Capturing the Art of Nature
American & Emory Creek FSR's
I have not explored the roads along the Fraser Canyon so far so it was a new treat to start our adventure with American Creek FSR.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2009
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The Fraser Canyon has numerous interesting logging roads branching off of it but in all the years I have been exploring the back country I had not gotten around to trying out this region. So it was with much anticipation of new adventure that we set out today. Our lastest trip was on Garnet Creek FSR which connects to the American Creek FSR and we were well along it hoping to reach the canyon but we were stopped by snow. So for today's trip we thought we would start at the canyon and try the loop in reverse. After a brief stop in the town of Hope to pick up a sub for our lunch we were back on the highway heading up the canyon to the first logging road.
We soon came to the American Creek FSR and set off up the road, soon we passed a very discouraging notice that warned us that the road was closed at the 5km point. We kept going hoping that it was a warning only for those faint of heart and that the blockage would not be too much for us. The early part of the road was heavily used as there were homes built along the road - not much of a back-country area yet. Soon we arrived at the washout and after careful study we regrettably felt it would be too risky to try to pass in the Pathfinder - an ATV would have been no problem. So our hope to link back to the Garnet Creek FSR was stopped dead very early.
We returned to the highway and continued on up the canyon, soon we came to the BC Nickel Mine road and started driving it. We came to a triple fork where we stopped to chat with some dirt bikers to learn the best choice to follow. After a few tips we were soon heading deeper into the hills. We soon came to a transmission line access road and decided to follow it south. We had seen the old mine on the map and as it was quite close by we thought a detour to explore it would be in order. We were soon close to it according to our GPS where we saw a large mound of tailings with fool's gold sparkling in the sunshine. After walking around the area for a while and not locating the mine shaft we retraced our path a bit and continued north along the power lines. In a few minutes we joined the Emory Creek FSR and decided to explore it for the day.
We made good progress along the road and selected a number of branches that followed the power lines for quite some distance. We were soon heading south straight towards the place we were stopped at on our prior trip. We were getting very excited as we had just over 3km left to go to connect up to the other road. But then the dreaded event happened, we encountered snow on the road! and very soon it was impassable. So here we were a mere 2.5km from the other road and no way to continue forward. This was so very frustrating but what could one do. So we took a few minutes to get angry at the situation and then retraced our track. We tried a few branches the first of which looked like it might parallel the lines south along the opposite side of the valley from our first attempt, but the road was much rougher and soon it was blacked by trees with snow not much further along. So we retreated further, resigned to our fate once again.
We continued to explore the various branches and after crossing Emory Creek we saw a number of interesting creek rapids that called for some photos. At the furthest point along the actual FSR we stopped at an overlook of the river and enjoyed a brisk breeze in the heat before heading back. We decided to take an extended romp around the creek bridge crossing and I was able to get a number of interesting water shots. Soon we were back to the point where we entered the FSR from the power line road but we noticed it continued east and so we decided to follow the FSR back to the canyon rather than the via way we came. The initial section was quite decent but soon the road narrowed to a quad trail but this didn't deter us. We kept going but unfortunately we came to a rock fall that with the narrow path was just too risky to continue so it was back to the power line road and retracing our path out.
Once back on the highway we quickly made our way back into Hope and then on home. The trip was a great deal of fun and we definitely want to try to find that mine shaft . So a return trip is definitely in order. This area was quite busy with dirt bikers and ATVers so it was a bit nosier than most trips but we did have a good time exploring the area.