Capturing the Art of Nature
Chilliwack River and Area
A lovely day to enjoy the fresh air, I wanted to spend the day at Chilliwack Lake and do some radio contesting in the sun. Unfortunately the snow was deep and we had to find an alternative adventure.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2013
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I was looking forward to a relaxing day in the sunshine alongside the Chilliwack Lake. It was also the annual BC wide radio contest and I thought I could participate in that while enjoying the scenery of the lake and gather a few photos while there. So Ethan and set off for the lake at the regular time this morning stopping of course for a shot of caffeine along the way.
The drive to the lake was fast and without incident but as we approached the lake we noticed the snow piling up alongside the road. By the end of the pavement we noticed that the gravel road was not plowed and though there were some tread marks leading over a pile of snow blocking the start of the road, it looked a bit ominous. So we opted for ease of deployment and put on the truck snow chains while on the packed snow.
Chains in place, we drove up and over the snow berm and followed the ruts. The snow was deep and crusty and we were slipping a bit but not too much so we continued on. At the three quarter kilometer point we bottomed out and now we were spinning our tires! Not a great start to the drive and the deep initial valley was still before us. We noticed that the ruts only went a short distance further to where an access road branches off. Well we were stuck so we hooked up the winch and pulled us forward and out of the hole our tires had dug. The snow was just too deep and so we dejectedly decided to turn back before we got stuck again.
Once back to the pavement we removed the chains and drove back a couple klicks to where we had seen a logged area with a short path plowed to the open section. We backed the truck in and there we set up the radio and antenna so I could work some contest stations. I could hear many on the east coast and actually worked a couple but the local ones were impossible to hear. After a couple hours we were getting cold and so we packed up the radio gear and started back down the road.
It was still early so we turned off onto the Foley Creek FSR and gathered a few photos of the Chilliwack River. We didn’t get very far here either, as the road was deeply rutted and we didn’t feel like putting on the chains again. After some photos were collected we zipped down the main road to the Tamihi FSR where we turned off to explore this area which was where I enjoyed some of my earliest adventures. The lower road was clear of snow and we made it several kilometers in along the creek to the first bridge. It was unfortunately blocked off by a barricade as the bridge railings had rotted off and though the bed was solid concrete and seemed stable, the powers to be felt it unsafe to drive. So we missed out on the majority of the road.
We back tracked to a major fork and took the upper branch which was soon buried in snow. We came by a pair of guys doing some serious target shooting and stopped to watch for a few moments. Then it was up the road as far as we could go before the snow stopped us. We got less than a kilometer as the road here was covered in ice and not worth driving. A short distance from where we stopped we had a lovely view of the Fraser Valley and I was able to gather a few more shots before we set off back to the start of the road and the final leg out. Once in Sardis I was feeling a bit deprived of caffeine so we made an emergency stop at the local Starbucks to fix up the situation. It was a gentle drive (by our standards) but still very enjoyable and though I didn’t get many photos I still felt the day was a success.