Twisting and Narrow

Saturday July 13 - As we get back in the Jeep, I notice the temperature here in the city is 99F. We had stopped in town to purchase groceries before heading into more remote country.

Maneuvering through the city streets is interesting with a trailer. Crossing the Bennett Bridge is a relief, as it marks the end of city driving. I turn onto Westside Road. The road offers a great view of the lake, if you happen to be the passenger. As the driver, my eyes can only dart away from the road for a second: I would rather not. I begin to wonder if you can use the word "subsistence" with road building. Colorado has shelf roads but they are flat in comparison. This is a roller coaster scrapped into the side of a mountain with a lake to catch you if you swerve off the pavement, there is no shoulder. I become vaguely aware of a large white building with a terracotta tile roof below us on the shore of the lake. Then I see its roof has collapsed and there are black holes where the glass was. This was the Lake Okanagan Resort. It burned in a forest-fire last summer. I would not want to fight a fire ,or run from one, on this road. But I need to focus on the thin bit a pavement in front of me. I continue following the twisting shoreline for sixty miles.

At the north end of the lake, I turn west onto a wide flat highway. I finally relax.

A few miles down the road I turn south and enter the forest. The trail has been graded recently but I can tell from the tire tracks it is used often. The dense forest is of Douglas fir, western red cedar (Nootka) and aspen. A Jeep passes going in the other direction. Luckily, it will be the only vehicle we see on the trail as most of it is too narrow for two way traffic. We climb, turn, and climb repeatedly for two miles. I come to a slightly wider spot in the road, stop and pull the parking break. The trail in front of me climbs at a crazy angle that we will calculate later to be 13% grade. He gets out to walk the road. We do this to make sure the road doesn't end without a place to turn around.

The straightest bit of road we've seen all day had to 13% grade!

I watch him move up the hill, first at a jog (low altitude-only 3,200 ft therefore high O2 content for us) but soon he realizes his mistake, it's steep. He slows to a labored climb. He reaches the top and disappears. I wait.

After several minutes I hear him on the radio. The message is garbled. I ask him to repeat. He is on the other side of the hill so there is interference. Then I hear, "Come on up."

I check my gearing, 4-low, drive, parking brake off. I easy toward the incline. The engine revs, a few rocks sputter under my wheels, but I crawl up the slope.

At the top he gets in and asks, "How was it?" I respond, "No problem" as I release my death grip on the wheel. 

We travel on for a mile taking note of every place we could turn around if there is a washout or a tree across the road. We would need to back to the nearest of these locations.

We come to a fork in the road: left leads to our camp, straight is the easy way in.

Meanwhile, at home there is a bear on our patio.

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