Mark_BC's 2000 Limited Salvage Build

[Mark_BC]

There was a little bit of rain overnight, enough to get the ground wet.

The firefighters were back at it with the helicopter, dumping the bucket on flare-ups.

I continued driving up the valley. Yalakom is a pretty long valley and it connects up with the Mud Lakes road, which comes from the more popular recreation use areas further west, via Poison Mountain area. I wasn't exactly sure how the roads went up at the top but I'd figure it out, even though I had no Google Earth.

As I headed up, the road went through an old burn area with a backdrop of silver dead tree trunks.

I encountered the junction in the road; to the right it goes counter clockwise around Poison Mountain. To the left it goes clockwise. I went left.

Soon after I passed by a series of pretty small lakes with alpine-like vegetation.

I could hear the forestry activities happening nearby somewhere but could not see them.

The road becomes very narrow and I would not want to bring a vehicle much bigger than my 4runner through due to the downed trees along and over the trail.

I came to a creek crossing beside an old core sample drilling operation.

To the east of here is a whole network of old exploration roads. I had lunch here -- avocado, cheese, cucumber, tomato, hummus, on crackers – the usual. I was getting up in elevation here and it was cool. As I left a bee flew onto the hood and wouldn't leave since he liked the heat. I forced him off since I didn't want to bring him too far away from his home range.

At one point the trail goes by an old cabin.

Eventually I emerged into the alpine and the main trail junction. To the left it goes north-west to Mud Lakes and connects to the vast Chilcotin Plateau. To the right, it goes up to Poison Mtn.

Poison Mtn has a really steep straight run up its north face to its peak. Usually when I've seen it on Youtube, people go up in groups. I was by myself. It was pretty intimidating at the base but I decided I came all this way so I should go up too. Just don't stop on a steep section.

It goes up for a while and at the top it has panoramic views in all directions. I could see the Yalakom Valley I just came up, including the smoke from the fire there. That seemed to be the only fire around.

And the forestry activities were visible nearby.

Poison Mtn is kind of in the transition between the Chilcotin mountains to the south, and the Chilcotin plateau to the north. It's definitely worth the trip up for the views. I could not find a single piece of garbage on the mountain – nice.

I turned around to go back down to find camp for the night. The low gearing in 4LO just isn't low enough to allow for engine braking on these steep loose trails. So I had to use my brakes which was causing them to overheat. So I stopped about 4 times for 10 minutes to allow them to cool.

I found a campsite near where the road re-enters the subalpine forest. I picked up the bits of garbage around and had a good night's sleep.

 

[Mark_BC]

The next morning I backtracked the trail from Poison Mountain back to the junction. Here is the track up Poison Mountain:

I turned right and headed north-west to the next junction. This road is really fun to drive, technical but not too difficult. You definitely exercise your axles. There are some pretty tight turns which I wouldn't want to negotiate in a vehicle much larger than the 4runner.

It has nice views of the surrounding area.

There are new logging roads going in from the north which seem to be totally independent of the network of 4WD trails in the area. The cutting goes right over the historical 4WD trail but they seem to have respected it and haven't damaged it.

Eventually it descends to the tee junction where left goes to Mud Lakes, and right goes north to the Chilcotin Plateau, joining with the Gaspard Creek - Red Mtn forest service road. The people in Lillooet with the 80 series mentioned something about a new “7 meter bridge” or something up there but they weren't actually able to get on it. I could see it from the junction.

After turning right at the tee, the trail goes through dense forest for a short while.

... before emerging into an old cutblock with dense young pine trees crowding in the road. This is the only road west of the Fraser River that connects the Lower Mainland with central BC. Pretty cool, I hope it stays that way.

At some point it meets up with the maintained forest road at which point you are home free. I drove past some wild horses off to the side and stopped to take pictures. Then a native guy rode by on a horse so I guess they were his. I thought about how his life must be so different from mine even though we are both BC'ers.

I passed this structure which I presume is for making shelters in winter. I've seen them around the Chilcontin.

The road opened up into a wide well graded forest road. The terrain was much flatter here with rolling hills and distant mountains as I headed north away from the Coast Mountains.

