Capturing the Art of Nature
Squamish River Valley
The snow was down to the 550m point so we had clear driving on the mainline but it quickly stopped us as we explored some side branches. Views of the peaks were spectacular in their snow dusted wardrobe.
Category
Serendipitous Discoveries
2012
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Finally I was able to get in to the back country again. The weather and my Ontario trip kept me sidelined since September! This morning Geoff and I left the house at 8am and set out for the Squamish FSR. Our first adventure of the day began early with our driving the newly completed Port Mann Bridge. It was a lovely drive with 4 lanes open each way. No more backups and delays, it really is a welcome project. The rest of the drive to Squamish went quickly and as we rounded the last turn before Squamish we had a spectacular view of Mt Garibaldi and The Chief. We just had to pull over and take a few photos before continuing along the highway into town.
As we approached the start of the FSR we still weren’t sure what to expect snow wise but soon we could see that the road was clear without even a trace of snow to be seen. So that bode well and we made our way along the road looking for some places to stop and gather photos. The drive was actually quite good as the road was in fairly good condition. We stopped at a wide spot along the river at around the 30 mile marker and there I was able to take some lovely photos of Mt Wood. Meanwhile Geoff was busy sighting in his rifles.
Done with the river view we continued up the mainline and came to the B700 branch. We hadn’t explored this road in our recollection so up it we went. The initial section continued snow free but as we reached 500m we encountered some lovely powder snow. It was unmarked as we were the first since the last snowfall to drive the road. Soon we reached a level spot with an amazing view of Pyroclastic Peak – the peak was just emerging from a cover of cloud. We drove a bit further up the road but soon the snow depth was deep enough that we no longer had good traction and we would need to put on chains to continue. The effort to chain up was not something we wanted to expend today so we turned around and started back down the road.
Unfortunately, the road going down was a different animal than the one going up and as we approached a cross ditch the truck lost traction and we slid into the ditch at a speed a bit faster than planned. This bounced Geoff and I into the ceiling of the truck and as I was wearing my cap with a button on the top it caused some ripping of flesh on my scalp! Once we picked our way past the ditch and stopped, we surveyed the damage and determined that my head took the worst of it. We decided to not bandage the gouge as the little hair I have left didn’t need to be ripped out by taking off a band-aid later!
We continued down the B700 to the mainline and then continued along to the B800 fork which we then took to explore. As we reached the snow level we encountered a few others who were out hunting. This branch had a number of side forks which we also explored, one ended in a washout, a couple more stopped us by deep snow. Eventually we saw what we could and we returned to the mainline. As it was approaching lunch time we decided to head up to the Elaho fork and slide up the Squamish on the E100 branch to look for a spot where we could park alongside the river. A couple of Km’s up we found a point where we could drive to the edge of the river and enjoy a camping spot. Here we parked and cooked our lunch, Geoff started a small campfire but it didn’t get hot enough to do much good.
Done with lunch we decided to return to the Squamish mainline and continue along to see what had become of the washout we encountered the last time we were here. As we made our way along we almost missed the spot as the road was well repaired and we could only tell we were at the right spot by the look of the stream which had eroded the road last winter. We continued along trying the S200 branch which eventually stopped us with snow and then continuing along the mainline as far as we could snow permitting. Up here the mainline seemed to fork into two main roads and we drove both. The western fork crossed the Squamish River and offered a nice view of Ring Mountain. At least it did once Geoff removed a tree that was blocking the view.
By now it was approaching 3pm and the light levels were rapidly dropping so we decided to start the drive back to the pavement. We made excellent time as we trekked along the road encountering only a couple of vehicles, a couple more were parked and we did see one camper setup for the week-end. So the place was quite empty – just the way we like it. We reached pavement at 4:11pm just as the sun set. We then made our way along to the house of a local Ham – John – who we have chatted with a number of times the last couple of years and ended up spending an hour with him looking at some of his radio equipment and just chatting about things of interest. The rest of the drive home went quite quickly once we collected a coffee in Squamish. It was a good day of driving and exploring after 2 months of absence.