Muncho Lake and Liard Hotsprings

July 14, 2008

We left Fort Nelson at about 11am after going grocery shopping and getting gas. I wasn’t too sure how many services were going to be available from here on in. From Ft nelson the terrain begins to get mountainous again. The backroad mapbook says that there is a stop called Steamboat. It was built part way up the huge climb over the pass for the vehicles to cool off.  As I drove by I saw an over grown abandoned gas station and restaurant. Looks like it had been deserted for years. We pulled over at the top of the climb and took some pictures. There was road construction up there as well.
We pulled into Testa River campsite just to have a look. It seemed like a nice quiet, clean site way off the highway. There is no lake only a river as the name states. On the way to Muncho lake we followed the Testa River for a ways and stopped just after the one of the grate bridges and walked down to the river with the kids. It is more of a large creek than a river. The water is very clear and tastes great. Unfortuneatly as we walked down I wasn’t planning on heading to the river so I didn’t bring my fishing rod or a camera . We did find a baby rabbit along the path near that first bridge. There was a place that one could camp was well.
We stopped in at Summit lake campsite. It is so beautiful that we almost stopped there. There were a few hiking trails that looked promising. The lake was a little small and I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to use my motor there so we moved on. Just a few meters past the campsite there was an old cow moose laying in the ditch beside the road. As I drove up she didn’t even flinch. She was about 6 feet from the truck and still she didn’t move. It was at that point I noticed some blood on the rocks beside her. It looked like she fell from the cliff above and was just laying there like she was bedded down.
 The gorge west of Summit Lake is spectacular. At this point I was one of those tourists that I hate to see in front of me when I am on my way to Prince George. I was all over the road and driving about 65 kph. From Summit Lake to Muncho Lake the scenery was absolutely fantastic; it is some of the nicest landscape anywhere. There were trails everywhere. Once I get the land cruiser finished I am coming back here and doing some serious exploring! Got the boat out for all of 5 minutes tonight then a huge rain storm hit. We high tailed it into the trailer and now we are watching 101 Dalmations.

Caio for now.

j.

