Where Have You Off-Roaded Today? 3rd Gen

Hopefully the at times very cold winter killed some of the Pine beetle. Takes -20c and colder for a month or more for that to happen. We came close in spots this winter in BC.

Yup southern BC took a big hit last summer. It was crazy when so much of the province was closed due to fires blocking all the major interior highways, then again when the floods wiped out all the same highways. These are quite the times for weather change.

 

I live in southern BC (Boundary) and work in the Cariboo/Nechako/Omenica. We took our 2 week scheduled break last summer and were down for nearly a month because our Kamloops based contractor had a few employees lose their homes at Monte Lake.

Much of the Chilcotin/Nechako is traditionally grasslands and only with the advent of roads as fire breaks has forestation spread.

When I worked in Central America in the late 1990's, their pine forests were also devastated by pine beatle kill and they won't see any of those low temperatures.

 

folks at Monte lake and Paxton valley got screwed over. I do not get why the fire crews cannot more actively work with home owners who have the heavy equipment and knowledge of their area, and together work on the fires. Too often they are told to stand down.

Plus get on the fires more quickly when they are so close to communities. A lot of changes can be made. I know the province is looking at that more than ever after this last fire season. Too many of the fires that were close to homes, and less than 5 acres in size, were just monitored and not hit early with sufficient resources. Then the winds come up and same or next day a 5 acre fire is 200 acres. If it is in the back country that is fine. But too often the fires close to communities saw limited resources when the fires were still small. A lot of suffering in this province this last year and still several hundred families living out of hotels months after the fires and floods.

 

We live just north of Big Sur where they just had a fire burning between Palo Colorado Road and Bixby Bridge. They achieved 100% containment yesterday after 12 days.

Then another fire started today at Plaskett Ridge which they were able to get under control very quickly since they had crews along highway one already, thank goodness!
Crazy weather/climate change. Here is our forecast…..and keep in mind no rain since December.

Hopefully things get better before they get worse.

 

Very jealous of your opportunities! After our trip I think a small road trip up north every summer is in order. I have a nice handling 14’, 45 lb canoe that is easy for one person to handle. I have great memories of my Dad and I wilderness canoeing by ourselves in several places in Alaska and the Yukon Territory.

Yes, looking forward to getting back to our home/Tacoma which is parked in Cambridge, England right now. We’re warming up in Costa Rica for a few weeks wishing we had the truck but still having fun. Found this a couple of nights ago 5’ off of our walking path. This a 4’ green tree viper

 

Being a US west coast forester all of my career, ending as the general manager of a 600,000 privately owned forest, the west coast forest fires are a complex issue. But in my opinion is mostly due to mismanagement, or more accurately no management. Not having roads accessible to equipment severely limits fire authorities. Also not salvage logging can leave heavy fuel for the next fire which makes it much harder to fight, but worse, causes unusually hot fires that can sanitize the soil, dramatically altering in it.

I retired in April 2021 and six years of that I was the general manager, our forest had 45,000 acres of it burned mostly due to adjacent US government land that was not properly thinned and therefore when fires did occur, couldn’t be controlled and burned onto our lands. Even worse, four months after I retired another 110,000 acres were burned in the 2021 Boot Jack fire which totaled over 400,000 acres. That fire was uncontrollable due to a mountain pine beetle infestation 15 years ago which was never salvage logged on US federal lands. It was a powder keg waiting to explode.

This is the same problem that impacted eastern BC and now western Alberta; a massive mountain pine beetle infestation which wiped out much of the interior lodgepole pine forests. Lodgepole pine forests only live upwards of 100 years before they get old and eventually succumb to something; this what happened in BC and Alberta. Either it should be logged or the beetle is eventually going to come in and kill them. In many areas, the Provincial forest managers did a good job of trying to log as many of these dead lodgepole trees as possible, but there were simply too many to harvest. Literally millions of acres of dead standing trees. Massive fires are just a question of when unfortunately. Makes me very sad. I’m stepping off the pedestal now.

 

Nice snake! Love the snakes, plenty around here in Kelowna including rattlers. Two summers ago, a rattler scared the crap out of me when I was in our back yard picking peaches from our tree. It rattled loudly in the shrubs just 3 feet from where I was standing. My wife and I moved so fast scrambling to get out of there! I did not go back to that spot to pick peaches for a week after that, and with a 6 foot pole to poke around first. . Here are 2 very nice 5 foot long bull snakes. They are really beautiful. These two crossed my path while I was out for a walk. Not venomous. They eat a lot of rodents so they are very handy to have around. Lots of these in our neighborhood. I used my walking stick to get them off the path as some folks were coming on bicycles and would have run right over them.

