Anyways...We had some time to kill and shaun spotted HOT SPRINGS on a map or in some book that appeared near by at first glance - it was cloudy and kinda cold so we decided nothing would be more suiting than hotspirngs and Goon (bagged wine). We were off just like that.
The "near by" hot springs ended up being 25k's down paved road and then 45 k's down bumpy washboard gravel forest service road - we rallied though and were greeted with only 2 naked old men to contend with - good thing there were 2 pools so we grabbed the free one and indulged.
Aided by the goon I danced in the back ground - these springs were awesome as they were directly next to a glacial fed river making "cooling down" very easy and very quick.
Here's me in my dominating pose - not from this particular adventure but i left it out from the last one and couldn't resist...
Here's me in my dominating pose - not from this particular adventure but i left it out from the last one and couldn't resist...
So as it turned out the hike we initially planned was 45 k's back down the dirt road and another 40 k's past pemberton so we flagged that mission and went instead for the "harrison hut" mission which started, conveniently, 3 k's down the road from the hot springs - YES!
With no idea off what we were getting into we dove right ahead like any other good member of team extreme would do.
And diving ended up being the best option for managing the Bush around here. We were going off a map that was actually our road atlas - ERROR- but we had no idea it was completely wrong and from what we could tell the unpopular trail was actually quite well marked. Find Jacqui in this picture, i dare you. The bush was thick.
This was our lame ass map - Why lame you ask? Well, i drew on a "trail" and a "hut" in red. We hiked up the other side of the drainage where there is no "trial" trying to make it to where the map showed the "hut" was. It wasn't. Liars.
So after many thousands of feet of climbing we finally made it past tree line and we were greated with an enormous glacier. This is the fringe of the Pemberton Icefield and will explain why when we are running out of water in OR/WA, B.C.'s rivers are just getting LOW enough to boat - this glacier would be about the size of your fingernail if the icefield were your hand.
Shaun is in this picture...at the tip of the red arrow
Breaking away...i mean out of the bush
Some good glacier shots...
The infamous nipple shot, honestly, does this ever get old? Dominating!
Perfect! A square boulder, i was looking for one of those!
Well we finally made it to our hut and we had the entire place to ourselves. It was a lovely magical place and we bunked down for the evening with plenty of Goon and some good cribage playing.
The Hut
The nice view out off the hut..
These shots are nearly identical except here in the 1st one i am ripping a solid 4 second cheeky fart, dont push too hard folks, danger!
And here is us an hour later, notice the goon is no longer in the picture, it's been demolished, and we are now officially GOONED.
OK...so this is where it gets interesting. The map at the hut showed the hut in the right spot but in addition it showed a trail on the other sidde of the drainage that we hiked up (not on our original map), so we thought, well maybe this map is better than the one we had (not a hard thing to accomplish) - so lets try and find that trail down and not have to hike down the trail we came up...WELL 2 hours into it we realized there was no trail (atctually 10 minutes into it we realized it but coudnl't be bothered hiking back uphill) So down we went in true proper bushwhacking form- for hours and hours this is what our "trail" looked like...
And we got scared...very scared..
But then we realized we were TX (team extreme) and we persevered and made it back to the hot springs and the same 2 old naked men were still sitting there from 2 days before.
This is where it got really interesting. We packed up and headed down the road. Time? 5:05pm BANG. front right tire blows and we're on the side of the road putting the spare on.
Time? 5:25 BANG, back right tire blows and we're on the side of the road fucked cause we already used our spare for the last flat 15 minutes earlier...
Time? Time to have a beer, get the chairs out and wait til someone drives by - we're 20 k's down a dirt road and another 30k's to a town, so walking is out of the option.
We got lucky and an hour later some locals drove by in a pickup and picked us up, they were our age and happy to help, we gave them beer and they were even happier. We got dropped off in pemberton with both of our flats and were able to fix one with a puncture kit. Without a ride back to the Van we decided we'd call AAA and amazingly enough it worked, so an hour and a hlaf later TTG (tow truck guy) shows up. He's light bulb bald and about our age - you could call him a cojack, or you would if you were us in about 3 hours.
