Capturing the Art of Nature
East Harrison - Slollicum
The Slollicum area is rife with roads just waiting to be explored. They are easy access – at least once you move fallen trees – and offer some stunning views of Harrison Lake.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2011
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The Harrison area has a huge number of side roads to explore which are relatively low in elevation so they are a good winter area to explore. Today we wanted something easy and not too far in as we had no cover for the back of the truck and hence we would be traveling with minimal equipment. So I thought we could try the first side road off the east Harrison as it was an area we hadn’t seen in many years.
Arriving at the start of the road we saw promising signs that the weather would be decent and perhaps offer us some brighter scenes. We checked over the truck, loaded in the road frequency on the radio and started off. The first branch came quickly and soon we were traveling back south just 100 or so meters above the mainline. For today’s adventure we decided to follow the right-hand rule – taking the right branch of every fork we come to. So our first decision kept us traveling low and parallel to the mainline below us. Not much past the first fork we encountered two fallen trees across the road. Tracks from a previous driver showed that he had turned back at this point. We didn’t have our chainsaw so we would have to drag the trees to the side.
The larger of the trees was a good sized tree and would be a bit of a challenge to move. We attached the winch near the root end and started to pull. We moved it a few inches but then the truck started sliding towards the tree. We felt a different angle might still allow us to move so Geoff repositioned the truck and we gave it another go. This time the tree started sliding and soon it was up and over the hole created by its root ball. Dragging it the rest of the way along the side of the road was easy and soon we were onto the smaller of the two. It moved very easily and in little time we were winching in the cable and off to see the road we had opened up.
Though this area on the southern flank of Slollicum Peak didn’t cover much distance, we had a large number of short side branches to explore and one more pair of trees to move, not sure why they were in pairs. So we ended up spending most of the day just in from the start of the forest road and bumping along the edge of the Sasquatch Provincial Park. The area was rich in dense mossy forest which made for a very rich green environment. Both Geoff and I commented on how amazing this type of forest growth was and how it must have been truly spectacular to see an original growth forest like this. I mentioned a few I had seen and he seriously wanted to visit an area like that.
Done with the lower section we backed up the road to almost the original tree barricade and made for a higher area. Here we found some lovely views of Harrison Lake and western mountains. The sun was giving us a nice lighting effect for my photos. We reached the end of all of the roads we tried except for one. On this road we encountered a deep cross-ditch that was a bit too steep for our long truck so we opted to come back another day when we could adjust the ditch a bit. Unfortunately this was the branch that made for the higher slopes with some good potential for nice views. We will need to come back here in the summer.
We returned to the main side road segment and crossed back across the first trees we moved and then followed one more side branch. This was a short trip but we had some amazing views of the lake. As we still had a couple of hours until sunset we decided to head further up the East Harrison to the next side road which branched off just past the bridge over Slollicum Creek and the Slollicum Creek (upper rainbow) Falls. This road made its way along the slopes between Slollicum and Lookout Peaks. We were able to gain some higher elevation along this route and eventually found ourselves in a couple of inches of snow. Nothing deep enough to stop our drives but it was a reminder that we were not likely to get all that much higher this time of year.
As it was now past 3pm and we still hadn’t stopped to cook our noodle soups we looked for a place with some fresh water and a view. This we found at the start of a new fork, so we set up our burners and soon were enjoying some warm soup, noodles and tea. It is nice getting a bit of warm food when out here in the damp cold, and with the sun nearing the horizon, the temperature outside was dropping. Once done with cooking and packing away the equipment, we decided that it was now too late to start exploring the road ahead of us. We would need to return to check it out. This area proved to have a lot of road to visit but some was ATV only style and we will definitely need to come back with one to see if we can reach Slollicum Lake.
We followed a fork which was lower down and which we hoped would lead us back to the East Harrison mainline. This road went through a swampy area and soon reached the mainline just above Cooks Cove. So after a day of driving we had only travelled 10km up the mainline! There truly is an amazing amount of backcountry to explore and the beauty is indescribable! It was now past sunset and the light was rapidly fading so we made our way south along the road so as to be done with the FSR before it got dark. Over-all we saw only a few other adventurers out here today – a few trucks and a couple of ATV’s just not a busy day for people enjoying nature. It does seem to be more of a summer sport for most. I think an enclosed ATV will be a must for us to be able to explore year-round.
So the day seemed much more successful than our previous trip – on Boxing Day. We had no equipment issues and the sun provided a much brighter and cheerier mode. The mosses in the trees really popped in their colours today which added to the feel. It was a great finish to the old year.