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Kristina Wheeler photos
Big Brothers Run
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Protect it or lose it
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Kenyon Lake
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Checking trails
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Kristina Wheeler photos
Volunteer drivers all in a row
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Kristina Wheeler photos
Hammering it out
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We made a picnic table
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Kristina Wheeler photos
On the Highway to Hale
Story & photos by Kristina Wheeler
Very few places in the world offer the diversity that the province of BC does for avid off-roading enthusiasts. Within a days drive you have access to every terrain imaginable; deserts, alpine meadows, subalpine traverses, rock crawling, mud flats, and mountainous regions. The plausible destinations never end; varying from fire lookouts, crashed airplanes, picturesque mountain peaks, natural hot springs, ruins of numerous abandoned mines, and ghost towns to name a few. This paired with the scenery and wildlife that you will find amongst the trails creates a yearning in one’s soul where it is torn to protect it, yet strangely share it at the same time.
Through the Four Wheel Drive Association of BC (4WDABC), one of the ways we pay that back is by hosting maintenance runs to the various BC recreation sites that we hold contracts for, including:
- Hale Creek, Sunrise Lake & Francis Lake (West Harrison)
- Kenyon Lake (East Stave)
- Lodestone Lake (Whipsaw)
- Nahatlatch (Boston Bar)
- Mount Lavina (Kootenay’s)
While there, with the help of our many avid volunteers, work is done to ensure that when you arrive you can safely enjoy them. The tasks vary and include creating picnic tables from scratch, liming the outhouses, clearing trails of debris and fallen trees, painting, removing trash, fixing bullet holes and most important of all, building a sense of community in our wheeling family.
The most frequent maintenance runs occur along the side of Harrison Lake, the Sts’ailes FSR is in total 80 km long. The main portion of the FSR is stock friendly, with side shoots offering varying degrees of challenges. Over the last year we saw the Hale and Sunrise area devastated by the Wood Lake Forest fire. We sat back and could do nothing but watch the ever hungry, growing flames devour our heart and souls, not knowing if the Hale shelter, or nearby long standing forest fire lookout would survive.
Little by little, good news was heard, that they had successfully dropped retardant on the forest fire lookout, and the ravaging flames had spared it. Next up was the Hale Shelter, the forest fire had scorched the area three times and miraculously, perhaps because it had been coated in flame retardant when it was built and constructed with a metal roof, it survived fully intact. However, what is a greater mystery is the outhouse, the fire burned everything clean within a 10-foot radius surrounding it, but left it in it’s original condition!
We tip our hats to the fire fighters in the province of BC, and those around the world who came to help BC in 2015. Without their efforts we would have lost so much more of our beautiful province during that devastating summer.
People were evacuated out of Twenty Mile Bay Recreation Site , having to take the 50 km journey through to the North end of Harrison Lake, then the additional 80 km up to Pemberton. Some left campers and trucks behind for days on end, until it was declared safe to retrieve them. Eventually the fire was contained, however anxiety levels increased with the uncertainty over the conditions and future of the area. In September, the all clear was given to travel on the main road, but the side roads were still off limits until they could be made safer.
During this time spirits started sinking, however the 4WDABC took advantage of several opportunities to help combat it. In August, we hosted our third run for the Big Brothers and Sisters of BC, taking a group of very excited “Littles” and their “Bigs” out on the trails. In September, we hosted a maintenance weekend for the Nahatlatch Forest Fire Lookout, scraping and replacing the paint that had weathered over the last few years. This was followed up later in September by our annual Fall Convention and Whipsaw run.
We then worked on the Francis Lake Rec Site to bring it up to snuff. Luckily volunteers had performed other much needed maintenance, including work on the outhouse, in previous weeks. Avid volunteers stepped up to the plate and scraped down the picnic tables, replacing the rotten boards on three of tables. It was then discovered that a third was beyond salvage, however our creative volunteers got that ‘mad scientist’ look, and managed to create one completely from scratch.
As time passed, people started braving the devastating trip down to the Hale Shelter to survey the damage. The trees resembled wraiths, coated in their eerie ashes with a slight red tinge from the fire retardant. Neither Fossil Beach, nor the easy route were accessible, as there were just too many downed trees that needed to be cleared.
One would think that the forest fire would have taken the worst toll on the area, in both the geography and our hearts. Unfortunately, that is not the case in this story, a person or persons that I can not even begin to describe as human, decided to take it upon themselves to decorate the Hale Shelter signage, structure, fire pit, roof and outhouse with numerous shotgun shell impacts. This was a pure slap in the face to the hundreds of hours of volunteer labour that went into both the construction and maintenance of the structure since it was constructed in 2010.
Whatever their goal was, it did not dampen our spirits or resilience, and neither a hate campaign or search and destroy occurred. Instead the wheeling family of BC chose to rectify the situation, and bring the Hale structure and area back to its original beauty. The funds to replace the destroyed materials and signage were raised through a grass-roots effort, led by Kim Reeves. In January, sixty plus volunteers joined together on a weekend to not only clear both trails into Hale and Fossil, but also bring the structure back up to its original glory and establish a new outhouse.
My heart, and the entire board of directors for the 4WDABC, has no way to truly express our gratitude to so many caring people, that not only fought fires over the summer, but also stepped up to the plate to ensure that these trails and facilities maintain their rightful place in our wheeling world.