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Stave Lake Canada Day TripJuly 1, 1999
Story and some photos by Greg Sue.
This trip report only reflects what I saw (or thought I saw!); others may have additional information or differing views. Wow, what a huge turnout, everyone who said they'd show up did (a rare thing!), and many brought an additional vehicle. I had originally planned to have 6-8 trucks along; as the trip date grew near it became clear that we'd have a lot more than that. I was attempting to keep an accurate count of the number of bodies as I was planning a little something extra: it was Shane's girlfriend Josee's 26th birthday, and rather than doing something romantic together, she let him come 'wheeling! So, I picked up a h-u-g-e Black Forest cake the day before, and made arrangements for Ray to bring birthday candles, for Dave (all the way from Victoria) to bring the plates and napkins, for Andrew to bring the forks, and for Shane to be the last vehicle in the queue.
That done, our trail-leader George took us down a narrow dirt road through the forest, leading to a small lake. The going was a bit slow, due to the number of trucks on the trail. The ML-320 (with just 3000 km's on the odometer) got his passenger-side nerf bar hung up on a root just before the lake, and after some spotting and driver apprehension, we got him to back down and take a bypass route. As I drove past the bypass, I could see him 3-wheeling it in a dip; nothing like an intro to 'wheeling by fire! :) Jiri wisely decided to park it and hop in with Arminder after this point, as he realized that "suitable for stock vehicles" actually meant "suitable for stock pickup trucks". Once down at the beach, we drove through a short but steep, loose, dug-out section and crossed the main trail on the way out. We were attempting to keep the flow of vehicles steady so as not to jam up the beach, so I'm not sure if the non-lockered vehicles made it through, or if they took the alternate route out. The next destination was a flat, muddy, beach area at Stave Lake; we took a steep, rocky climb up to another dirt road, which was fairly easy until we arrived at the "creek crossing". This creek apparently used to just cross the road; it had managed to re-route itself so that it entered the road, flowed down the road for a thousand feet or so, then left the road again. I think some of the newer 4-wheelers and drivers of lower-height vehicles were a bit nervous about all this water, but I don't think it got much more than hub-deep on my truck (with 33" tires). We passed by a wrecked yellow Toyota Supra about half-way down the creek, and eventually popped back onto hard pack again.
We drove through a few hub-deep muddy puddles that spanned the road, and turned right at an old cabin. The road was slippery and deeply rutted here; I think some of the IFS vehicles were having difficulties as their skidplates were acting as plows. I tried to stay out of the ruts and on top of the high parts of the road; I kept slipping into the ruts, so I gave up after a while. Some of the rutted sections got a weensy bit off-camber, and I could really see the body lean on George's huge 4Runner in front of me. This was George's first 'wheeling trip since his suspension/solid-axle install, and he quietly told me it felt REALLY tippy during this section. After laughing at him, I assured him that he was in no danger of going over, and that it was one of those "feels worse than it actually is" situations, which would get remedied by seat time. Anyways, this so-called "beach" was under water when we arrived; George said he was there 3 weeks ago and you could drive waaaay out onto the flats. We couldn't even turn around in the water due to all the wood debris that had bunched up at the shoreline. Some of the group were able to turn around where they were on the trail (like Doug in his short-wheelbase Zuk); others had to reverse back to a wide spot (no problem since the ruts basically steered the vehicles with no input from us). Camilo had a minor problem getting his tires out of the ruts so he could turn around; a few of us ended up pushing his truck sideways in the mud so that he could clear the ruts. Once past the cabin again, George (who was now the last vehicle) said "Take the turn to the left!", which turned out to be a very deep mud pit. Arminder, blindly and faithfully listening to George (ha!), was the first brave soul to attempt a crossing; he took the left side and promptly sunk his stock-height, rear-lockered 4Runner into the goo. While this was happening, the white YJ stalled out and would not restart; we popped his hood, Doug spotted water on top of his air cleaner cover, and immediately diagnosed a wet distributor, probably caused by travelling through the puddles too quickly. One screwdriver and some WD-40 later, he was restarted. Doug hooked Arminder's 4Runner up to his Zuk, and tugged him out of the mud hole, to laughter and jokes about Suzuki's pulling out Toyotas. Of course, I had to try the mud hole next; somebody suggested I pre-attach a snatch strap "just in case" I get stuck, which turned to be an excellent idea. Some wise-guy told me that the right side wasn't as deep, so I engaged both lockers and went for it. I got to about the half-way point before movement ceased. I was at a slight angle, and the mud was just past my drivers door sill; after a couple minutes I could see muddy water starting to seep in and pool itself on the floor. I didn't want to spin the tires and dig myself in deeper (ok, I'm a chicken), so I opened the passenger door, climbed out on to the roof, across the canopy, and down to the rear bumper, where I retrieved the snatch strap and tossed it to "shore". George attached the strap to his 4Runner, and pulled me out (thanks!). About an inch of muddy water got in through the lower door seal; I don't have a carpet, so no problem. I had a tough time restarting the engine due to all the water in the exhaust, and once I got it going I amused everyone by disgorging a ton of muddy water from the tailpipe and sending a huge steam cloud into the air. I let the truck idle to dry it out while George attempted the crossing. George engaged both lockers, and started into the the mudhole on the left side. He got a fair ways in, and got stuck. Well, not really stuck; he was able to reverse out and hit it again. And again. Tires spinning, engine revving, and his 36" SSR's flinging some pretty huge rooster tails. Slowly but surely, the mighty 4Runner clawed its way up the bank and out of the slop. When George emerged, his black 4Runner was totally brown; no paint or glass was visible under the muck. Ray tried it next; he engaged both lockers, and used his Marlin dual-transfer case to