Triple M Triathlon - Misty, McBride, Mamquam: Bike, Canoe, Ski. Part 3 - Bush and Bears.

Dates: June 25th - 27th
by Christian Veenstra

The Bucklin Creek FSR wasn't in great condition.

This is part three of my solo ski trip around Garibaldi Park, accessed self-propelled from my doorstep via Pitt Lake. Read about the approach here, or the alpine portion here. This section describes what happened after I finish the alpine portion and discover that the Bucklin Creek FSR isn't anywhere close to what I'd hoped for...

The rocky outcropping from which I spotted my descent gulley. Now I'm on the bottom looking up!

I may have cursed a bit - I'd just finished linking together 4 ski traverses in a little over 48 hours, less than 3 of which was spent sleeping, and I'm starting to run somewhat low on food. I was expecting to plop onto a logging road along which I could easily tromp back to my base camp and relax, but instead I find that the road appears hundreds of meters lower than I anticipated, I'm at the top of a cliff band, and even if I can manage to reach it the road looks super overgrown from what I can see. Oh yeah, and I've got an hour until sunset. Ok, first thing first - I send a satellite text to my partner and trip contact, Line, and let her know about the delay. And request confirmation on the coordinates of the end of the road. Then I start piecing it together:

• The road I can see from the top of the cliffs isn't actually in contradiction to my planning. It is at a much lower elevation, but it's far away and the road gains elevation quickly at the end of the valley where I can't see it because it's under the cliffs I'm at the top of.
• When I transferred the route into my GPS (and InReach) the software approximated it and removed/averaged a bunch of nodes. So the exact position of the end of the road has been lost... but it should be more-or-less good to within at least 100m or so. The road, as sketched on my paper map, is probably similarly accurate.
• I'm higher and further to the East than I should be. To get to the road mostly I need to get down (South), possibly by going back and taking the natural draw down from the bench on top of the other cliff bands where I was not long ago.
• Although I could bushwhack back up and try for logging roads on the other side of the ridge (or just hope for more open forest down the centre of the ridge) I decide to commit to the road.

I bushwhack around a bit more, trying to make my way down and South West. But the cliffs are pretty continuous. I get a bit of a break, though, and spot a gully leading through them... it might even be the bottom of a gulley I'd crossed the top of earlier when travelling along that bench. I also get a message back from Line with the coordinates of the end of the road. I go back to the top of the suspect gulley, strap on my helmet and crampons, and begin downclimbing the mess of hard-pack snow, broken trees, and slimy rocks. It goes easier than anticipated - probably I didn't need the crampons, but it's much easier to put them on before one gets in over one's head so I have no regrets. It's now dark, but I'm standing beside a stump that was clearly made with a chainsaw so I know I'm almost certainly on the correct side of the cliffs. A steep bushwhack through an old clearcut later and I'm on the "road"... but there's not much left of it.

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After a bit of confusion (is this "the" road, or an old skid road? where's the road surface?) I figure out that that not only is the road overgrown, but it has been completely deactivated. And I'm not talking about some kind of lazy deactivation where they make a tank-trap or two and call it good. Whoever deactivated this road spared no expense and put their whole heart into it.

• Every cross-ditch is a huge tank-trap - often significantly deeper than I am tall. They make them frequently, even in places with no water crossing the road.
• For the most part they ripped up half the road surface and placed it on the other half. So one half is a loose ditch and the other half is a pile of rocks. Every once and a while there is a short section of road surface they didn't destroy but these are quite rare.
• The "road" is sprinkled with every huge boulder/log they could find, just for good measure.

It's also pretty overgrown, and somehow a lot denser than usual. The largest trees have a circumference I can just get one arm around. For the most part the best bushwhacking is off to either side of the road, but that's still pretty horrible and sometimes you are forced to use the old road itself. But, at this point, I'm committed. After a couple hours of the worst bushwhacking I've ever done I do the math and figure it's going to be another 10 hours until I hit the corner where I imagine the road improves - I won't be making it back to camp before mid-morning anyway, so I might as well sleep on the road and finish the bushwhack in the day. Maybe I'll be more efficient with better light. The problem is that there's nowhere I can really lie down - the trees are too tight and the ground too nasty. The last time I saw a short section of old road surface was over an hour ago. In the distance I hear a stick break, a sound I can't attribute to my own bushwhacking. What kind of self-respecting animal would be on this road? Maybe that means it's going to open up a bit soon? I talk to the theoretical creature, thanking it for letting me know the worst is over. But it's not over - the bush is so thick I can barely move. Ages pass. I start contemplating simply lying on top of one of the aldery sections. It's kind of springy... maybe it would be like a giant hammock? It's a warm night so I don't really my mat... hmm. Then I hear it - sticks breaking and heavy grunty breathing rushing towards me. The kind of sound a Hollywood sound engineer might use for an aggressive gorilla charge.

