My Adventure Story
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It was a destination cache weekend, one in the planning for quite some time.. we'd tried a few years back but hadn't been successful with running out of time.
The plan was simple with a few known facts - We'd also been given a tent trailer that had an agenda to be at the cabin on Friday night for seeing if it could be restored.
We left Maple Ridge at about 7 on Friday, after taking 2 hours to get ready from the house, never understand why it takes that long but it does. The tent trailer was attached to the back of the Jeep, we'd gotten the little bits of food that we had in mind, and headed to the cabin - we made good time up the Coq and the trailer was faring well - we then hit the dirt road. about 20 minutes in, we ran across a Moose wondering down the road. Bullwinkle was a bit surprised to have us behind him, but he kept meandering down the road and then stumbled across the catleguard which of course had me in a bit of a panic as I could see his ankle twist, but he was ok when he reached the other side. WE then saw headlights coming towards us and well we had a 2 car and a moose moment on the dirt roads into Tulameen.. The other driver had a very quizical look on his face as he passed us and we chatted for a moment.
about 15 minutes outside of the cabin we could hear this really bad noise coming from the rear, had some fear it would be the rear axle, however when we got to the cabin we realized that the leafsprings on the axle of the "free" tent trailer had collapsed - so the free trailer has now resulted in the license cost, the by-law ticket, gas to tow up there..
Saturday morning, 6 AM alarm goes off, arrgghh we both say, why are we doing this, we spend the 2 hours packing and were very suprised that we did get it all in the Jeep - Big cooler, little cooler, tent, pillows, air mattress, sleeping bag, duffle bag, spot, gps, camera, computer, camping tote..lol We head down Otter Valley road to the first cache, I also had breakfast there.. berries, lots of yummy wild raspberries (or so I call them). After that we made our way into Merritt and stopped into stock up on Amunition for Jordy & Batteries for me. Then headed down the #8 for a new route that way and stopped off outside and landed an FTF, surpised us - new caches had been released the previous day -
Lower Nicola School, we then headed towards Spences Bridge making a few stops along the way to see the Hoodoo's and had lunch at the best Pub around - Granny's Log Cabin. - Beer was cold, back patio had a breeze, doesn't get much better then that, Dave & Louise were there waiting for us so we joined forces and then headed up to Lillooet grabbing a few caches along the way.
The gold was the
Jade Mine Cache, we made our way up through the windy switchbacks. They were a bit steeper then last time we were here, and didn't understand until we go up half way through and saw the forest fire that had cleared through here not long before. Not sure if was the last year, or after we had been here the year before. But it created a very unique experience driving through the middle of an area where the fire had been so hot that nothing but ash was left. Never have had that before, really mesmerized me when I saw it. Wanted to stop so much more often and take pictures but with a time frame we were working with it was not allowing the time that I needed so more then I wanted came out blurry. The drive up was amazing among the views, the burned trees, the total sense of being one with nature and away from everything to a world that was our alone.
We then headed up near the
Fools Gold in Shulap's Cache , alas we didn't have time for Dave and Louise to go get it and we headed on towards the goal cache, making a few wrong turns.. (what else would you expect from me!) We fond our way through the abandoned roads down towards the GPS goal, the views continued to be amazing, now out of the fire, we had the smell of fresh pondorosa pine - nothing ever smells better then that.
We finally got to the destination, didn't manage to find the old shack, will have to go back and take alook - now that I realize it had different coordinates. Standing on that pile of Jade filling my pockets full of it was amazing! The sky above a perfect blue, with a few clouds, the lake below a serene electric blue like eyes that you never forget. We got the cache, had a gold drink then had to get to camp as it was already 7:40.. We got back to the main road and tried to take an alterante route to carpenter lake, but that didn't work as apparently there was a Mountain range between us.. oh well like Topo really matters! we went back to the intended camping location Yakolum River - so bug free, so nice - luckily others had left firewood there so we didn't have to in search of it.
We set up, had a delicious dinner of ribs then settled in to the sound of a rushing creek - nothing in the better for me to sleep soundly to, fell asleep for the first time in so long in a matter of seconds. Jordy apparently tossed and turned, oh well his loss my gain..
We got up the next morning had a great breakfst and then headed on back to Lillooet and continued home. Most of the caches the next day were average, however there was one that was amazing..
Lytton Heritage Park, it's one of those that is so amazing and an awesome find, and the church we saw on our way in there left me speachless. We found what was left of the cache container, looks like a grass fire had its way with it. But if you're that way stop by, hoping that the owner replaces it.
We then made our way home.. in love with caching and where it takes us - destined to do more.. and destined for me to get myself back into writing - need to do a bit better with that - but think this is ok for my first time in a few years.
