We had many miles - all on pavement - to cover after descending Redline FSR in British Columbia's Purcell Mountains. You see, it seems that in eastern BC, the highways run almost exclusively north-to-south, with only occasional drifts to the east or west. Since parallel roads never cross, it's only the rare instances where one highway drifts east as another drifts west that one can work their way horizontally across the province. Of course, it's not all bad. It's the spectacular mountains - often topped with glaciers - that prevent the easier east-west movement. Always a treat to wind our…
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Unlike the previous day when we'd returned from our hike at 6:00pm, we were back in the parking lot for The Lake of the Hanging Glacier a little after 2:00pm. That gave us plenty of time for a quick scrub-down with washcloths before climbing into the Tacoma for what would turn out to be the highlight of our entire trip! After a sunny morning, clouds were rolling in, but the sun still fought its way through to highlight Mt. Scarlett O'Hara from time to time. Our destination wasn't far away - less than ten miles, or however many kilometers that…
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We'd gotten up with the sun at the Farnham Emergency Hut and it wasn't yet 7:00am when we departed our 7,300-foot camp site for temporarily lower elevations. It was there - at 4,800 feet - that we'd disembark from our American Hiking Machine (the Tacoma) in favor of our own two legs, regaining all of the elevation we'd lost - and more - as we fought our way through the 10-mile trek to The Lake of the Hanging Glacier. A perfect day on Horsethief Creek. After hiking the Conrad Kain Hut during the afternoon heat of the previous day, temperatures…
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We arrived back at the Tacoma completely thrashed after hiking the Conrad Kain Hut in the Bugaboo Mountains. Still, we'd made it down the mountain in good time, giving ourselves a few hours to dash - madly - to the spot we hoped to camp for the night. Farnham. The last time we'd visited Farnham had been full of emotion. We'd made it over the sketchy bridge - adrenaline pumping - and up the narrow shelf road. We'd driven nearly to the edge of the glacier, and - gleefully - tasted a bit of the ancient ice. And - in…
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It's been almost a year since we last found ourselves north of the border, in the land of lakes and glaciers. Then, our final night necessitated a painful retreat as thunder and lightning exploded overhead and gale force winds whipped down off the glacial ridge. We were high in the Kootenays, beyond the deteriorating old bridge at Farnham, hoping the tent would remain attached to the Tacoma. Now, we're headed back. We'll work our way along the same road system, to similar elevations, and to the base of some familiar - and some new - glaciers. This time, we'll add…
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The rain that'd begun just as we were settling in for our post-sunrise, pre-breakfast nap only ended up lasting for about half an hour, a quarter of the time that our InAccuweather app suggested that water would be falling from the sky. And that meant we could stop - in the middle of the forest - for some sustenance. Breakfast time under nature's umbrella. After picking up a few aluminum cans that were strewn about, we figured that our proximity to Halfmoon Peak - and the fact that we could stay dry in the Tacoma, all the way to the…
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After a 12-mile hike through Tetrahedron Provincial Park, we'd planned only a single hike on the following day. That, and I'd also found a couple of extensive looking trail systems on Gaia, and figured that we could end up wasting away much of the day searching for overlooks as we wandered our way through the forest. It was 9:30am as we wound our way through the trees toward Mt. Richardson Provincial Park. Unsurprisingly in a region where logging is king, there were roads on the ground that were not on our maps. Newly graded and covered with bright 3-inch stone…
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Having had a successful first day on the Sunshine Coast, we hoped our second day would be one of the most dramatic - at least, from a view perspective - given the effort that was going to be necessary over the next several hours. With the amount of dew on the alders, the Tacoma started out the day with an organic carwash. Arrival at the trailhead. Our plan - a hike to the summit of Mt. Steele in Tetrahedron Provincial Park - entailed a 12+ mile (20km) hike along long-lost mining roads, through temperate rain forest, past a series of…
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A few minutes after setting off - just before 5:00am - I realized that we've been doing this whole exploration thing entirely wrong for the last eight years. That's because our first stop was only minutes from home, for half a dozen servings at our favorite healthy breakfast spot - Family Donut. Daily calorie allocation exceeded before sunrise. With a schedule to keep - we had a ferry to catch - we managed to eat only one donut each before climbing back into the Tacoma. And, with a strict "no eating messy food in the truck" policy - of which…
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It was 8:40am when we finished airing up at the Rady Creek FSR (Forest Service Road) trailhead. Still reasonably early, we weren't in any rush as far as our daily itinerary was concerned, but I knew that it took about 45 minutes to reach the Galena Bay ferry - departing for Shelter Bay at 9:30am - from our current location, so we zipped along at a good pace on our way toward the terminal. The N52010 Fire smoldered at the base of Mt. Murray in the Lardeau Range as we passed by. Terminal - in the case of Galena Bay…