So we jumped in his truck, 4 wide up front and headed out to the van. He wasn't suuposed to drive down the dirt road but said fuck-it and he'd do it anyways.
Turned out this guy thought he was a bit of a maverick...we wouldn't get the real brunt of it til later but he hauled ass down this washboarded and pothole strewn road.
Shaun decided it would be better to tow the van out til we got to pavement to avoid the risk of getting yet another flat, so thats what we did. It was 10:00pm when the TTG put the van up on dodgy dollys and towed her out.
The tow truck was decently sized and fitting the 4 of us in the front seat wasn't comfortable but also wasn't too bad. We were like Tuna as opposed to Sardines.
So..i can not begin to express how sketchy this guy was. The wheels on the dolly were smaller than those on the van and the guy was taking turns faster with the tow truck and van in tow than i would have taken in the van alone...the van fish tailed more than a few times on the drive back and we were all scared shitless...
There was also plenty of screeching tires, we just thought it was the van skidding out on the dolly's around the tight turns that we were excessively speeding around. Little did we know.
So midnight comes around and we're finally back in a town, the TTG had dropped us off and split to head back to whistler. We got our shit sorted and started making our way down the road...
CLUMP,CLUMP, CLUMP....hmmm
Seems we are running over something? ruts in the road? doesn't seem like it, road looks clear. Pull over - i'll have a look. Hmmmmmm, We're fucked.
The TTG hadn't put the dolly's on properly and the tires of the van weren't high enough off the ground meaning that each time we took a turn the van tire would actually rub on the pavement (that's where the screeching noise came from) 35 k's of this and this is what our tire looked like (Fucked)
So, we called the towtruck company again, they hastled us and we hastled them, and finally got the tow truck to return and and bring us 100k's down the road to Squamish where we could get a new tire the next day.
So 1am TTG shows up, by 1:15 we come to the realization that his tow truck was fucked as well, the hydraulics wont kick in. So he takes off and drives back to whistler to get another truck. 2:30am comes around and finally we're packed into a tow truck half the size of the other one (like sardines this time) and the tow truck guys head is bleeding cause he caned himself on our roof rack (hilarious, but not so at the time).
So we get dropped off in Squamish at 4:30am and finally are able to call it a night.
Turns out tires places aren't open on sunday.
But we bought a plug kit and sorta "fixed" the 2nd flat, enough at least so we could hobble around for a day - nothing good to drive long distances on though, and we waited for a day to get new tires...the end, ugh
Pumping up the 2nd flat that we sorta fixed - with a 3 dollar mini bike pump - we had all day to do it and it took nearly all day to get it done
And diving ended up being the best option for managing the Bush around here. We were going off a map that was actually our road atlas - ERROR- but we had no idea it was completely wrong and from what we could tell the unpopular trail was actually quite well marked. Find Jacqui in this picture, i dare you. The bush was thick.
This was our lame ass map - Why lame you ask? Well, i drew on a "trail" and a "hut" in red. We hiked up the other side of the drainage where there is no "trial" trying to make it to where the map showed the "hut" was. It wasn't. Liars.
So after many thousands of feet of climbing we finally made it past tree line and we were greated with an enormous glacier. This is the fringe of the Pemberton Icefield and will explain why when we are running out of water in OR/WA, B.C.'s rivers are just getting LOW enough to boat - this glacier would be about the size of your fingernail if the icefield were your hand.
Shaun is in this picture...at the tip of the red arrow
Breaking away...i mean out of the bush
Some good glacier shots...
The infamous nipple shot, honestly, does this ever get old? Dominating!
Perfect! A square boulder, i was looking for one of those!
Well we finally made it to our hut and we had the entire place to ourselves. It was a lovely magical place and we bunked down for the evening with plenty of Goon and some good cribage playing.
The Hut
The nice view out off the hut..
These shots are nearly identical except here in the 1st one i am ripping a solid 4 second cheeky fart, dont push too hard folks, danger!
And here is us an hour later, notice the goon is no longer in the picture, it's been demolished, and we are now officially GOONED.
