Where Have You Off-Roaded Today? 3rd Gen

Nice, I will check into that one. Thanks!

 

I like your attitude.

But you never know, having a dashcam could help out in the unfortunate event on the streets as well. I got a dashcam, FitCamX, and I don't even know its there, but I do know that if anything strange happens I GOT IT on video.

 

In Wyoming and Montana. Some nights in the RTT; some in cabins.

 

I had to look at this pic on my laptop, phone was too small. Oh, yeah, I remember, there are stars out there. Thanks for the reminder. Pics look great.

 

You should post some pictures of the gear and setup you use for surf fishing. I have fished for over 50 years in lakes, trolling lures and such and also 30 years of fly fishing. Plus ocean fishing for salmon, cod, halibut etc.

I have never had a chance to surf fish. That would be fun.

 

Silver wood lake CA 2N33

 

Moses Lake dunes, Wa

 

Have not had a chance to get under the truck yet, but just squatted down to take a quick pic of the rear bumper on driver side. Beside the bumper being pulled out, there is this damage. Not a big deal.

It is quite normal for me to go through as many as 30 of these washouts in a day to get to a remote fishing lake. The deactivated logging roads up here are mostly all like this. The logging or mining crews finish their work and leave, and over time the trails deteriorate. No one maintains them so some are passable and others only for ATV or dirt bikes. There are literally thousands of washouts like this or worse in the BC interior. Just part of the driving if you want to access remote lakes.

So I am looking at different rear bumper options now, but again as cheap and simple as possible and a bit more rugged than the stock plastic crap. I miss my old Ford pickups for that reason. The rear bumpers were corrugated thick steel bumpers. No plastic, no rubber, just shit kicking steel made to last.

 

Pecos River. Eastern NM. 300 miles seemed like enough to break it in.

 

didn't know this was a thread!

the owners manual says i'm supposed to 'exercise' the 4x4 modes. i found a muddy construction site. happy to report all modes are working correctly, especially sideways through mud puddles

 

Nice pic of the washout, gives me a great idea of the terrain which looks very fun. Reminds me of our backyard behind the house I grew up in with acres of trees behind, very different but to young kids it was uncharted territory that we explored in search of adventure. Looks like you got WAY better scenario up there with opportunities for epic pics.

Damage looks non structural although it's so close up hard to tell what and where. Are you able to approach those washouts on more of an angle?

Good luck on the rear bumper, there are so many options out there.

 

Basically any type of surf casting rod and usually just a carolina rig, or a high/low (pompano) rig. Cut bait, shrimp, and sand fleas (mole crabs) are baits of choice. Surf fishing is a crap shoot you never know what you will catch. Whiting, pompano, shark, flounder, snapper, redfish, stingray, blues, and the list goes on. I will sometimes use my drone and drop out past the breakers. Typically don't really care if I catch anything or not. Bag of boiled peanuts and a couple of hours of fresh air and sunshine make for a good day.

 

That definitely sounds like a lot of fun. Gotta try that some time.

 

Who ever builds the road is responsible for it as long at the culverts and bridges are in. Both require regular engineering inspections and maintenance at great cost to the companies using the roads. Mineral exploration companies using forest company roads are required to have maintenance agreements, usually a bond, in place with the forest company before the government will issue an exploration permit.

The early days of road deactivation was designed to render the road impassible. Currently it is to allow limited use by recreational users like yourself and other industries (mining, guide/outfitters, atv tour operators....).

I expect that to change after last years floods. The washout on hwy 99 that claimed several lives has been pinpointed to a deactivation ditch above the highway that was clogged causing the hillside to become over saturated and fail.

My old truck

 

Nice truck. Don’t want to drive that long grass anymore in our recent hot summers. Scary stuff, these temps are sure keeping me away from a lot of my traditional spots.

I have witnessed cigarette butts start grass fires within seconds of hitting the grass. I was stopped at a red light when a passing car chucked their butt out the window and poof a 3 foot high grass fire ran 8 feet down the roadside. Jumped out and used my fire extinguisher. That was in wet Vancouver of all spots.

Scary how quick those can start. Our truck exhaust gets pretty hot out wheeling on 35c or hotter days, which keeps me away from a lot of dry vegetation now. Never used to be much of a concern 20-40 years ago when we seldom saw these long hot spells and drought.

Yeah there for sure are some spots in BC where old not maintained culverts could flood and lead to other issues. I have many spots in BC that were barely driveable by 4x4 some 35 years ago, and today those same spots are far worse with no maintenance. I see many old culverts broken and plugged with no signage that the road is deactivated. Luckily the majority of those are deep in the woods and not near any habitation and not on steep hillsides. Flooding though will eventually put some of those adventure roads out of commission.

As we know the majority of the flooding we saw in November 2021 was due to record rainfall, combined with so much timber loss from the record wildfires that summer.

I was driving down the Coq from Merritt to Vancouver last October, and could not believe how many of those steep mountainsides were ravaged and wiped bare from the wildfires. As we drove through, I told my wife if we get really heavy rain these mountainsides are coming down. There is nothing to hold it back but dry matchsticks. A month later it happened with all that devastation. That amount of destruction is mind blowing to see when it runs over such a large area. The road and repair crews sure did heroic work to restore all those transportation routes.

 

There were no culverts above 99, it was a deactivated road with clogged water bars. Look for deactivation to become much more aggressive.

I'm currently working in one of those fire ravaged areas off the Coq.

The photos were from a job in the Chilcotin near the confluence with the Fraser. A very unique area of the Province.

 

I once went camping with a bud in the Olympics, beautiful spot on the Dosewhollips river. Walking around we spotted a pile of garbage, someone just cleaned house and dumped it there,, Gregg in horrible. Well I loaded all those bags, and all that nasty kitchen crap that wasn’t in bags and put it all in my taco (1st gen) and actually hauled it all to the dump.,,,, looking back, I’m glad I did it but if I wasn’t drunk, not sure if it would have happened. But it all turned out good. Campground looked good again. Washed the taco bed out and looked like it never happened.

 

Beautiful up in that area of the Chilcotin. My brother lives in Williams Lake. I have spent a lot of time fishing up in that area. As kids, our parents started taking us up there back in 1961 or so. Every year we'd do trips up there, fishing Canim, Sheridan, Mahood, Quesnel and so many others. We would camp on a beach at the north end of Canim lake, and then hike from there to Canim and Mahood falls and river fish along the way. What a crazy great spot. Plus fishing many other lakes along highway 24.

Man, we have it so good here in BC hey?

Special shout out to the Ironhorse pub! Great place for eats and a beer.

 

A project North of there near horsefly was my second home for several years.