by lifting their bikini tops as we cruised by. It was muchly appreciated by the male members on the boat. (the girls had a laugh too!) Just as we passed Goose Island we encounter a fool in a rented canoe with his wife and very young son trying to paddle into the wind to return to the rental spot near the boat launch. Ray offers them a lift; we load them into the tug and place their canoe on top of our quads on the barge. Lucky for them. We say our farewells as we unload off the barge as our vehicles are all over the parking areas. Another awesome, spectacular weekend with some of the best people on this planet! I thank you, gang! An unbelievable weekend! Treds 
|
|||
|
| |||
|
Copyright © Quads.ca. All rights reserved. No part of this website may be reproduced without the express written permission of Quads.ca. |