Whipsaw Trail (Aug 2019) – AdventureTaco

I'll probably say this for many trips to come, but I have found it extremely difficult to find trails to run in Canada. I don't know if it's just that Canadians do a better job of keeping their trails "secret," or if there really isn't as much info to find online about them, but I'd love to do more trips into the land of our northern neighbors.

So it was with the Whipsaw Trail. One of the few trails that information exists for, the Whipsaw has a little bit of everything for everybody. There's mud if you want it, some rocks to climb if you feel so inclined, views to soak in, and great places to camp. Our three days on the trail were awesome, each of us getting to stretch the legs of our rigs.

The fourth day is where it all went bad - for me anyway. We'd finished the Whipsaw and were headed west for more exploration when I noticed a leaking rear axle seal. Not wanting to press my luck, I headed home, knowing that I had unfinished business in Canada.

Whipsaw Trail - Finally Four, We Venture North

Finally Four, We Venture North | Whipsaw Trail #1 - August 27, 2019. Most of the trips I do require a full day - or more - of freeway driving just to reach the trailhead, so you can imagine my delight when we decided to do a trip on the west coast. Sort-of. At least, our meeting location was only four hours away - in the tiny little community of Mazama, WA. From there, we'd head north - to British Columbia, Canada - where we planned to run The Whipsaw Trail and then make our way north and west to Molybdenite Peak - before turning south again for the United States.…

Whipsaw Trail 2 - Some Winching Necessary

Some Winching Necessary | Whipsaw Trail #2 - August 28, 2019. The day had been hot, but it cooled right down overnight - much nicer for sleeping, we all agreed. And sleep we did - it was 8:30am before the last of us finally climbed down from our tents, having missed the sunrise entirely - a cloudless sky transitioning from deep blue to orange, then to pink and finally blue again. We all set about making our breakfast - coffee for Mike @Digiratus, cereal for me, an amazing looking breakfast burrito for Dan @drr, and - of course - Donettes for Monte @Blackdawg - as the sun beamed…

Whipsaw Trail 3 - Four, Three Wheeling Tacomas

Four, Three Wheeling Tacomas | Whipsaw Trail #3 - It was 5:00am or so when I awoke after a shockingly chilly - yet pleasant - night’s sleep. I could see Monte @Blackdawg hanging out behind his truck, waiting for the sunrise from my tent door. Figuring I'd let him enjoy the peaceful solitude, I donned my clothes and made my way to a spot 50' or so away to capture the morning, the colors joyfully doubled by the surface of Wells Lake. I'd later hear from Monte that I'd been ninja-like in my approach. As he told the story to Dan @drr and Mike @Digiratus, he described completely silent…

Whipsaw Trail 4 - My Trip-Ending Discovery

My Trip-Ending Discovery | Whipsaw Trail #4 - August 30, 2019. As expected, there wasn't much sunrise to see and we all had a good sleep-in on the edge of Whitehead Reservoir. Turns out it wasn't just the fact that we had a hill to our east, but also the fact that it was reasonably overcast - a few minutes of light rain even falling on our tents about half an hour before 8:00am. Still, I could tell it was going to be a beautiful day. In no real rush, but also with no reason to hang around, we ate our breakfasts and packed up our stuff. Oh,…

Rig Review: Whipsaw & Colorado 2019 - What worked and what didn't? - September 30, 2019. It was another whirlwind of trips through August and September, with three more trips and 21 more nights now in the books: The Whipsaw Trail in BC, Canada, a trip with Pops to the California Sierra, and a nearly two-week adventure through Wyoming and Colorado. Of those, the two driving adventures both ended early due to mechanical failure of at least one vehicle on the trip, so without further ado, let's get into what's bound to be a stunning rig review! Seemingly solved from previous Rig Reviews Front ADS Reservoirs Too Close to Tires Unchanged / Still an…

turbodb October 4, 2024

Poke around all you'd like, it's always nice to have folks enjoy the trip reports. Or, at least find the ones that are mildly enjoyable, hahaha.

As far as finding stuff in Canada goes, having done a few more trips into BC since the Whipsaw (my first real trip in Canada), I think there are actually a few reasons for it.

The search engines for us southern-dwellers, focuses results on locations south of the border. This is understandable, if undesirable for people like me. To get around it, I have to be purposeful about what I put into that little text box when I'm looking for places to go.
To build on the first, I don't know what to search for. In the US, I have so much more of a sense of "where to start." I can pepper by queries with keywords, and find stuff nearby or off the beaten path, etc. In Canada, that's a lot harder for me, simply because I'm not as familiar with the geography, mountain range names, etc.
While there isn't really - to my knowledge - any state/government backing of trails/places to explore in the US, there are a ton of enthusiast web sites that have popped up. Forums, clubs, even businesses where they will "lead you" on some "epically impossible adventure," (which is somehow possible for 10 rigs that happen to fork over the big bucks) that kind of thing. They don't need to have specific routes or coordinates, as long as they mention the name of a place/area, it can usually be found.
Most importantly: there are just fewer people in Canada, and so things are simply less well known. I think this is probably a good thing.

And I'm not a huge fan of paying for sites like Trails Offroad or subscribing to OnX, so as those things have started to get "better" over the last couple of years, I haven't had the opportunity to partake in the improvements.

