Capturing the Art of Nature
Waleach Lake and Garnet Creek
Though a dull morning, the reflections off the lake surface were quite lovely. I was however, disappointed with the sheer cliff wall on the Garnet as it was ice-free, I had hoped for some sky-scraper size icicles.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2011
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It had been quite some time since I last visited Wahleach Lake also known as Jones Lake. Last time was also in early December and on that trip the weather offered snow and the lake was mostly frozen over. It was a much colder day than it was today. At lake level the road was covered in rutted snow but it was easily driven and we had little trouble driving the eastern shoreline road. Our adventure for the day began shortly after starting up the road to the lake. A short distance up the road we stopped to adjust the truck and there we noticed the remains of a deer off to the side of the road. It had been caught by a hunter earlier. With the truck ready, we continued up the road and soon found ourselves in snow, it was deeply rutted and so we had no traction problems as we continued the climb to lake level.
Once we reached the start of the lake we drove in to the day use parking area and I walked down to the edge of the lake. The water level was down quite a bit from its high point and so I was able to get out much further than normal. The ground was covered in about 15cm of snow and gave a nice crunching sound as I walked along. I was able to gather a number of lovely reflections from this point unfortunately the cloud cover was low and obscured the peaks. Done with this spot, we continued our drive south stopping at a few places to gather up the changing views. As we made our way south the road became less used and by the far end we were starting to feel the depth of the snow. We stopped at the washed out bridge where I was able to gather some interesting shots of stumps left in the lake, by now the clouds had dropped even lower and I was not getting great views of the area. So we decided to head across the Fraser and explore the Garnet Creek region again.
Arriving at the start of the Garnet Creek FSR we immediately noticed a sign warning of active logging. Being late in the season we doubted there would be anyone out today, but you never know. The road ahead was covered in thick mud in a long undulating stretch of potholes – one’s body took a good beating as we made our way along this section of road! Once past the mud-bath we started climbing and were glad the road was back to a more normal level of roughness. After a few kilometers we came by the first of two logging sites that were the target of the posted warnings, as expected, they were closed for the winter. We continued past it and the second site and soon came by the sheer cliff wall that I was hoping would be covered in thick ice. Unfortunately it was wet and devoid of all ice. This was a major disappointment as the spot is quite amazing to behold with the huge icicles we found here before. Continuing up the road we soon crossed the bridge over a tributary to the Garnet , here we stopped to eat lunch and I gathered a number of photos of the creek below.
Done with eating and the creek, we continued up the road and took the less used Garnet Creek branch instead of the American Creek route. Here we encountered a small washout but we were able to get past. The road was climbing steadily and soon we were in fresh snow and enjoying the remoteness. Unfortunately we quickly came up to a fresh washout that in the summer we could have dealt with by dropping in a few logs but this time of year it was a show stopper, so we reluctantly decided to forego our attempt to reach the Harrison. Returning back to the fork with the American we turned up that branch to see if we could make it all the way to the Fraser Canyon.
After about a kilometer the road started to get deeper with snow and there we enjoyed the ruts of an earlier traveler for an easy drive for a further kilometer. At the end of the ruts where the previous person had quite, we stopped to put on our chains and push on. We did get another three-quarters of kilometer up the road but we were starting to drag the underbelly of the truck and as the road was starting to rapidly climb we decided that we wouldn’t be able to get much further, so we stopped at a minor fork and I gathered a few photos of the valley below the road while Ethan turned the truck around. The drive back was easy compared to the way up and soon we were taking off the chains and driving on bare rod again.
As we returned along the road we opted to turn up the newly logged sections and see what they had to offer. We tried both areas and were able to get some distance into the recent logging area before the road ended. At least we climbed high enough to get some better views of the valley. As the day was getting even duller and the cloud level dropping further we were quickly running out of visibility, so we decided to call an end to the day and we set off for the highway and the drive home. So although we didn’t find what we had planned on seeing, we did have an enjoyable drive and I managed to gather a few decent photos of reflections and creek rapids.