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In all my exploring, there are few places that I've returned to for a third time. Off the top of my head, I can list only a few: a special little spot in the California Sierra where my Dad and I meet each year, the Alvord Playa in southeast Oregon, and Butte Valley in my favorite National Park. I first visited Rady back in September of 2021 after hearing about it from Mike @POSTacoMike and watching a video that Shaun put together about the deactivation of the road that climbed high into the Kootenays of British Columbia. At the time,…
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I'm not a huge fan of airing up tires, so once we've aired down on a trip, I generally try to stay aired down until the trip is over and we're pounding pavement towards home. Today though, we had 350 miles of pavement - and a ferry to catch - between Lillooet and our next item on the agenda along Upper Arrow Lake, so we took the time to run the ARB compressor and get the new Kenda Klever RTs up to full pressure before speeding along at 100 mph. Err, km/h, which is basically the same, right? Just outside of…
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One of the greatest things about the Pacific Northwest are the summers. While many months of the year are cool, wet, and gray, summers are defined by blue skies, pleasantly warm temperatures, and lush landscapes - the perfect combination for adventures into the unknown. Looking for the perfect getaway, wildfires blazing from Oregon to Montana made our usual spots a little less appealing. Widening our search area, I wondered if Canada - which I've visited a few times, but @mrs.turbodb has never explored in the Tacoma - could be the perfect solution. And so, we're headed into British Columbia, to…
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Having returned to Radium Hot Springs from our run up a glacier that was Hallowed Ground, Mike @Digiratus and I put a bit of fuel in our tanks. Prices had dropped 7 cents/liter in just two days, but I still used gas from my Scepter jerry cans, since I wanted to be sure to use up my cheaper "USA gasoline" before buying more than I needed in Canada, where prices were about $1.50 USD higher per gallon. Filling our tanks didn't take long, and after a few more minutes of internet connectivity to ensure that everything was still OK on…
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Even before we entered Canada, I knew that our run on "the glacier trail" was going to be a highlight. This was a trail that Mike @Digiratus added to our itinerary, having discovered - and run - it several years earlier with Monte @Blackdog and Ben @m3bassman. There was more that made this a special place, but I'm already getting ahead of myself. First, we had to get there. As with many of the routes so far, this one started in a valley, granite peaks soaring high above. Horsethief Creek wasn't bursting at its seams, but there was no shortage…
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All aired up, Mike @Digiratus and I were about to spend the rest of our day on pavement. Well, pavement or its equivalent at any rate, since there are a good many highways - like BC-31 - that are gravel, but are so well groomed that we could easily achieve pavement speeds. Like the state of Nevada, southeastern British Columbia is comprised of a series of ranges that run north-south, separated by valleys and lakes. And, while the trails we wanted to run - out of the Radium Hot Springs area - were only one range east, and less than…
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It was nearly 4:00pm when we turned onto the Rady Creek Forest Service Road and popped out of our trucks to air down our tires. I'd thoroughly enjoyed this trail when I'd rushed to Canada nearly a year earlier - worried that it was about to be deactivated (closed) forever - and from our conversations prior to departure, I knew that Mike @Digiratus was really looking forward to seeing this place as well. I didn't choose the best spot to air down - I was both blocking the trail and in the sun! As with our run up Mt. Buchanan,…
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Ever since my very first trip - The De-Tour - with the guys from TacomaWorld, we've tried to get together every year for a week or two in order to explore some amazing place and enjoy time around the campfire together. I was lucky back then that Monte @Blackdawg organized the trip in a public thread, and invited anyone who could, to join. This year, after privately planning trips for five years, we tried it again - organizing a trip to the Kootenays in southeast British Columbia, Canada - with the hopes that we could meet some cool new folks…
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Having thoroughly enjoyed my time on Rady Creek FSR, I popped out at Trout Lake, just before 9:00am. As had been the case the last couple of days, BC-31 here was smoothly graded dirt, and driving was a breeze. I really wanted to get down to the lake - a few hundred meters to my west and maybe a hundred meters down - so when I saw an offshoot, I took it. As far as I could tell, the road I ended up on was the old highway to Galena Bay. Having fallen into disrepair since the new road -…
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Having thoroughly enjoyed American Creek, I found myself both excited and apprehensive about the next leg of my journey. I was excited because Rady Creek was the reason I'd headed to Canada in the first place. I was apprehensive - I suppose - because I really wanted it to live up to the image I'd formed in my mind about how great it was going to be. Looking back now, I was obviously over thinking things. I'd heard about Rady Creek from Mike @POSTacoMike, who'd posted a video to TacomaWorld of a trip he'd taken to this special place just a…
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