At the end of the road, we parked near the old bridge, and decided that the best way to set up camp in this area of heavy bear population would be to put the kitchen/eating area near the trucks, and the tent/sleeping area on the other side of the bridge, in a spot that looked like it would have shade most of the day. Even at 11 AM, when we got there, it was very hot, so we spent the rest of the day setting things up in short spurts of activity, with lots of breaks in the camp chairs, in shady spots under the trees, and cold drinks handy at all times.
At about 9:30 PM, I got a call on the vhf from Bill, driving in with Jason after their days' work, checking to see if they had made the right turn towards the camp, as they had never been to the spot before. I confirmed they were on track, and they pulled into camp 1/2 hr later. They had their tent up in short order, and we sat out in the bright light of the full moon, enjoying the cooler evening air, a few drinks, and some good campfire stories, without the campfire, of course, since there's been a fire ban posted for the last 2 months, due to the very dry, hot spring and summer we've had this year. The night was uneventful, the only wildlife visitor being a deer strutting past our tents at 3 AM, though there was fresh bear scat within 100 yds of camp in the morning.Part of our purpose in being near Harrison Lake this weekend, was to attend the annual picnic/BBQ of the BC Scientific Cryptozoology Society at Green Point Park at 11:30, Sat., so we had an early breakfast at camp, took a short hike up one of the old logging roads while it was still cool, and then convoyed down to the park for the BBQ, leaving Jason (retired Marine/LEO) guarding the camp from the comfort of his hammock at the side of the creek. Some of our families met us at the picnic, with lots of goodies to eat, but I somehow got "volunteered" to be the grillmaster, so I spent a good part of the afternoon searing Angus burgers, so missed out on some of the discussions of Lake monsters, Sasquatch, 2 foot tall lizards that run upright on their rear legs, and black alligators (actually giant black salamanders), all of which are reputed to live in our corner of the Province, and all interesting to our camping group. The sixth member of our campout arrived at the picnic, and I was introduced to Bill S., a survival trainer/blogger, from Richmond, BC. After the picnic wound down, and the non-campers headed home, we had Bill S. join the convoy back to the campsite in his camperized AWD Astro van, which did surprizingly well on the rough last 7 km. of trail into the campsite.
Sunday was the day for 'wheeling, so we set off in 3 of the trucks, my TB, Robert's Wrangler, and Bill R's Chev K1500, to explore side trails off our branch road, and off the Harrison Main, finding some great climbs, and amazing views, but no really tough terrain, the hardest sections getting no worse than 2.5 on the ORTB scale. The only problem encountered was a tranny overheating warning light on Robert's Wrangler, which was running 35s he'd put on to replace the stock 31s as soon as he bought the truck. When I asked him what gearing he had, he said he didn't know! I urged him to install a tranny cooler as soon as he got home, and to find out what his diff ratio actually was. I told him he may have to regear to run the tall tires, or go back down to a 32 or 33 tire, if he didn't want to regear. While on the trails, we spotted a narrow column of smoke on the far (West) side of the lake, and within an hour, could see a couple of helis bucket dropping water/retardant on the fire, and a bit later, the monsterous Martin Mars water bomber was making passes on it, as well. By late afternoon, Robert and Walt broke camp for the drive back to Seattle, as they didn't have the Mon. off, and I left for home to clean up for my tour run of the same area Monday morning with the Polaris Crew ATV, as I drive for "Sasquatch Country Adventure Tours" out of Harrison Hot Springs. I figured an "un-showered after 3 days of camping" guide might be too much of an "adventure" for the paying clients.
Bill R and Jason stayed on at the camp for Mon., heading home in the evening.When I drove the tour group up the East Main on Mon., the fire had grown in size considerably, in spite of the water bombing efforts, and over this past week, it has grown to cover 13 sq.km., about 8 sq.mi. It is believed that it was started by careless campers, in spite of the well publicised and oft-repeated warnings of extreme fire risk, and a complete campfire ban.