July 17, 2008

On July 17th we packed the day with a bunch of different things. The first thing we did we did some back tracking. First we were off to find some fire wood as our stash was getting low. Just past Muncho we found a rough road and followed it exploring more than anything, and hoping it led to the river that dumped into the Lake. The road dead ended, at least for as as we are driving a new vehicle and not prepared to scratch it. On the way out of the trail Zach spotted a dead spruce. It wasn’t all that tall, however, after cutting it down we could tell by the tightly spaced rings that it was pretty old for its size. “Should burn good” I though to myself.  We cut down two trees about the same size and it hardly made one low row in the truck. We then drove further south and found the Drogheda Lake Corridor. A sign was there talking about how this was true wilderness and that we need to tread lightly and all that. I drive in there and there is an abandoned double wide trailer all smashed to shit. Every piece of glass is broken and there is garbage strewn around the house. I am thinking to “myself pristine wilderness my ass!”
So we check it out and this so called lake. The lake is about 2ft deep and about 100 yards long. Looks like a bit of a pond to me… pretty pond but a pond. I drive to the end of the road (it is quite short) and they have deactivated the road seriously. A sign was also posted that no motorized vehicles should go beyond that point. I see all kinds of evidence that a cat was mucking around in the creek bed/ alluvial fan where I was. There are a lot of Aluvial fans around muncho lake by the way. Our campsite is an alluvial fan and there are probably 4 more within 5kms of that spot.
So I turn the truck around and was glad that I didn’t have the trailer in tow. The road just ended and there was absolutely no turn around. Calling this a two lane gravel road would be pushing it!  Back I went past the abandoned trailer and found another road. This one also says no motorized access. I stop and look at it. It was WELL traveled with no vegetation whatsoever on it.  Hmmm, I think I need to try this one as it is not deactivated or anything. I wonder why the sign is there in the first place.  I cross a small creek and there is just gravel, no dander of slit contamination and it is only about 8” deep. I travel down this road and discover some weird looking tree stumps. I turns out that that were some sort of telegraph or power poles along the road. I even find a couple broken insulators. The insulators look like the ones you would find along the railway in my neck of the woods. Hmmm, “there is definetly no railway here I wonder exactly what they poles were used for?”  We leave there and head back to camp and decide to jump in the boat. We have been in the boat a couple of times before this. This is the first time Rylan has been in the boat so you can imagine how that went. He was a little afraid of the noise. Actually the first time out didn’t go that bad. Shoving off from shore was tough as Rylan wanted to hang on to me for dear life and cried hard when I put him in the boat. Of course when I put him in the boat he was standing and trying to get out.  He is falling, I am trying to get in the boat… what a gong show!  After all that I had to start the boat, ha! Well Once I got it started and Rylan could sit on my knee things went better. Try and fish like that though.
So our first time in the boat is going well, we are on plane Rylan is hanging on to me but not freaking out. Eventually he even gets off my lap and decides to play some with a truck I brought for him. The lake is like glass, and I mean glass. It was perfectly smooth, so we put on a couple miles. That boat of mine will do 26 mph according to the GPS so we can put on that distance quick when the water is SMOOTH. So anyway we are most of the way to Muncho Lake lodge and the wind starts to pick up a little. I don’t think much of it until 5-10 mins later. The storm popped over the mountain to the west. Suddenly the wind was high and the rain, heavy rain was coming in quick. So that short zip up the lake took much longer with 2 foot waves in a 12 ft boat. Rylan wasn’t pleased but didn’t cry even when we was getting wet. Ha, in fact we was sitting on the bottom of the boat, spray coming over the side. He was falling asleep between bumps because he was sooooo tired. That or the waves or the drone of the motor put him to sleep. It wasn’t that long past his nap time honest.
The second time out on the boat was a no go, it was rough and Rylan was super grumpy! We were out on the water for about 5 minutes. Yeterday though the lake was calm most of the day and it was mostly sunny. I just filled the boat tank and thought I should put some miles on. The lake is 11 miles long and we boated all the way around it. We started cruising along the road side, past Muncho Lake Lodge and past two others that were shut down and looked as though they were like that for some time. At the most northerly point of the lake a large river exited. It looked large enough to easily boat down but with kids and not knowing the area I decided that the prudent course of action would be to just “walk away”. My exploratry side of me ached though. But if there were a water fall or the river got shallow I would have been SOL and so would the kids. We continued on passing the float plane again but this time we stuck to the other side of the lake. We stopped in a Honeymoon Island for a pee break. That island must be one of the smallest islands I ever seen. It couldn’t be more that 40 long by 20 feet wide. After our pee break we went into the cool bay that was near the island (go on google earth and check it out). Very cool and you could actually see through the trees to the main part of the lake. From there we traveled along the lakes edge and stopped to look at all the creeks we could find. In total we probably drove 25-30 miles in the boat. It was nice a calm and Rylan came through it like a trooper. We even did some fishing but that lake didn’t do us any favors.

So today the 17th we packed up and took off for Liard Hot springs. We left our earliest yet for the shortest section of trip yet. Good thing we did too. When we got here about 1pm there were few sites left. I guess this a popular place to stop at. There are 50 sites and by the time it was supper, only two were left. It doesn’t help that there is a wedding going on and a bunch of sites were reserved. The hotsprings are great. I went to the beta pool first thinking it was going to be the coolest. Nope, it was the hottest and too deep for Zach.  Back to the alpha pool. The pool is divided in half by a waterfall. Above the water fall is quite warm and the closer you get to the source the hotter it gets. The lower pool is much cooler and felt like nice bath water. They were both shallow enough that Zach could run around and have fun without a life jacket. Rylan was a little worried at first and whined but once we got used to the water we was doing fine but still didn’t let go of me too much til the second trip near the end. After our first visit we headed back the have lunch (at 2pm) and to get Ryaln down for a nap. What a trooper, he usually has a nap around 11-12.  By the time we got to sleep it was 2pm. Our second trip down the board walk was a bit more eventful. We ran into a small black bear. He was right on the boardwalk not more than 40 feet from us.  I had enough time to say HEY!!!, and the park warden rushes by saying “excuse me” as he is loading what looked like a .38 special. It was a bear banger of course and VERY LOUD ONE AT THAT! Continuing down the boardwalk and skirting a very large pile of POO, we finally made it back to the springs.
The boys and I went across the highway the the “general” store to by two choclate bars and a pop and the total came to $6.25. Hollay f@ck! And, they have propane (I have one tank empty) but they have no one certified to use it. I hope I can find some place soon to get some propane, food, diapers, and dump my holding tank. I am running low on everything but shit! Nothing changes I suppose ;).

Well got to go and get some sleep,
Later
j.