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| Mudslides, Mountains, and Mogs | Short Cuts | ||||
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By: George Reiswig - 8/2002
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| Pictures just don't do justice to the magnitude of these slides. |
Monday, August 5th
"Should be a short day... about 3 hours or so."
Jim's words were reassuring to me, since I still have to do the final re-torque of my cylinder head bolts. 'Twould be nice indeed to pull in to Terrace a little early, and get that unpleasantry out of the way. I should have listened... I should have listened. Two things struck me: the distance measure someone quoted (100 kilometers or so), and the theme from Gilligan's Island running through my subconscious.
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| Glaciers threaten from above. |
We set out on the Telkwa Pass Trail a little after 10:00 in the morning. This trail gave us a different perspective on some of the terrain we had seen the previous day, this one looking up from below. Snaking through the dense overgrowth, the trail went through the deep notch between mountains. To our south, hanging glaciers threatened to calve on us, or to send down a rain of large rocks. Clearly this happens a lot up here, as we could see evidence of recent falls and slides everywhere.
One thing became more and more clear as we went... I had exactly reversed the days in one regard. On the previous day, I had disconnected my swaybar. That trail that day was not all that difficult. This trail proved more difficult, but I had connected the swaybar again. Oh, well... reduced articulation, but Grog still worked.
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| This older mudslide cut a violent swath through the forest and the earth. |
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| Crossing these mudflows often means wading through rushing water... |
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| ...and crawling up bouldered banks. |
What made the trail difficult in many places were the slides that had happened. Two massive slides, one just this past June, forced us to completely abandon the regular trail and go on the bypass routes. The more recent slide had a bypass that still had the D-8 'dozer track prints all over it... rough, steep sections abounded. The devastation caused by the slide reminded me of damage that I'd seen around Mount St. Helens, although it was more recent. It must have been spectacular to see it actually happen, at least from the air.
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| Mudslides bring the boulders out, as well, but we squeezed by them. |
Needless to say, the Three Hour Tour proved to be somewhat longer. Call it more like six and a half. This underestimation earned Jim the nickname Skipper over a pizza dinner in town that night, and a lot of good-natured ribbing that he took very well.
Once again we have met some great folks up here, and we owe a deep debt to the Coast Mountain Crawlers for being such able and accommodating tour guides for us. This is a place we'll surely come back to, next time to spend a week or so and really soak in the trails and scenery. Maybe we'll get a chance to help break that one trail next time!
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North by Northwest Expedition: - Introduction - Sponsor List - Reviews - Photo Galleries Before Departure Shakedown Cruise Lower British Columbia More Lower British Columbia Busted in BC BC with Coast Mountain Crawlers Upper British Columbia Almost Alaska |
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