Capturing the Art of Nature
Hunter Creek
For some time I have wanted to return and finish driving the roads we missed before. Today looked like a bust as we were stopped early on by a heli-logging operation. Fortunately we managed to co-ordinate with the loggers and squeeze our way past.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2011
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Our last trip to the creek saw us stopped by deep snow quite early along the road, so I felt it was time to get back there before the snows returned and blocked our way for another six months. Geoff did not want a long day or one far out so this site was ideal for both of us. We got off to a slow start as the second battery in the truck was acting up. The negative terminal was not conducting properly which took a bit of time to identify. Once fixed, we set off for the creek. The drive went smoothly and soon we were nearing the entrance of the logging road.
At the entrance we stopped to chat with some loggers and there, we learned of the heli-logging taking place not far past the first bridge. It sounded like we might not get past the operation. But we pushed on in and soon crossed the bridge and read a sign warning to check in before proceeding as the helicopter carried the logs right across the road. I called up and was answered by a truck heading up. When he caught up to our position we told him we would follow him up. We had to coordinate with a truck coming down and then wait for a second one to get loaded before we could scramble across the staging area. The mud was a foot deep across it and we were quite happy to get across without getting stuck. We even got a nod of approval from one of the loggers.
Past the operation we continued up the road and soon passed the place Ethan and I had trouble on the previous trip. We continued to the end of the valley where we finally started to drive over snow. The main route across the creek and onto the opposite side of the valley had a log across the road which we pulled out of the way and managed to barely pass. Continuing we arrived at the actual crossing of the creek, it was also blocked and would have taken much more work to get past. We didn’t feel like fighting it so we back tracked and took a higher branch where I was able to get some close up shots of the wall of mountain at the end of the valley. Then we returned much of the way back up the valley to take a another branch which led to the ridge-line road.
This branch switch-backed up the north end of the ridge and soon we were high enough to get some nice views of the valley and the helicopter we passed earlier. We continued up and near the end we were stopped by a slide. So here we parked the truck and continued up the road on foot, reaching a wide clearing we stopped to enjoy the view and there we set up our stove to cook lunch. After lunch and a bit of target shooting (it was getting too cold to stay) we returned to the truck and back down to the main line where we drove to the next fork which followed the main Hunter Creek tributary. We found a huge tree stump that was hugging a massive rock – Geoff got on top of it for an interesting photo. We continued along a couple kilometers until we were blocked by a slide. So we stopped to look around and then decided to head out.
The drive back to the logging site went quickly and there we waited for the helicopter to drop load, we started to chat with the workers but the driver of the log hauler flagged us on so we quickly zipped back across the deep mud and started on our way back down the road. A fun trip but not the best for photos, at least we have now completed the roads in this valley.