Wood is Good

Wood is good

Elaho Beach Panorama

Campsite in the lower right.

Fall Fishing

Elaho/Sims Valley

Distractions on the side of the road.

DEEP. Turn around point pretty much. Early November and the sun doesn't reach the valley floor any more.

Babe digs logging roads

Clendinning

Bridge River Valley

"The Bridge River is - or was - one of the Fraser's largest and most historic tributaries, although it is largely obscure to most British Columbians today."

These are kinda words that perk my ears up. Welcome to a little slice of heaven on earth. The towns of Gold Bridge (Wiki population 250), Bralorne (60), Brexton (a dozen, if that) and Pinoneer Mine (abandon) make up the Gold River valley. Many recreational cabins exist on Gun lake, Carpenter and Downton Lake making up the majority of the areas population.

Lunch break off the Hurley road

Squamish Pink Salmon Run

The following is a nice article about the 2011 Pink Salmon run here in Squamish:

http://outdoorcanada.ca/13670/blogs/wild-about-the-west/pink-salmon-retention-reinstated

Cheakamus Canyon

Cheakamus Canyon - Sea to Sky Trail
Follows the original 1850s Lillooet - Vancouver cattle trail.
Invigorating on a mountain bike, one hell of a trip with cows...


From Wiki:

The Lillooet Cattle Trail, also known as the Lillooet-Burrard Cattle Trail, was an unusual public works undertaking by the Province of British Columbia in the 1887, and was the largest public works expenditure of that province in the 19th Century. Faced with burgeoning stock populations and a lack of access to the huge market supplying meat to construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway just east, largely because of a lack of bridge crossings of the Fraser River, the ranchers of the Lillooet area lobbied the provincial government to finance a trail to the coast via the Pemberton and Squamish areas to the north shore of Burrard Inlet (i.e. what is now Vancouver harbour), at the mouth of the Seymour River.

The trail's route was improbable, to say the least, hugging lakeside cliffs where, in places, trestles and floating platforms had to be built out above or onto the lake and, beyond that, through marshes and heavy forests beset by infamously-thick mosquitos and, lastly, a tortuous "stairway" section of the trail over the pass between the Squamish area and the Seymour River, where cattle where expected to use steps on a trail that was nowhere more than 6 yards wide.

Only one formal cattle drive was ever held over the full length of the route and most head were lost; those that finished the trip were put out to pasture to recuperate, being too skinny to be worth butchering. The multimillion-dollar loss incurred by trail construction left a bad taste with the provincial government for many years, although the son of its main sponsor, a rancher from Pavilion, later became provincial Minister of Highways and Public Works. Bridges to serve the cattle ranches of the West Fraser, including the suspension-span at Lillooet, were built in several places by 1910s, although too late to keep the West Fraser Ranches competitive with those in the Thompson and Cariboo regions.

The trail remained in use in later years for residents of the Pemberton Valley for general travel purposes, and at least two more smaller cattle drives from that region to Squamish were attempted, both financial disasters as was the original one from Lillooet. The roadbed of the trail remained in place for many years, its stretch from Pemberton to Squamish ultimately being subsumed into the grade for the construction of the Pacific Great Eastern Railway through that stretch.

Mamquam River @ Raffuse Creek

This is what anglers define as a 'blown river'. I will be back when the waters have calmed...

Test of Medal

Test of Medal 2011 - Front row seats on Skyline

800 Riders

67K/ 42M - Half on single track with over a kilometer elevation gain

Just over 2 hours - human machines right here

Squamish and the Stawamus Chief

Shannon Falls

Shannon Falls

Atop the Stawamus Chief
Second peak looking down Howe Sound

Squamish

Radu taking a break

Squamish River estuary

Shannon Falls and wind boarders

Chilliwack Ecological Reserve aka Massive Trees

"The reserve is in the heart of the Skagit Range of the Cascade Mountains, mostly on the floodplain of the gently flowing, slightly meandering Chilliwack River. The flat valley bottom is about 500 m wide in this area."

"The reserve area is primarily forested with rich old-growth coniferous stands of exceptional growth. A small area of shrubland in the northwest corner is influenced by periodic flooding of Chilliwack Lake, and wetlands occur in the west central area. Three floodplain forest communities have been described. Cedars may reach 2.75 m in diameter, and true firs 60 m in height. Other trees present include Engelmann spruce, Sitka spruce, grand fir, amabilis fir, Douglas-fir, bigleaf maple, and Pacific crab apple. This is believed to be an area of hybridization between grand and amabilis fir and between Sitka and Engelmann spruce.
Mammals noted here are the Black Bear, Black-Tailed Deer, Beaver, and Porcupine. Typical birds are the Winter Wren, Brown Creeper, Pileated Woodpecker, Blue Grouse, kinglets, and chickadees."

The USA-Canada border. Imagine what Mexicans would think if they saw this, there isn't a person for days. Also until recently there was a trail heading south into the states for hikers.