2009-06-19 50 -121
| Fri 19 Jun 2009 in 50,-121: 50.8978579, -121.4387649 geohashing.info google osm bing/os kml crox |
Contents
Location
At the junction of Highways 99 and 97, 1km from a logging road near Hat Creek Ranch.
Participants
Plans
I was going from Vancouver to Timothy Lake (in the 100 Mile House graticule) for Father's Day weekend, via highways 99 and 97. How could I not try for this one?
The Veasy Lake Forest Service Road met highway 99 right about where I would have wanted to park, and gave me an opportunity to get the car off the highway while I was hiking, so I decided to go as close to the point as I could along that road. The terrain in that area is fairly open rangeland; treed but not dense, and the underbrush is similarly not dense. I didn't anticipate any major problems.
Expedition
Report partially complete. I'll finish it in the morning.
Driving
The Sea to Sky highway is beautiful, but the Duffey Lake Road (keep following highway 99 past Whistler and Pemberton into the mountains) is simply gorgeous... if you can find a way to safely take your eyes off the road for a half second.
The road has seen many improvements over the years. Some 30 years or so ago, it was paved all the way through. Some 15 years or so ago, it had road lines painted all the way through. Right now, some of the 1-lane bridges are being expanded to 2 lanes, so cars going in both directions will soon be able to use them at the same time. Amazing!
There are some pretty intense grades and tight switchbacks going up and then down again. Logging trucks and tourists in campervans take the road anyway, although I'm not sure how prepared the tourists were for the 17% grade with 20km/hr hairpins...
The drive was uneventful, consisting of a lot of speed changes and gear shifting, including 2nd gear at 70km/hr to get up some of the hills - and also to get down them without constantly riding the brakes.
Road closed gates
It's paved all the way through - usually
Lots of tourists in campervans
Interesting section of road
Oops
Veasy Lake FSR was exactly where google maps said it was, and I crossed the cattle guard and headed up. It was in excellent condition, being among other things the powerline access road. I watched my GPS count down to below 900m while identifying multiple spots to pull off the road and park as I went, then it started to climb again, so I found a spot to turn around and went back to the point of lowest distance from hash.
This happened to be not only near one of the parking spots I had identified, but also home to a track leading up the hill much more directly toward the hash point. There was a ditch between the FSR and the track, but it was only about 30cm deep and I figured if I could drop one wheel in it at a time I should be able to get through and up the hill.
Driver side front wheel through no problem. Passenger side front wheel through no problem.
Driver side rear wheel went in... and then the passenger side rear wheel went in and there was a loud and horrid scraping noise and the car abruptly stopped moving. A few attempts at adding power resulted in only the sound of spinning tires, so I shut it off and went to investigate.
The exhaust pipe (drivers side) was touching the ground. The trailer hitch receiver was touching the ground. The cargo compartment behind the passenger rear wheel was touching the ground. Fortunately, the latter two appeared to be taking the weight, and not the muffler and exhaust system. Also, there was cel service here. (If you're not from BC, you may not realize how incredible that is.) Unfortunately, the exhaust pipe was touching the ground, so getting dragged backwards was very likely to damage that system. I phoned my parents anyway; I knew they were travelling with their jeep, which has a winch and could drag my car out of just about anything, even if it did rip off the exhaust pipe. They also, amazingly, had cel service, and told me they were an hour away and turned around to come rescue me.
I paced a bit. I took pictures of the car, which looked very sad at being stuck in such a small ditch. I felt foolish for getting stuck in such a small ditch.
And then I wondered if I might be able to get myself out.
The problem was that the car's weight was not on the wheels. If I could fix that, the car could move again. And, I had appropriate tools for lifting the car one tire at a time. I checked both sides to make sure the attachment points for the jack were clear, which they were, then chocked the front tires with rocks and started lifting the drivers side rear tire as high as the jack would possibly go. The tire started lifting immediately, which clarified why it was spinning so easily when I tried to power through: there was almost zero weight on it. And my car being not a 4x4, if one wheel started spinning the other one stopped moving. There was no way to lock it so both turned at the same rate regardless of traction. I collected rocks and packed them as tightly as I could underneath the tire, building a small rock bridge back to the road, then let the car back down, watching the exhaust pipe as I lowered it. Success on this side! the exhaust pipe was no longer touching the ground. I found a stick and scraped as much of the gravel and dirt out of the exhaust pipe as I could, then moved on to the other side.
It started to rain. I ignored it, except to laugh about maybe getting the drowned rat achievement. I was going to get this hash point. Giving up was not an option.
This side was harder. I put a rock under the jack to provide a flatter lifting surface, lifted as far as possible, and stuffed rocks. The back end was still on the ground when I put it down. So I got a bigger rock under the jack, and started lifting the car again. About 3/4 of the way up, I noticed the jack was leaning and the tire was no longer centred over the rock bridge I had started building. Then I heard a soft cracking sound. I let the car down as quickly as I could, and pulled the rock out from under the jack. A piece of the rock came off. So I started looking for a rock that was both bigger and didn't have the parallel stripes that the other rock had cracked along. I ended up with three rocks; a big one for the jack and two smaller ones to stabilize it. I lifted the car slowly, checking frequently to make sure it wasn't moving any way it shouldn't. The front passenger tire also lifted off the ground a little ways, but it seemed stable, so I started stuffing rocks under the rear tire.
This time I had success; the entire back end of the car was now clear of the road, if only by a few centimetres. But that was all I needed.
I crossed my fingers and got back in the car.
It climbed both back tires out of the ditch and onto the road. Before pulling the front tires back through, I made sure none of the rocks were badly placed, then got them through one at a time, and parked in the spot I had originally identified as being a good parking spot, mere steps away from where I had been stuck.
And then, safely out of the ditch and no longer needing rescue, I tried to phone my parents to let them know they didn't have to come rescue me anymore.
No answer. On either of their phones.
I tried a couple of times each, then left a message, figuring they were in one of the many, many gaps in service in BC. And then, I left a note on the dash of the car and started hiking.
tire #1 lifted
tire #2 lifted
headed out
Hiking
Onward
Photos
- 2009-
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- 2009-
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