I am not a canoe guy, but my 10 foot Lund rowboat is only 85 pounds. Easy to get on and off my roofracks, so I don’t need any help with it. I have 2 large wheels mounted on the back so I can drag it up and down slopes. A lot of the lakes I fish have steep grades to the lake edge and no spot to launch any kind of boat. So the wheels are great for hauling it by hand through the bush. When I can’t get a boat in I have a couple of belly boats I use.

 

The bigger question was why were so little resources allocated to the fire when it started at the north end of the Douglas Lake Ranch (Stan Kroenke of Walmart fame who won't allow access to public lakes for fishing)? There were +/- 10 people with very limited air support. Official updates said it was due to difficult terrain. Where I was working in the Cariboo, a smaller fire burning up hill with very minimal human interface had +20 personnel and four heavy lift helicopters bucketing and then they moved in another 40 personnel.

A precedent was set at Rock Creek in 2017 where some local refuse the evac order, stayed and used their farm equipment to save their houses. After a long battle, they ended up getting paid for their time and equipment.

 

Nice bull snakes, they can be pretty aggressive. I'm very into snakes as well. My wife runs away from them.


Ran into this guy next to a trail in Oregon last summer. Had to convince her to come back and take a photo. My shoe was farther away than it looks. Cheers!

 

Great photo!

 

An interesting career that one and not an easy issue to manage. The pine beetle for sure a contributing factor, but here in BC the road access is not that big of an issue due to the huge number of logging roads on crown land. Too many roads in my experience, but hey they do get me to the lakes I fish.

The logging of course leaves a mess on the ground, all that kindling that helps the fires grow so quickly.

That mess on the ground is seldom cleaned up. I know that from 500 hundred or so offroad trips throughout BC. It can be pretty bad, to the point you absolutely cannot walk over it. I am sure you see a lot of that.

The biggest fixable issue in BC would be quicker action on the fires near communities when they are still small. Due to where I live, I daily monitor all the fires in BC using the BC Wildfire service interactive online maps. For example, the Canim Hendrix fire, only 1/2 mile away from the community there, was “watched” for a few days when it was 5 acres. No action taken as it was burning up the mountain away from the community. Just a couple of miles away from a home my father built there. A small crew plus several helicopters could have held that fire to 5 acres.

Instead it was just watched. Later that week it suddenly grew to several hundred acres and turned toward the community. At that time they had to move 20 heavy pieces of equipment plus helicopters and water bombers and a crew of 60 firefighters onto it, and that crew and all that equipment fought it for over 4 weeks. At the time I was in communication with family there, and beside myself with the inaction on that fire. Each of those days I was commenting why don’t they hit it now, they know the wind there travels up and down the lake, and as soon as a low pressure system arrives the winds will shift from the SE and head toward the community, and so it did. They were able to keep it out of the community there, but way too many resources required and for too long of a period. It could have gone from “out of control” to “held” in just a few days with a small crew while it sat at 5 acres for a few days.

That is just one example of many like that in BC from last season. The Forestry Service here at end of season acknowledged that changes need to be made on timelines to action a fire and to also join with the local farmers and ranchers who are often able to get on top of fires in their areas more quickly than the wildfire service can. Get everyone working together.

By the way, we have been at “extreme” drought (level 4) for the last year, and level 3 for the year before that. Not getting any better. In my travels offroad last year, it was so bad I stopped going out for a few weeks as everything is scary tinder dry. When I did go offroad, I would stop every half mile and walk back over the route I just drove, with my shovel, extinguisher and axe in hand. Just to make sure my exhaust system did not create a spark. Got a lot of walking exercise on those trips. Never seen this kind of dry in BC before.

 

Wolverine Mtn. Prescott, Az. Old quartz mine.

 

Crazy with fires at this time of year. Things are changing pretty fast, too many extreme weather events.

 

Dogsitting this weekend, so took my lil’ copilot up to Crown King & Senator Highway Trail up to Prescott, AZ. About 60mi total offroad.

 

Pretty sure I've seen this in a horror movie.

 

Sheep Creek Truck Trail 2/5/22

 

Vancouver Island, BC, Canada

 

Geology road in Joshua Tree. It’s a quick out and back and the way back was smoother

 

Found this cool place near the Project Shoal Nuclear Test Site aka BFE Nv.