Capturing the Art of Nature
West Harrison
The West Harrison area is huge and always seems to offer something new to explore. Today we didn’t even drive in far to find a whole new section to enjoy.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2013
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Today’s adventure actually began two weeks ago with an aborted attempt to explore the West Harrison. On that trip we started off well heading down the road looking for new things to enjoy. Our first side road led us into a small area just off the mainline where we looked over some fresh logging and found an old stump that had an interesting shape to it. Done with that we continued along the road looking down on Harrison Lake and saw Camp Cove off to the side. Here was a cove I had always wanted to explore but didn’t see how to get down to it. Two weeks ago we found a road that looked like it may go there and so we started down it, but we hit a bump which jarred our second battery causing it to arc and which then killed our alternator! So now we had to b-line it for home before our power ran out. We got almost home before the battery was dead and the truck wouldn’t move. Fortunately our second battery took us the rest of the way.
So here we are today and now we had to return to the side road and see where it went. We made fast time to the start of the road and began our drive down it. The first part was quite decent but slowly it got steeper, wetter and narrower but as it was heading straight down to the cove we had to keep going. Well it got to within 30 meters of the beach before it took a sharp turn across a small stream. Here it was only just wide enough for an ATV. In fact while we were there a pair of side-by-sides came down and just barely made it across the log bridge. We on the other hand now had to turn around as the road was too steep and slippery to back up over.
Turning around was an issue as the bottom of the road was only slightly wider than the narrow main portion and the sides were quite soft and dropped down a few meters. It didn’t look good as we were just too wide to turn around here but we had to. So our first task was to remove two trees that were hugging the side of the road so we could edge the front out over the side at that point. Once the trees were down we started the turn but soon got stuck on the low stump of one of those trees. So out came the winch to pull us a bit sideways and off of the stump. The winch also allowed us to back up over and down the far side of the road without fear of siding down so this gave us much more room to turn. After repositioning the winch we were successfully turned and ready to start up.
Rather than leave, we decided as we were basically down to the cove we took some time to walk the final distance and check out the lake from water level. It was quite a dull day and drizzly so we took a few photos and returned to the truck to drive out. But the truck didn’t want to drive out. The road was just too slick for us to get traction so we had to pull ourselves up with the winch. In the end we had to position the winch in 6 different spots to get us back to safe road! Quite a morning but we got out and still had most of the day to explore with. But Geoff looked down and there we saw the battery light lit – our alternator was off again! So we decided to head back to the mainline and start back home.
We hadn’t eaten lunch yet so we decided to pull off at the last major side road with a lake view and there we looked over the electrical system. Now last time the problem ended up being a number of blown fuses so we looked for some today and eventually found it. Once replaced all was in good order and we felt very relieved. So we decided to explore this side road which followed the transmission line south. We found a level spot next to a tower with a good view of the lake and there we ate our lunch. Once done eating, Geoff set up a target and he took his first shots with his new scoped rifle. He did quite well with it but he still needs to properly align the scope.
Done with target shooting, we continued south along the transmission line service road to the furthest point south and the last tower before the Harrison River. This spot has a steep cliff face where one can walk out to the top of to enjoy a great view of the river and Harrison Lake. It is one of my favorite sites and so I quite enjoyed our brief return to the spot. It was however the first time that Geoff was here. Done with the scenery we started back to the mainline stopping at a couple of places for a few more photos.
Though it was still a bit early we decided to head on out having had a full day of winching and thinking through a difficult extraction process. It felt great succeeding at getting out of our tight spot with virtually no false starts and a fairly straight forward plan. The winch was certainly essential today.