Looking for game & steelhead in snow mtns & clear rivers

[Okanagan]

Pics from recent ramblings.  This winter has been atrocious hunting conditions for us. First pic is of a mountain north of the Chilliwack River a week or so ago.   Snow too deep to drive anywhere but plowed pavement.



Went out early Sunday into fresh tracking snow but got hit by a blizzard within minutes of leaving my house.  Weather report said light snow falling in the resort town nearest my hunt so I kept going.  Halfway there the radio was asking people not to drive at all...  At that point I decided that I'd rather risk driving on logging roads than return on the baaaad freeway I'd already travelled so kept going.   At the little resort town it was snowing sideways, drifts two feet deep on main street, flag frayed into ribbons in the wind.

Harrison Hot Springs main street below.  The slanted brown and black box is a bear proof garbage bin.  Baskin Robbins ice cream shop across the street behind the parked car.




The main logging road wasn't plowed but a big 4x4 had gone up it 23 km to a logging camp and I could make it in his tracks though dragging bottom.  Unbroken snow from there on, but it was getting shallower.  Hmmm.  By the 30 km mark snow was 3 inches deep and past 35 it was patchy skiff on bare dirt.  The higher and farther into the mountains the better the roads were (until I climbed to quite high elevation).      Whoda thunk it? 

No other vehicles nor tracks of vehicles on shallow unbroken snow.  Love it.  No game moving except for one big footed bobcat, and that season is closed.

Down the lake it snowed heavily all day and I didn't know if I would be able to get out down the only road.  At 2:00 PM I started out and at 30 km met a trio of big tired 4x4 rigs coming in that had broken trail in the deepening snow.  I was dragging bottom and it was snowing so heavily that by 14 km it had filled in their tracks so much that I knew I wouldn't make it.  Just then another big tall 4x4 came in and broke trail enough that I made it back to plowed pavement.  Good day in the snow but no game.  I'm getting too old for this stuff.   

Photo below is Hornet Creek (?)  about 30 km up Harrison Lake. 



Silver Creek or Silver River in pics below, depending on which map names it, above where it runs into Harrison Lake.  Looked for steelhead in the rivers but didn't see any the few places I looked.  Wasn't fishing, only looking for big cats.





Skookum bridges and the fanciest mile marker signs on any logging road I know.  Close enough to the big city to have a lot of traffic when weather is decent.  Some gorgeous picnic spots along these rivers and several hot springs.



Looks like somebody stuck a note on the sign below.  I don't read other people's mail so didn't look! 



The kind of country I cruised for tracks, and have hunted blacktail deer in this area in Fall.

[coyote101]

That is certainly beautiful country you live in.  You are WAY more adventurous than I am, but I have no doubt that you were well prepared to stay if you got stuck up there. 

Pat

[Okanagan]

Probably not as risky as it might sound.  Calculated risk mainly of discomfort and inconvenience of an unplanned overnight more than serious danger.  Sleeping bag, stove, food, pack, snow shoes, chains, saw and axe, etc.  Plus the DeLorme InReach satellite communications device.  Also, this is a relatively heavily travelled area for the boondocks in Canada and someone is almost certain to come along in a day or a few.  I could walk out in one long day or certainly within two days from the farthest I went.  Beyond all that, the normal winter weather is rain and the snow will probably be melted within a day or two.

And I am cautious:  my plan is to turn around before I have to, before I get stuck!     I tested that Sunday at my farthest point when I climbed to an elevation where a solid sheet of ice lay unseen under the layer of fresh snow.  My first clue was when my tires spun out and the vehicle would not move, and when it did it kept trying to slide into a bad ditch.  Shovelled down to bare ice in front of each tire and was able to shovel gravel onto the ice from an unfrozen overhanging bank.  Got the vehicle to move and turned it around right there though once moving I could have driven farther--- into being stuck worse!

Pat, you would enjoy a day like this I think and wish you could join me.  Breakfast on the way out at Tim Horton's (Canada's most famous coffee & donut shop) and maybe hit the Chinese buffet in Chilliwack on the way home.   

[Hawks Feather]

I really like the pictures of the snow covered trees along the water.  You may have to give up hunting and go into photography.   

Jerry

[JohnP]

You guys that live in that land are sure a lot tougher than this old desert dweller.  If'n I lived up there I would probably own venture out in July and August. 

Nice pictures.