TedB

Returned on Friday from an 1100 mile on and off road trip in B.C. We planned to go to Bella Coola but the Chilko River off road was closed due to blow downs and bridge out, and weather turned us back at Tatlia Lake. So we headed back on Hwy 20. Then, dodging huge log trucks and trailers, we took the long, twisty and rough gravel road down into the Farwell Canyon and Chilcotin River Gorge. On the high plateau on the other side of the river, we saw a herd of horses being driven slowly down to a lower meadow by two cowboys from the Gang Ranch. Shades of the old west!
After that we drove up 97 to McCleese and, next day, took the gravel back road to Likely, and then the rather bad off road to Horsefly, stopping at Hazeltine Creek to look over the desolation caused by the failure of the Polley Mine dam a couple of years ago. Saw a very big brown bear there and we hope our dash cam got it as we could not get our cameras out before it took off.
The highlight of the trip was a 55 mile run on the gravel Chasm/Eagan Lake fsr from Bridge Lake on Hwy 24 to Chasm on 97. In two places I had to lock the Jeep in 1st gear while going down long, steep grades into river bottoms. It beats burning out the brakes! We saw black bear and deer, and were very happy that no log trucks were running.
All in all, a good week despite bad weather and some real gully washers at times. At least they cleaned the 1,000s of bug remains off the windshield. - Ted'n Betty