My adrenaline hits the roof, instincts take over, and I prepare to make my stand. I let loose some sort of primal battle-cry and stab at the darkness with my skis/poles (which I've strapped into a single package for better bushwhacking) in an attempt at keeping teeth and claws at bay. Then nothing. The sound stops and then there's just... silence. Ok prefrontal cortex, it's your turn now. Still defending with my right I unclip the bear spray from my pack with my left, slipping the safety off and into my pocket. I let go of my skis (which don't fall over because the bush is too thick for that), flick my headlamp onto max, and pick my skis up again. A slight rustle. I see nothing but glare from overexposed bush and alder-pollen drifting in the air very close to my face. The sound again, but no sticks cracking this time. I talk to the darkness and try and re-arrange the bush so I can actually see something. Then I spot two glowing eyes, above me in a small tree I'm almost right at the base of. "Are you making that noise?" "Your eyes aren't that far apart so you can't be that large... what are you, like, a big owl? Can owls even make that noise?". The noise again, and this time I'm sure it's coming from the eyes. Then I spot more eyes, and these ones are further apart. I dim my headlamp a bit and make out some jet-black outlines. Ok, looks like I accidentally treed a mama and (at least one) baby bear... and probably it's not making that noise aggressively. I think maybe that's a noise they make when they're terrified. My brain develops a plausible scenario - bear family runs up a tiny tree to escape the clumsy ape in boots (CAB for short; that would be me) lumbering through the bush. The CAB bumbles his way right to the base of said tree. Bear cub, probably scared witless, partially falls down - making a ruckus and startling the CAB, who (not being able to discern the elevation from which a sound comes) starts screaming and waving his skis around like a maniac. Ok, I sympathize with the bear's situation now... but it's not like I'm going to put the safety back on my bear spray. I jam my thumb under the trigger to prevent an accidental discharge and start bushwhacking slowly (like there's any other speed) first sideways and then backwards while keeping my eyes on the bears (this doesn't make the bushwhacking any easier). I figure I should probably bushwhack a reasonable distance from this place before lying down now. At least I don't notice my aching feet anymore.

"Camp" on the Bucklin Creek "road".

I eventually do find a short section of unspoiled road surface on which to lie down. I make sure to take my ski boots off this time, again utilizing the fact that there's nobody around to hear me scream (it really helps), and take another ~ 3-hour nap with my bear-spray in hand. I wake up to a hummingbird investigating my head, eat some ginger candy for breakfast, and continue. The road doesn't look much better in daylight, but my speed does increase, I think mostly because I can spot better lines and confidently bushwhack further from the "road". The distance (and time) grind by and, eventually, I plop onto good logging road - 500m closer than I'd anticipated. No longer requiring dexterity I flip my boots into downhill mode, transferring the rub to new spots, and clomp happily down the road. 

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The road didn't look any better in daylight.

Finally.

Two hours later as I approach my bike/hang a bear crashes out of the bush at the exact spot... but I'm happy to find that it did't get the hang down, or decide to trash my bicycle just for fun. I take my longest break of the trip at 10.5 hours. I finally down that kombucha, eat, doctor my feet, sweat myself to sleep in my tent for a bit, get up and bike a bit of the road to the closest waterfall, and eat some more - even cooking some hot food this time (instant noodles with copious amounts of butter). I can't rest too long though as I've still got a bit of a schedule to keep - I've got Monday booked off work, but ideally I'd be home in time to takeover childcare from Line. If my return trip is faster than my approach I can still make it in time. So I bike/canoe through the night and tow the canoe back through Metro Van in the middle of morning rush hour. Somehow each leg is slightly faster on the return trip, including the transitions. Some of it is just not needing to look around for places to lock up and not getting stuck behind any gates in PoCo or Pitt Meadows, but part is also that I don't feel like I need to leave much in reserve anymore. All told I made it back at my house in under 12 hours - 3 hours faster than it took me to get there, and with a cushy half hour to spare before Line had to leave for work. Clearly could have squeezed in one more objective...

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Map and stats here.