OK...so this is where it gets interesting. The map at the hut showed the hut in the right spot but in addition it showed a trail on the other sidde of the drainage that we hiked up (not on our original map), so we thought, well maybe this map is better than the one we had (not a hard thing to accomplish) - so lets try and find that trail down and not have to hike down the trail we came up...WELL 2 hours into it we realized there was no trail (atctually 10 minutes into it we realized it but coudnl't be bothered hiking back uphill) So down we went in true proper bushwhacking form- for hours and hours this is what our "trail" looked like...
And we got scared...very scared..
But then we realized we were TX (team extreme) and we persevered and made it back to the hot springs and the same 2 old naked men were still sitting there from 2 days before.
This is where it got really interesting. We packed up and headed down the road. Time? 5:05pm BANG. front right tire blows and we're on the side of the road putting the spare on.
Time? 5:25 BANG, back right tire blows and we're on the side of the road fucked cause we already used our spare for the last flat 15 minutes earlier...
Time? Time to have a beer, get the chairs out and wait til someone drives by - we're 20 k's down a dirt road and another 30k's to a town, so walking is out of the option.
We got lucky and an hour later some locals drove by in a pickup and picked us up, they were our age and happy to help, we gave them beer and they were even happier. We got dropped off in pemberton with both of our flats and were able to fix one with a puncture kit. Without a ride back to the Van we decided we'd call AAA and amazingly enough it worked, so an hour and a hlaf later TTG (tow truck guy) shows up. He's light bulb bald and about our age - you could call him a cojack, or you would if you were us in about 3 hours.
So we jumped in his truck, 4 wide up front and headed out to the van. He wasn't suuposed to drive down the dirt road but said fuck-it and he'd do it anyways.
Turned out this guy thought he was a bit of a maverick...we wouldn't get the real brunt of it til later but he hauled ass down this washboarded and pothole strewn road.
Shaun decided it would be better to tow the van out til we got to pavement to avoid the risk of getting yet another flat, so thats what we did. It was 10:00pm when the TTG put the van up on dodgy dollys and towed her out.
The tow truck was decently sized and fitting the 4 of us in the front seat wasn't comfortable but also wasn't too bad. We were like Tuna as opposed to Sardines.
So..i can not begin to express how sketchy this guy was. The wheels on the dolly were smaller than those on the van and the guy was taking turns faster with the tow truck and van in tow than i would have taken in the van alone...the van fish tailed more than a few times on the drive back and we were all scared shitless...
There was also plenty of screeching tires, we just thought it was the van skidding out on the dolly's around the tight turns that we were excessively speeding around. Little did we know.
So midnight comes around and we're finally back in a town, the TTG had dropped us off and split to head back to whistler. We got our shit sorted and started making our way down the road...
CLUMP,CLUMP, CLUMP....hmmm
Seems we are running over something? ruts in the road? doesn't seem like it, road looks clear. Pull over - i'll have a look. Hmmmmmm, We're fucked.
The TTG hadn't put the dolly's on properly and the tires of the van weren't high enough off the ground meaning that each time we took a turn the van tire would actually rub on the pavement (that's where the screeching noise came from) 35 k's of this and this is what our tire looked like (Fucked)
So, we called the towtruck company again, they hastled us and we hastled them, and finally got the tow truck to return and and bring us 100k's down the road to Squamish where we could get a new tire the next day.
So 1am TTG shows up, by 1:15 we come to the realization that his tow truck was fucked as well, the hydraulics wont kick in. So he takes off and drives back to whistler to get another truck. 2:30am comes around and finally we're packed into a tow truck half the size of the other one (like sardines this time) and the tow truck guys head is bleeding cause he caned himself on our roof rack (hilarious, but not so at the time).
So we get dropped off in Squamish at 4:30am and finally are able to call it a night.
Turns out tires places aren't open on sunday.
But we bought a plug kit and sorta "fixed" the 2nd flat, enough at least so we could hobble around for a day - nothing good to drive long distances on though, and we waited for a day to get new tires...the end, ugh
Pumping up the 2nd flat that we sorta fixed - with a 3 dollar mini bike pump - we had all day to do it and it took nearly all day to get it done
2 comments:
Solid G-O-L-D!
this is what bein a dirtbag and seeing the world is all about. it's just about accepting the fact that, hey, shit happens, and moving on. great job. beautiful area.
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