Canada's Best Kept Secret: 500km from the nearest paved road, solo in Northern BC.

[JimDale]

Thanks CC for the inspirational ride report. I don't recall ever seeing more gorgeous scenery. It is a welcome respite from the heat that we have had here for the last 2 months, with mostly 100F plus high temps.

[squonker]

There are a few things worth seeing in Chetwynd....I remember a waitress at a restaurant there once who was worth looking at....!

[Whalerman]

Excellent reportage and beautiful pictures of the country.
I spent 5 days floating the Murray river from Tumbler Ridge up to Chetwynd one year.
Your pictures bring back fond memories.
Keep up the great work.

[Sunday Rider]

Great pictures once more CC.

Glad you ran out of bandwidth (okay not really), OR we wouldn't have seen these gems.

Thanks for continuing to post up the ride report.

[Crooked Creek]

We were hoping to canoe the Murray River right from the east branch of its source, the glacier fed Bulley Creek. According to the map, it looked possible, but we were unable to find any info from the locals. Responses to our inquiries about this stretch ranged from "No problem, it's easy." to "It's illegal; there are five watefalls and 8 people have died trying it in recent years." That last response was from a local river-boating expert who has lived in the area for 30 years, but I just couldn't see it, as there was no waterfalls marked on the back road mapbook, which has other waterfalls clearly marked.

Anyways, we decided to see for ourselves. We headed southeast from Kinuseo Falls on the Bulley Creek FSR (an old logging road.) This is Castle Mountain.






This is called the Shark's Fin, well because...








We saw a cougar cross the road somewhere between that pic and this one.




Arriving at Bulley Creek 30km or so later, we found it to be beautiful, but pretty small yet.




End of the road




We waded up the creek for a half a mile to see if the tributary marked on the map gave the creek any more volume. It didn't. But we did learn that the water was the COLDEST either of us had ever experienced, coming straight from the Bulley Glacier only 7 km or so upstream. Feet were numb near instantly, but it was warm out. This later proved to be a bad idea, as I got wicked blisters on my heals from my newish sandals and walking in the water, and of course I couldn't feel them until it was too late.




But it was fun. Situations like these, though, were around every bend so we reluctantly decided that this trip was for when we had two days, or at least a full one. With packrafts it would be even better. I am working on getting Bill to buy one.




Back up the road, we found a deactivated logging trail, which we were just able make with the Hilux. It looked like it was heading down to the Murray, so we pressed on as far as we could.




Eventually, we had to walk on the ATV trail. This pile was still warm.




But we found the Murray.




Unfortunately, it was really shallow and there were strainers all the way across the river. It was already 1 or 2 o'clock so again we had to turn back. I had to get home that night still and this was more like a 12 hour trip in our estimation (besides the 4 hour ride home.)

So we went to Plan C.

Driving back up past the falls, we hit the Old Kinuseo Falls Road (the one that I had tried from the other side on this RR's trip.) I knew (now) that the bridge was out, but that the route was traverse-able by ATV, so we thought we could see if we could access the creek from the site of the missing bridge.

Check out the beaver dam holding the pond 10 feet above the road. Bill is standing at the water's edge.




I was surprised to see that there were lots of white-tailed deer in this area. Behind her is a typical road deactivation.




There were a couple tricky spots, but we made it.






The creek started off looking boring, but got better and better the whole way through. Again, we had zero intel on this trip (I don't think many people canoe out here) so Bill was worried about waterfalls the whole way...

It was our first trip of the year, so we had to work out the pecking order again . Don't worry, we really do get along.




I got some good footage of the rest of the trip, which I'll upload to my youtube channel once my internet revives.


It was 9:45 in the pm by the time I got back to camp (and my bike), ate a quick supper and hit the road again.




I left most of my gear with my buddy, so I was light as a feather bombing down the gravel. Didn't have time to explore, but I stopped for this pic when I hit cell reception on the Heritage Highway. My wife was wondering where I was by now...








By the time I hit the gravel on the Hiding Creek/Redwillow FSR, it was dark and the bugs were starting to get intense. It felt like I was in an old school Star Wars simulator, dodging stars at warp speed. Except they were moths. And the no-see-ums (tiny biting bugs of which I don't know their real name) would get in my helmet and bite me continually and painfully along my hairline and behind my ears. I thought I might have contracted lice for a second there before I figured out what was happening.

Here's where I stopped on the Elmworth highway to try to shake the vile creatures from my hair.





I arrived home at 1:30 in the morning; cold, tired, and happy.



End of interlude.

[squonker]

[Sunday Rider]

Amazing adventure once more.

Well done. Now to the harder task of attending to your new family addition.

[SnoPro753]

Thank you for posting all of the content here. Congratulations on the addition to your family.