Still, I would be remiss were I not to mention, as I've explored more up there in BC, I've been welcomed (mostly) with open arms. Especially as folks have seen through my trip reports that I'm trying to be a good steward - and that I'm happy to redact names, photos, etc. of the places they share if they ask me to - they've been happy to share cool locations with me, and hook me up/put in a good word with other like-minded people. It's been fantastic, and I always look forward to my trips across the border. 🇨🇦

5 Comments

Patrick Heyboer March 16, 2022

Did you end up finding a good resource for trails in BC? I will be spending a week in Whistler this summer and would like to know if there is much around. Something around the difficulty of Gallagher Head Lake/Fortune Creek would be ideal.

- turbodb March 16, 2022
  
  Hi Patrick, the land to the north continues to be a tantalizing black box for the most part. I don't have any great resources, and the last couple years - with the border mostly closed - have meant that I haven't done a ton of research in that direction. Hopefully now, as things are opening up, I can head that way this summer. The trick - of course - will be to find some trails, good maps, and perhaps a guide or two.
  
  It's not the difficulty of Fortune Creek, but several years ago we visited Banff and Jasper, travelling the Icefields Parkway between the two (Canada Adventure to Glacier, Yoho, Banff, and Jasper). I wholeheartedly recommend that experience - it's one of the most beautiful roads I've ever travelled, and the hikes around Banff and Jasper are great as well. If you can, finding trails along that route would make it totally awesome.
  
Soundy @ 4WDABC October 4, 2024

Just poking through some of your older posts 😉

While there is a healthy community of gatekeepers here (some of whom try to gatekeep public, well-advertised tourist attractions and government campgrounds), I think the biggest obstacle to finding this info is just that it's so scattered and spread out. You have apps like Gaia, AllTrails, WikiLoc, ReLive, etc. that have some, but they're not very well organized or vetted for accuracy.

Apps like OnX and Trails Offroad (especially the latter) have more of a vetting process and actively recruit conscientious track-makers to record, document, and share trails, but until recently they haven't really had a presence in Canada (I applied to be a Trails Offroad contributor a few years ago, as I do record tracks of all my outings, but they were looking for a significant investment in time providing write-ups and photos, that I just didn't have time for).

Many states seem to benefit from active government backing of all this... the closest thing we have here is probably Recreation Sites and Trails BC (sitesandtrailsbc.ca), who do maintain a decent list of, well, sites and trails that they manage... but then other campgrounds are under BC Parks, which is a whole separate division, with no real collaboration or connection between the two.

RSTBC is who we (the 4WDABC) mainly work with, BTW, holding 28 of the 29 rec sites we look after. One of them (Cornwall Lookout) is with BC Parks. There's a map of them all at bit.ly/4wdabcrecsites

Again... kind of scattered and non-centralized. This is the greatest barrier to finding said info.

- turbodb October 4, 2024
  Poke around all you'd like, it's always nice to have folks enjoy the trip reports. Or, at least find the ones that are mildly enjoyable, hahaha.
  
  As far as finding stuff in Canada goes, having done a few more trips into BC since the Whipsaw (my first real trip in Canada), I think there are actually a few reasons for it.
  1. The search engines for us southern-dwellers, focuses results on locations south of the border. This is understandable, if undesirable for people like me. To get around it, I have to be purposeful about what I put into that little text box when I'm looking for places to go.
  2. To build on the first, I don't know what to search for. In the US, I have so much more of a sense of "where to start." I can pepper by queries with keywords, and find stuff nearby or off the beaten path, etc. In Canada, that's a lot harder for me, simply because I'm not as familiar with the geography, mountain range names, etc.
  3. While there isn't really - to my knowledge - any state/government backing of trails/places to explore in the US, there are a ton of enthusiast web sites that have popped up. Forums, clubs, even businesses where they will "lead you" on some "epically impossible adventure," (which is somehow possible for 10 rigs that happen to fork over the big bucks) that kind of thing. They don't need to have specific routes or coordinates, as long as they mention the name of a place/area, it can usually be found.
  4. Most importantly: there are just fewer people in Canada, and so things are simply less well known. I think this is probably a good thing.
  And I'm not a huge fan of paying for sites like Trails Offroad or subscribing to OnX, so as those things have started to get "better" over the last couple of years, I haven't had the opportunity to partake in the improvements.
  
  Still, I would be remiss were I not to mention, as I've explored more up there in BC, I've been welcomed (mostly) with open arms. Especially as folks have seen through my trip reports that I'm trying to be a good steward - and that I'm happy to redact names, photos, etc. of the places they share if they ask me to - they've been happy to share cool locations with me, and hook me up/put in a good word with other like-minded people. It's been fantastic, and I always look forward to my trips across the border. 🇨🇦
  - Soundy @ 4WDABC October 4, 2024
    
    The population vs. space thing is certainly a part of it, too.
    
    BC's population is about 5.7 million, spread over nearly 1,000,000 square kilometers (though some 60% are in the Lower Mainland/Fraser Valley area)... larger than Washington, Oregon, and California combined, with about 2/3 the population of Washington alone. That means a LOT of unexplored areas, or areas only explored (and minimally mapped) for industry.
    
    60,000 km of FSRs that are just... mostly wide open, unmonitored, unregulated driving, as opposed to many parts of the US where those things are limited to commercial or government-run off-road parks and such, too. It's definitely a different mindset. There are parts of the province where you could drive for a week without seeing another vehicle or person.