Hanging by a pair of undies

I have to say I am impressed with my wife's and cousin's blog and the ability for them to find the time to read about or view something that then inspires them to write a great, worth while posting on their blog.

I have tried to find a interesting topic that I know enough about as well as care enough about to write a posting. So far I haven't been too successful. Not that I don't care about anything, I haven't had the time to review and comment on my many environmental or ecological interests.

So I thought I would post a short story, well a memory really. I stated in my profile, I grew up camping in the Harrison Hot Springs area. Located on the south end of Harrison Lake and about a 2 hour drive east from Vancouver. The area offers beautiful mountain scenery, water falls, old "ghost town" logging camps, on the lake camping, hot springs right from the mountain, and plenty of wild life. Oh and I can't forget a Sasquatch or two.

Growing up exploring this area has provided me with enough adventures that I could probably write a small book. So for this blog I intend to tell a tale of a cliff hanging adventure.

The year was 1988, my dad, his girlfriend Shirley, my brother Randy, myself and a good friend of mine Dustin all headed out to our favorite campsite located at Cascade Peninsula on Harrison Lake. We had our dirt bikes and plans to explore the many forestry roads that run through the areas valleys.

We had been camping for about a week, enjoying the hot weather (rare for this area as it rains a lot), swimming, and riping around on our dirt bikes. Dad had decided that we would search for some fabled hot springs again(we had been looking for these for a few years now) and packed up the dirt bikes with food and water and headed out.

About an hour into the trip we stopped at a very steep portion of the main forestry road to roll some rocks down into the lake. I believe this is called screeing. Not sure though. Anyway it was a load of fun to see the rocks roll down the hill wreaking havoc before launching itself about 100 feet into the air and into the Lake*. The last rock however hit something metal.

Intrigued, dad suggested that we should find a safe way down and see what it was. We walked up the road about 20m to move away from the section that was pretty much a cliff of loose rock and sand. We found a section that we could bound down in the soft sand and worked our way to the area we thought the metal object was located.


View of Cascade Bay

What we found about 250m down slope was quite amazing. A portion of an old Model T Ford car. How long it must have been there, and how it came to rest hanging precariously against a tree right on the lip of a cliff, that plunged straight down into the lake, is anyones guess. If we had only brought the camera. We had explored the area around our find, to see if there were any other pieces, then we headed back up. Thats when the trouble began.

On our way up we took a different, more direct route. We ended up right below the top cliff portion of the slope where we were rolling the rocks. The cliff was about 60 to 80 feet high. Dad told Dustin and I to go around to up the way we came down. Dustin and I made it to the top and looked around for Dad. We didn't see him anywhere. We headed over to the cliff area to get a better look. What did we see when looking down? Dad holding on to a rock ledge about 8 feet below the top of the cliff. He looked rather worried, a bit scared even. Not grasping the seriousness of the situation I offered to drop a rock to him, he didn't find that funny. He tried to find more hand holds to pull himself up higher with no luck. And as it turned out he couldn't go back down and jumping to the sand below was too far. Dad's legs were starting to give out (old knee injury form another camping trip).

Starting to panic a little, I sent Dustin to go back to camp and get Randy and a rope. He headed off, top speed back to camp. Dad and I tried to find other options while Dustin was off. About 15 minutes went by before we heard the roar of Dustin's bike engine. He wasn't gone long enough to have made it back to camp and didn't have Randy or a rope. He looked a little sheepish.

It turns out he had neglected to fill his gas tank and had been on reserve for that past 20minutes of the ride prior to us stopping to scree some rocks down the hill. Dad and I were pissed. I told Dustin to take my bike and head out again. In the mean time Dad is really looking scared and I could see his legs starting to really shake. Time was not on our side.

Some might say that luck was with them, or someone above was watching out for them, I have no idea nor much of an opinion on that, but when I heard the sound of a truck coming our way I was counting our blessings. It was Randy with Dusting close behind. It turns out Randy was traveling towards us looking for firewood. He got out of his truck and I informed him of what the situation was. Thats when Randy informed me had no rope.

Our time was up, Dad was hollering and starting to freak out saying he couldn't hold for much longer. We all looked at each other and started to strip. We got down to our tighty whities and tied our clothes together. Randy anchored himself to his truck, Dustin and I lied down, grabbed each others ankles, lowered three pairs of pants and three shirts down to dad. We just barely managed to pull him up and over the cliff.

Well that put an end to our trip for the day. Dusty, sweaty and hungry, we headed back to camp.

That was just one story of what we all got ourselves into when camping. I may tell the story of coming face to face with a cougar (no not the two legged kind that prey on young men), being picked up while trying to cross a swollen river and washed down stream while on my ATV, Randy rolling his ATV over and dislocating his shoulder while 5 hours away from any town, the list gos on and on. Anyway I hope you enjoyed this little tale.

*Screeing is fun, however being "more in the know" of environmentally harmful things one can do while enjoying the outdoors, this is one of them. I wouldn't carry out such activities anymore.

Feel free to comment on any interesting situation you may have had while enjoying the outdoors.