Subscribed!

[GISdood]

Truly amazing stuff, Ben. Looking forward to seeing more of the videos!

[Crooked Creek]

Originally Posted by GISdood

Looking forward to seeing more of the videos!

Here's an extended cut of the Kinuseo Creek run (watch in HD if you want). I didn't put music because the dialogue is the most entertaining part for me. You'd have to really know Bill and I to understand; but we really balance each other out in the canoe: I keep him adventurous and he keeps me alive .




I got lots of GoPro footage on the bike from the Johansen Lake area and the Cheni Mine road, so stay tuned...

[zeeede]

How do you shuttle back up river after you do a run? Drop the canoe off and go down-river to park? Leave the motorbike at one end?

[hardwaregrrl]

Wow Ben!!! Wonderful pics and stories.!!! I'm super jealous of where you live, and it's nice to see you not taking it for granted!!!

[Crooked Creek]

Originally Posted by zeeede

How do you shuttle back up river after you do a run? Drop the canoe off and go down-river to park? Leave the motorbike at one end?

It depends. I don't usually canoe rivers alone, because for me it's a way to spend time with friends. But if I was packrafting alone (which is more likely, since I'm the only one I know who has one) I could take my Land Cruiser and hitch hauler with the bike. Then I can just leave the bike at the takeout.

The bike is way faster than a vehicle for the roads I tend to be on, so that's my preferred way to do a shuttle. On our Spatsizi/Stikine trip it took me almost 8 hours to do with the Hilux and trailer what I did in under 2 with the bike (in the snow no less).

If I was canoeing somewhere there was people, and the put-in was on a road, I'd likely just hitchhike though.

In this case, that wasn't possible because of the remoteness of the area and the put in being on a dead end 4x4 trail. We put in right where it says "bridge out" and took out at the Murray FSR. Bill's wife and daughter were with him so we just dropped ourselves off at the put it, then she drove back to their campsite at the fall and put baby for a nap and met us at the bridge in 3 hours. There is no cell service here, but we successfully estimated the distance and time required for the trip by looking at this map and guessing the flow at the put in. We arrived with 5 minutes of each other.

[n16ht5]

excellent pics

[Crooked Creek]

Alright, so before the internet induced interlude, we were here:

Traveling the Pine Pass towards Mackenzie, I think I was on the edge of a cold front of something. The temperature has dropped almost 20 degrees in the last hour and it would rain hard for a bit, then stop, then rain again. After 40 minutes or so, I thought I had gotten through the worst of it (since it was coming from the west) so I started looking for a promising looking side road to do a little stealth camping. I probably checked out a half dozen tracks and trails, but didn't find anything that I liked the looks of, so I kept reverting to the highway.

By about 1:50, I was having trouble staying awake, and after groggily dodging a moose, I decided I should camp at the next opportunity. It turned out to be a gas plant of some kind. Off to one side, there was a asphalt pad (the remains) of some sort of building, that I decided would be better than wet grass. I didn't take me long to set up my tent, as I didn't bother to stake it down or put on the fly.

As I mentioned earlier, my front tent pole (which had broken this spring and was supposed to be in on warrantee 2 months, then 2 weeks, then 2 days before my trip) had not arrived. So instead, I was using a fiberglass one from my sons $10 play tent that was 2 feet too long. Thankfully, it was about as rigid as a wet noodle, so I just bent it that much more and it ended up working ok.

I was tired before I had left 12 hours earlier, so despite having no sleeping pad, I found the asphalt surprisingly comfortable and I fell asleep right away.


For about 45 minutes anyways.

So there I was, trying sleep at a gas plant somewhere in the Pine Pass...on asphalt...with no sleeping pad...in a broken tent...with the fly off...and it started to rain.

I got out of the tent and prompty began to be bit by mosquitoes. How they dodge the water bombing I have no idea. Can you imagine raindrops the size of your body (and 10 times as heavy) plummeting around you? Like a colder, less lethal Vietnam. But anyways, I went back inside and put some clothes on.

Once I was that far, I decided to just put them all on. I hate rolling up a wet tent anyways. Back on the bike it was.

I needed to get fuel at the Mackenzie Junction, which I didn't think would be open at 4 in the morning, so I took my time. Before long it was light out again.

I stopped at Bijoux Falls for a stretch.




Bijoux means "jewel" in French. And I'm sure they were before the fence went it. I guess that happens when falls are too close to a road.



I still like waterfalls though. One of these days I'm going to try to hit and all 42 or so around Tumbler Ridge and do a RR.


This early though, there were still lots of bears feeding along the highway. This one was quite close, but it was too dark and my flash went off and ruined the picture.




I got a slightly better shot of this one.




And this one.




Still too dark for good pics, but I like the chest blazes on this one.