July 1999
Fraser Canyon Pass to Merritt & Barriere

These photo's are scanned & therefore a little less quality

PARTICIPANTS:  Jud & Dog Jessie
Lorilei & Bradley
Mark Bostwick
Chevy Dave
Toyota Dave

This was the First 4x4 Trip Bradley and I went on. We started out with Jud on contact by radio heading for the Alexandria Bridge wilderness campsite (way off the beaten path) which was the very first easterly turn after crossing to the north side of the Alexandra Bridge near Yale. We set up camp, as it was late when we arrived, but we had the coordinates on the GPS  to help us find the bunch. During the night we heard an enormous amount of sirens in the distance but thought nothing of it, after all this was the dreaded Fraser Canyon Highway and anything could happen. We all sat around the fire after tarping our trucks and had a wonderful evening until the BC liquid sunshine (rain) decided to grace us with its presence. We gave in and all headed to bed in our trucks. The next morning Bradley fixed up his famous McBradley muffins and we started packing up the truck. We did a few little side trails in and around with Jud showing us just what these guys meant by 'roads' (I personally thought they were more cow paths but heck what do I know). We looped around and back up the Fraser Canyon and tried a FSR (Forest Service Road) mainline but were rudely interrupted a few kilometers in by an unbeatable gate. We headed back out to the pavement and up further to Boston Bar. As we started thru the tunnels around Hells' Gate, the traffic came to a stand still. We waited for a few hours and were hearing that there was yet another major fatal MVA that they were attending to up ahead and that they were trying now to get the vehicles and bodies out. Eventually we got moving and turned up Utzlius Creek FSR Main and took the backdoor pass over the Coquihalla (or as I was beginning to learn the lingo - the Choke & Hollar). Up and over Utzlius Creek FSR to the hydro easement roadway and over the pass where we hit our first real labour of love. The snow doesn't look very deep in the photo's but it was and was also piled in such a way (tilted) that we ended up digging down into it for trenches for the wheels. One by one we all made it thru with a few brown trouser moments. (I was smart and walked across). Over we went, encountering a few downed tree's we chainsawed but there was so much water that year it was a very wet all over. Eventually this would take us into Merritt. We drove around quite a ways and stopped in an open field under some high tension power lines and were going to set up camp - that is until I got such a shock off the truck my arm went numb! So much for power lines not causing any kind of adverse effects huh!? We decided it wasn't such a great place to camp and headed off a little further. Begrudgledling , Bradley decided to put up the tent with me for the night to try things my way. Well I went out that night for a biffy break at about 4 am and found myself in SNOW   July 1st  Merritt the hot spot, in SNOW!