Whipsaw And Beyond - Day 3

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Alien invader!

You'll pass by the "alien invader" or so we call him, and happen chance upon a few really neat old structures. Reminds me of being 7 or 8 and living out in an area like this, but up in the Caribou with the remnants with a tarp over them as our shelter. But it was summer so it was ok. Where there were no worries, no expectations, nothing but the innocence of a child being amazed that they could disappear and lie down in the fields where nothing else existed.

The convoy.

Everyone got set up, with Bruce making up his command station to again indulge us in the best homemade delights that can be offered when one is "roughing it" (if this is roughing it I'd love to see luxury"). Jordy and I wandered for a bit, watching things before picking our spot a little distance above (just in case another PSI debate occurred) and sat back and watched those that were there. Then it struck us how amazing the group we were with was. There were no liabilities, those that were here were the poster perfect picture of passion and belief of living by ones priorities and not letting anything get in their way.

Cabin.

Without the threat of mosquitos people were able to meander without carrying their dual sport cans of OFF which lead to more delicious dinner (non-DEET flavoured!). That evening was a quiet one and no big adventures came from it; just a beautiful summer evening. As the sun faded into the night people slowly drifted off to bed so they would be ready for the next day - the trip to Cabin Lake. Excitement was in the air.

Being that we had been there before, we were the ones who would lead the next morning, but going along new route that I was a bit nervous about. Remember at the beginning when I said I had figured out I had a 17 inch GPS screen? Well, it was very nice to have the next day!

The road.

As we headed around the lake we noticed that a bright orange truck, Sass's Unimog, was still there. We thought it was a bit unusual and Jordy got on the radio and was told they were on their way. Little did we know that we should have waited. The Mog's starter was having a few issues and BushPiggy's bumper got intimate with it. Apparently the bumper liked being behind the Mog so well that it wanted to stay partially attached!

As with most trail runs, the general rule is that when you get to a turn, you wait till you can see the person behind you before making the turn. But there was no driver's meeting that morning to re-inforce that rule, so of course a few people got left behind in the twists and turns out of Shea Lake. We stopped once we were down the Kane Valley road a ways, where you could safely park 20 trucks and not worry about them not seeing you or the oncoming traffic. After about 20 minutes everyone was in place and we all made a pact to ensure we didn't lose anyone. Jordy was a bit sad as we were going to lose Luc the tailgunner soon. Luc had a VHF and it came in handy.

The bug.

At this point my UNDERSTANDING was that we were going to pick up one of Terry's friends at the lake that was down the road. However my only concern was this would have us using a road on the Backroads Map Book that took us back to the main road, but it was a road we hadn't been on, and we weren't sure it would go through (despite what the map showed). Had my DRIVER advised me that the plan had been cancelled I would have opted for another route. However, that being said, the route worked out, I forgave him and we saw some beautiful sights.

We passed Gillis Lake and using my really cool 17-inch GPS screen (thank you for the inverter) & Backroads Map Book I had identified the road, Lower Maka Road. I had advised the DRIVER that we would be turning soon, however the driver failed to see the turn and we continued past it by a whole 257 meters. We then turned back and saw the one sign that would worry me: Road Deactivated. My thoughts at that point were, "I take 20 trucks down a de-activated road with four water crossings (according to the book) and chance having a wash out and trying to turn around 19 trucks and a Unimog on a road where the ground is giving away...or have them all backing up and repeating our adventure of a few weeks ago. But this time Jordy would be on the cliff side. Ok, that's good then. I won't have a nervous breakdown and if we do have to back up - I am on the safe side to jump out. All's good then - hand me a beer and let's go!"

So we start gingerly down the road at a slower pace than normal as we didn't know what was around the corner and I have no desire to repeat the experience of being thrown 30 feet out of the back of a Jeep and landing in a small pile of sand amongst a bunch of sharp rocks. Luckily I let out a breath as the road seemed well travelled and didn't have willows growing in the middle of it like the South Spious did when we attempted that one in Nov of 07 with a foot of snow on the ground.

The followers.

But bugs, snow, nor grizzlies would keep us from our appointed destination. We had to march on!!! (Well most of us anyway.) We continued on up the valley to the other end of the road and made our way on up the main road to our turn off. But we had one long awaited stop to make: the area we were in was not like Harrison or Stave. I was dry, very, very dry. The temperature was climbing throughout the day. Most people hadn't had a shower since Tuesday morning and it was now Friday (of course I snuck in a quick one on Thursday). You know the kind of heat; the heat where you don't really sweat because it dries right away. The kind of heat that makes you long for a cold mountain river.

The river.

It has been years since I've seen grown men nervous about water temperature but it felt so good. The water was pure, deliciously delightful and brought a soothing sensation to the bites of the last few nights. Plunging my head into the water felt so invigorating. Luckily, BushPiggy had thought to bring some soap down to the river. It kept me from having to hike back up to the truck, so I do appreciate that!

After cooling off I grabbed the camera and shot a bit of video, just to capture the moment and Tmax yells, "What are you doing?!". I just laughed, I'm starting to think he doesn't like being on video...always has a comment to make about it. It was neat to see how everyone had dived in the water and enjoyed it Usually it's only kids that will ignore the cold but here it felt so good. But all good things must come to an end and we did have the goal of Cabin Lake. We still had a few hours to go and I kept my fingers crossed that we would take all the right turns.

End of the Mini Whipsaw.

Jordy got his exercise. We drove about 600 meters past it and I say, "aren't we supposed to flag that?" and Jordy goes "ohhh shh.." and then gets out and literally runs back...all the way back...to the last truck and flags it. Then runs forward because he knows that we need to get going and people want to see the Promised Land! We continued on up the "deactivated" road enjoying the memories of all the times we had been here before and thinking back to how GEOCACHING takes us to so many amazing locations. We were running a bit ahead of the others, which is good on one hand as Jordy's window was rolled down and he ended up brushing up against a tree with dead needles, which promptly landed down the backside of his shorts. So he had to make a temporary stop to shake them out.

Sass, you can't hide that thing.

I was certain it was 3 lefts then a right, he said 3 rights then a left. Either way it was 3 of something. Well we didn't want to lead 20 trucks down the wrong path so we made arrangements with those behind us and gave them a handheld radio and the flagging tape. Jordy and I would venture down the road a bit and if it was good then radio for them to flag it and bring the others along. Well Jordy listened to me the first one as he smugly grinned, I very very quickly admitted he was right and that we needed to turn around but in my defence it only took me 436 meters to recognize it!! We then doubled back and brought the others along...and then the next ones were easy because we knew they were right & right!

Perfect reflection.

From what we heard the others were just as taken aback by its beauty as we were the first time. We all slowly made our way down and luckily we were the only ones there. The little flying creatures were not as bad as I had expected, and were bearable with another spray of OFF and my bug zappers! Everyone found a quiet spot and I let Jordy camp in the middle this time (which is good...I had less distance to take him to pour him into bed that night). Bruce set up his command center, Tmax brought out the boy toys and you could feel the excitement of those being there.

Here I will end that day's tale. I'm off to take care of a few things including vacuuming the Yeep and enjoying a good cold bottle of Bud.

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