slowly crawl through it, making it look fairly easy. We could see by this time the hole was getting deeper, as evidenced by the mud-mark on his rear-mounted spare tire. Mike was the final entrant into the festivities; he was confident that his stroked V8, 36" Swampers, big lift, and rear posi would allow him to power through it. He made a few valiant efforts, the throaty roar of his V8 echoing through the trees, but finally got stuck. George hooked him up (from the far side) and tried to pull him out. Mike was stuck pretty good; all the wheelspin had dug him down a fair amount, and there was a lot of mud in front of his diff. Mike decided to help George out with a judicious application of throttle... The next thing we knew, Mike was moving forward, and his driver's front tire was moving off to the left! George finished pulling Mike up to terra firma, and Mike hopped out to inpect the damage. It turns out he peeled the tire right off the rim, but other than that, there was no damage done. I observed that 16.5" rims have practically no bead compared to 15" rims. I grabbed my Jack-All, wheel wrench, and some dunnage, and we installed Mike's spare tire. We all had a good laugh at his expense, and many pictures were taken. :)
Once back at my truck, I discovered that my clutch would not disengage, probably due to the mud drying. I started it in reverse, backed onto the trail, shut the motor off, put it in first, started it up again, and halfway down the trail I was able to disengage the clutch, although I could feel a lot of grit when I depressed the clutch pedal. Thanks to Doug and John for their assistance. While this was happening, George, Ray, and Mike drove back through the mudhole; it was much easier coming back through as there was no hill on our side. We eventually got the group back to the main road, where I gave Andrew some gas because he had forgotten to fuel up at the Husky. *doh* The group then discussed where to go next; some had to leave, and Ryan made the decision to check out another trail. Most of the group followed Ryan; I stayed with Mike as he was overheating from all the mud packed up in his radiator. We got most of the mud off with my snow brush and some creek water, and we began following the stragglers down the road. I actually thought we were following Ryan and the group when we turned off the main road a couple km's up from where we were all stopped; it was a little road that wound up a mountain, and split off in a few directions. I guess we took a wrong split; we ended up passing by a huge white cross at a waterfall, and ended up at a clearing fairly high up, beneath a clear cut. When arrived at the clearing, I realized that not all the trucks were present. We elected to eat lunch here, and could here some of the other half of the group talking on their radios in the distance. Mark heard me on the VHF and we tried to figure out where each group was, to no avail. Not a big deal, as the original group really had too many vehicles. At this point, my group was down to:
All during lunch, we could here somebody rapid-firing their guns in the distance. After lunch, we headed back up the main road, played in a sand pit for a few minutes, and checked out some side roads; we even drove past the guys who were target practicing. Pete left for home at this point. One of the side roads led up to a high, logged area; there were burnt stumps and wood scraps all over. Full-scale cellular coverage here, for some reason. The view from this point was really nice; we could see all down Stave Lake and we were across from the hydro station on the west side of the lake. After snapping some pics, we headed off again. Another trail was fairly overgrown; George didn't want to scratch his new paint (LOL) so he waited at a fork for us to come back. Mike was still experiencing some overheating, so he parked his truck. The road led out to a nice campsite on a ridge, high above the burnt logged area we were at before. We marked it on the map for future reference, and drove back to the fork to rejoin George. Mike's truck had cooled down a bit by then, so he left for home. The rest of us continued on. We found a creek by a bridge that had vehicle access down to the banks; we drove along one of the banks until the road disappeared into the water. Some campers were on the bank opposite our point; we waved at the kids who were playing near the water. We crossed the creek at a convenient point (it looked shallow, and was only about 40' across). No problems on the way over, although I was a bit leery of the height of the water as it was almost half way up my door and got quite close to the air intake at times. The bottom was composed of the usual large rounded rocks you find in a creek. Doug commented that he could feel the fast-flowing water pushing his Zuk sideways; even I could feel it a bit. I took a couple pics of George's 4Runner crossing the creek; the water was up over his door sills in one spot (George has 36" Swampers and about 8" of lift, and a 3" body lift). Arminder elected to park his 4Runner at this point, despite being egged on by George and Ray ("If you get stuck, we'll winch you out!"). Good call as he was stock height. George acted as ferry, and gave Arminder and his girlfriend a lift across. Driving further up the bank (now on the opposite side), we found a really cool waterfall. We stopped for a snack, then headed back across the creek. I found a deeper line this time, as I heard a *gurgle* followed by a spray of water squirting up from an empty screw-hole in the transmission tunnel. Have to remember to plug that! At this point, everybody but Ray and I decided to head home.
We drove to Cypress Point, encountered the campers again, and explored some overgrown trails that led to secluded little campsites. On the way out, I sliced my driver's front tire on a rock or something, and pulled into the Cypress Point campsite accompanied by hissing air (I have Big-O's, so it was replaced under warranty). The camper owner wandered on over as I was changing the tire, and applied some WD-40 on my Hi-Lift which was sticking a bit because I had painted it (yes, I had my own WD-40; it was packed away and I was being lazy). Once the tire was changed, we gave all the campers a piece of Josee's cake, and headed off for home; I got back around midnight. Had a great time as usual, although next time I'll have to limit the number of trucks allowed to attend or split the group up right away. I definitely was not prepared for the number of trucks that actually showed up, which made for some slow going at times. The good thing about the delays is that we all got to socialize a bit, and put faces to the names of other listers. 
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