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Narrow MindedHope AreaAugust 29/04 Written by Greg I posted that I wanted to head to BC Nicklemine Road, and several people responded. Paul made sure that I knew that there was "no way" he and Bruce were going to ride the narrow trails. "No problem!" I said. Heh. Michael was towing his quad with a diesel VW low-rider, so rather than make him drive up the steep gravel road to the upper parking lot, we parked in the lower area. Most had never been here before, except for one person about 10 years ago. We all checked out Ken's new toy, a brand spankin' new yellow Honda Foreman ES out for it's inaugeral ride. He had just come back from the ATV/BC jamboree in Elkford where he had won a non-Honda quad, and upon returning, he immediately took it to his Honda dealer and traded it in on the yellow beastie. :) I started off by giving the group an overall tour of the area, pointing out the FVDRA campsite, the hillclimb, the dirtbike trails, and talked about the old mine and the other sections of the area. I mentioned that the green-flagged trails were the easier trails, and the red-flagged trails were more difficult and may not be wide enough for our quads. We got on to the powerline road, then did a loop back to the main road. Up the main road to the upper parking area, then I took them on "Eat My Brain", a green-flagged trail. No complaints, and everyone enjoyed the trail. We ran some of the wider dirtbike routes that criss-crossed the area, with a few pauses to make sure everyone was still together.     After the tour, we decided to head towards the mine. I took them to the fallen-in log bridge by the mine access road, and we worked our way up the hillside across from the mine. On one of the switchbacks, Michael broke his newly-installed handlebars at the right-side clamp, so we fixed it by whittling down a green branch, inserting it into his handlebars, relocating the handlebars about an inch to the left so that the right clamp covered the break, and tightened it down. Worked great for the rest of the trip! This road branched to several cutblocks; a very narrow trail led out from the end of one cutblock, and I wouldn't have bothered to try it except Michael in his 2wd did it, so of course Brian O and I had to follow. :) The others waited patiently at the spar area, knowing that we'd be back shortly. After a short while, the trail angled sharply downhill, and Michael knew that he wouldn't make it back up unassisted, so we turned around. I walked it for a bit to see how it was; it would be difficult even for a locked 4wd quad. On the way back down, Paul spotted a black bear up on a hill by some waterfalls; we cut our engines and Paul rolled down the trail to try to get closer for a photo (be vewy, vewy quiet!!) We spent a few minutes trying to take some photos, but it was quite a distance away and looked like a black blob in my pictures.                We headed for the base of the hillclimb for lunch; I gave everyone the option of taking a narrow, twisty trail, but only Brian O took the challenge. The trail led along the base of the cliff and exited at the bottom of the hillclimb; I remembered it being tight and off-camber, but it seemed a lot easier this time, and I don't think any of our group would have had a problem. However, one tree was leaning out into the trail, and I struck it hard with the top left corner of my quad trunk. This broke all the hold-down straps, either by ripping the worn nylon straps or breaking the plastic buckles, and my trunk was free to flop around, held in place by one remaining strap at the rear and the VHF radio cabling on one side. Doh! At the lunch spot, I borrowed a tie-down strap from Paul, threw it over the trunk, and I was good to go again. I led the group on some more of the criss-cross trails, and tossed in a couple of green-flagged trails for good measure. Everyone was having fun, so I picked a few narrower trails to see if anyone noticed. No trouble, so I headed for one of my favourite "narrow" trails. I cut off the road, and followed the trail until I got to a section with a large tree that was sticking out, making the trail too narrow for most of our quads as we'd be off-camber and therefore too tall, and would hit the tree. I then realized that I was on the wrong trail, and we'd have to either turn around, reverse out, or winch up to the main road, which was only 4 feet away but in a vertical direction. Bruce said "This is a red-flagged trail!!" Oops, sorry! Guess I missed the flag. The rear quads were able to turn around as the trail was a bit wider; some of us winched out (Paul winched me out from above), and Michael showed us all up by riding his lighter 2wd quad off-camber and out of the trail without the aid of a winch (although we had to give him a slight push).   Well, now that everyone was an "expert" in narrow-trail riding, I got onto the trail I thought I was on before, and led them through. It was a bit off-camber, had some tight squeezes, and some low-hanging deadfall. Most had no trouble, but Paul managed to put his foot down where it shouldn't have been (no, not in his mouth) and almost ripped it off. Then he was watching the quad in front of him skirt a tree lying across the trail at head height, and decided he wanted a different line; the photo shows the result as he got tangled in the branches. :)    After Paul gave me heck for taking him on that trail, although I think he really did like it, we decided to head across the old bridge with the old flatbed rail car over it. To my surprise, there was a nice new wooden bridge built overtop of the old one, so we sailed across with no trouble. However, a short distance up the trail, we found a tremendous washout over 15' deep that had totally taken out the trail and had made it impassable. We turned around, but I suspect that if we return later in the season, we'll find that it will have been repaired by whoever built the new bridge. We then headed up the logging road to the valley to the northwest. I missed one of the waterbars and got a real jarring wake-up call as my tires struck the ditch and I almost flew over the handlebars. Those who were immediately behind me slowed down in a hurry. We decided to explore a side road; it was recently graded (although not too smoothly), and soon turned into a muddy just-built skidder trail. We rapidly gained elevation as we headed up the slippery switchbacks to the top; the old road continued on across the slope, but the just-built portion stopped at a rock slide, where we turned around. All the way up, I was in 4wd and was spinning the tires to move; I was quite amazed that Michael made it up in his 2wd quad, although his rear tires were pretty agressive and mine were in need of replacement.   It was getting late in the day, so we headed back to our trucks. I again missed a waterbar (a different one this time) and flew over it, getting about 2 feet of air under the tires and landing slightly sideways, my front cross-member getting a hard jolt when it struck the ground. Then I noticed that all of my instrument lights had gone out, and the engine was only turning because the tires were rolling. Hm. I coasted to a stop, and tried to restart the quad. Nothing. The headlights worked though, so I knew the battery was good. I checked the ignition fuse, it was fine. Hm again. What could have happened? I guess banging the front end down that hard knocked something loose. I started at the ignition kill switch on the handlebar and followed it down, looking for a loose connector. Ah ha, there it was, a connector had come loose off the back of the fuse box. I plugged it back in, and the quad fired right up. Whew! Once again we headed back. After a few turns, Michael commented that he was sure glad that I knew where I was going, as he had no idea where he was. I ducked down another green-flagged trail, riding under the forest canopy where it met up with Eat My Brain and then back to the main gravel road, which we took back to our vehicles. Everyone said they enjoyed the ride, and since there were no injuries and no major breakage, it was another excellent day in the sun. |
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