I had an older version of the Backroads Mapbook which showed a road coming in from the east connecting with the roads at the Fraser River. But for the life of me I couldn't find it. I drove back and forth around the coordinates but there wasn't even an overgrown remnant of a road. Very strange.

At a cool creek crossing I decided to have a bath. I took bottles of the cold water for my bath at the side of the road. Wouldn't you know it, some trucks came by right at that moment; after not seeing another person since Lillooet a few days ago...

Then I soon passed the junction with the East Churn Forest Road which I'd like to take some day, and then onto the main Gaspard FSR. There is a gate here which luckily was open.

I went past some log sorts and active logging operations with big haul trucks.

I decided to look for a place to camp and saw Stobie Lake on the map which looked good. I found a really rough recently bulldozed track to it and took that. I found a nice spot in a dry meadow above the lake.

This lake has a sluice gate and the water level was low. Consequently half of the lake was mud; but still a nice campsite with lots of birds on the lake. It turns out there was a better road further up that goes to the lake, and my campsite was in view of the passing traffic kicking up a dust storm.

 

[Mark_BC]

I needed to head west towards Chilko Lake and the Taseko River road which goes there. I was heading north-east up the Gaspard road in the opposite direction so I needed to take a connecting road over. There is a network of mainline logging roads here on the vast Chilcotin Plateau that generally go north-east to south-west but the interconnecting roads between them are a bit hit or miss.

I saw in the mapbook what looked like a road that connected and I took it and headed west. On the map it looked like a main road but it petered out into nothing about 3/4 of the way across...

I continued up the mainline until I met up with the main Gaspard FSR which I had come out to from Gang Ranch the previous year, then turned west towards Big Creek. I was calling my km as I went but I missed one and I heard a logging truck call out that he was turning onto the road at the exact same km I was at. It took a few seconds to register ... What??? Where was he? Well he pulled out a few seconds later and I pulled over. I heard him warn others of the “little one” on the road without a radio. Well I had a radio, I just forgot to make one call-out. After a while, towards Big Creek, the forestry activity drops away on this road and no one calls out anymore. In Big Creek there was a pay phone I was hoping to call home from, but it didn't work.

From Big Creek I headed north up towards the Bella Coola highway to refuel since I wasn't sure if it would be available at the indigenous-run gas station in the Nemiah Valley, with Covid winding down and things slowly opening back up again. I also wanted some ice since I don't have a fridge in the car, only a cooler. And some fresh food like cheese and onions, whatever else I could find.

I passed picturesque Rushes Lake and was considering camping at the next one, Fletcher Lake, since there is a Rec Site there. Unfortunately it was jam packed full of RV's and everyone else had the same idea, so pass on that one. That's the advantage of 4WD; you can get away from all that.

Near the highway I descended down to the Chilcotin River valley and set off west on the highway towards the little roadside communities to see what I could rustle up. The first place, Anahim, had gas but no ice, so I went further to Alexis Creek where I got ice, and then turned around. On the way back I watched a coyote running through the fields seemingly unafraid off its completely open location by the highway in the daytime. I got gas at Anahim and noticed that my parking brake was on! It had been on since I left Alexis Creek 10 km ago!!! My brakes were hot so I just decided to drive the highway and hopefully the wind would cool them off. Near the river crossing I took the drum off and inspected and they weren't glazed or warped luckily. Disaster averted.

This time I took the Taseko Lake road straight towards Chilko Lake. It quickly climbs up on to the plateau and goes for miles and miles through rolling hills of mostly burnt out small pine stands. That's what this biogeoclimatic ecological zone is called – sub-boreal pine spruce. It's dry and cool so lodgepole pine dominates but the frequent fires prevent much mature forest from forming.

The terrain is a little bleak until you start getting views of the Coast Mountains again off in the distance. You pass under a structure erected by the local Xeni Gwet'in first nation welcoming you to the area and advising that you are to respect the area, and the sentiment will be returned.

I camped at the Rec Site beside the Taseko River, looking forward to exploring this area, and had a chat with the local ranger about 4WD options in the area and connecting through.

 

[thezentree]

This forum needs more threads like this.