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Late August camping trip (Very long, pic heavy)
After 4 hrs on the highway, my brother and I arrived at our turn off. From there it would be about another hour to make it the last 30km to our camp site. There had been some light rain, so the service road was wet, it’s one of those roads that stays firm, but the road surface turns into snot with a little water. The trip in was fine, we had to cut a few trees that were down across the road and had to roll some large rocks out of the way that had tumbled down. We made it to our camp spot in fair condition, minus the rear vent cover on my trailer (this is important later). Not sure if I lost it to a sweeper on the trail, or on the highway, but whatever, it is what it is. We unpacked the basics and unloaded a couple quads, time for a look around.
Basic map of our location: the tent is our camp, the Table is at West Lake (5km from camp). The cabin is at Crooked Lake (7km from camp), and the Binoculars indicate a viewpoint off the end of the old Airstrip, overlooking Crooked Lake. (When we stopped in at the viewpoint my brother managed to park his quad on a Hornet nest…….. that was an interesting few minutes). The fish 30km north of camp is another lake (ATV access, brutal trail). https://i.imgur.com/vjbW5XX.jpg No signs of recent human activity, so we headed back to camp and settled in for the night. I sent a Sat message to my wife indicating that the road in was clear and that I would expect to see her and the girls by 2-3 pm the next afternoon. Saturday morning, brother and I loaded his truck/trailer with boat/kayaks/canoe/paddle board/etc and headed to West Lake for a little fun. Knowing that there are no other people in the area is important, especially when pulling a trailer, if you meet another vehicle, you’re NOT getting around each other. https://i.imgur.com/hZFWbfw.jpg Small viewpoint on the trail down to West Lake https://i.imgur.com/51yOOcG.jpg This is the only access point to West Lake, there is one picnic table, an outhouse, and enough room to park 3 vehicles as long as people park responsibly. https://i.imgur.com/elllrXD.jpg West Lake has Grayling, Lake Trout, Pike, and Whitefish (that I know of). The water was so clear, we just went “sight fishing” for Pike and Grayling to burn some time. https://i.imgur.com/AV7S21s.jpg https://i.imgur.com/kmjbFeh.jpg https://i.imgur.com/X7Udgnj.jpg There are also thousands of these in the lake, not sure what they are, but they were hitting our fly’s like crazy. https://i.imgur.com/ECZxzfk.jpg https://i.imgur.com/qsh1ioh.jpg Also witnessed a lot of this, Bait Balls, or maybe Mating Balls of Whitefish. https://i.imgur.com/mhszK93.jpg After a little fun, we headed back to camp. We grubbed up and decided to get the camp better organized. Unloaded dirt bikes, set up beds and cooking area. Also very important, we put up a large tarp as rain was in the forecast and we still had a large hole in the roof of my trailer. By 3:00 there was still no sign of my wife/girls, and no messages…. I was about half ready to jump on my KTM, backpack loaded with chainsaw, etc, when I realized that I didn’t even have my Inreach powered up. Lightbulb moment, she can’t send me a message, or more accurately, I can’t receive a message from her. Powered up and message rang in instantly. She was running late, and was not even leaving town until 2:00. They were waiting for my youngest daughters best friend to get home from VA, they would then load up the friend and bring her along. Fine with me, I just hoped they thought to bring bedding, food, and such for the friend (friend is vegetarian). I never brought “extra” stuff and certainly never packed for vegetarian meals. So, with several more hours to kill, brother and I returned to West Lake for some more action. Wife and girls rolled into camp at about 7:00pm, still light out with very minor bit of drizzley rain. The girls were pumped, very excited to show their friend around the old AF Base and area. They threw their beds together in the trailer, with my 2 girls taking the rear bunks ( under the missing vent cover….. I’m sure you see where this is going….). When they were settled, the girls decided to go for a ride around, the friend didn’t bring her dirt bike, but she actually rides a KTM similar to mine (she has the “Rockstar” edition), so I gave her my bike for the trip. Off they went, within 15 minutes the wind blew up hard and the sky opened wide. I’m talking torrential freakin downpour, between my brother, wife and I we managed to save the camp. At one point I was lifted at least 4’ off the ground while trying to hold the tarp down, all three of us calling each other for help but none of us could help each other. Maybe 15-20 minutes of total chaos, then it stopped, almost total silence, back to light breeze and slight misty drizzle. The camp was in shambles, there was a chair in the fire pit, but the fire had been drowned almost instantly in the flood, brothers tent was rolled to the edge of the bush even though it was full of gear and several 24 packs of beer. The tarp had shifted over the trailer, totally exposing the open roof vent, and my girls beds were completely drenched. Speaking of drenched, the girls rolled back into camp shortly after, I had thought they would have been smart enough to take cover under a wayward pine or something, but nope, toothy smiles and ear to ear grins as they peeled off sopping wet riding gear plastered with mud. So, we fixed the tarp and secured it down. Friends bed was on two thin foamies, I pulled one out and made a bed, I had my good sleeping bag as an extra comforter for my bed (wife gets cold at night), used this to make one bed for my girls. They figured they could both sleep in the one bag. Good enough, we went to bed, brother slept in the cab of his truck (most of his gear in his tent was wet). This will take a few posts, I’m only on day two, lol. Please bare with me. RD |
Your adventures are awesome!
Look forward to the rest of the story. |
So, this is the inside of my trailer. Once the bikes and bike rack are out, I just drop the queen mattress for myself. There are 3 beds and shelves along the walls that fold down.
https://i.imgur.com/J2qE871.jpg My girls doubled up in my sleeping bag https://i.imgur.com/7armvNB.jpg This little fella visited camp quite a bit until the dog noticed him https://i.imgur.com/zFhJNqE.jpg Camp https://i.imgur.com/3ATazEe.jpg Grayling we’re on point https://i.imgur.com/dHOKIHB.jpg Very aggressive, often 2 or 3 rising for our flys. The smaller grayling are so much faster than the larger ones, it’s hard to get into a good one. https://i.imgur.com/QM9KWQZ.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Xm6QLVY.jpg https://i.imgur.com/p35uNUf.jpg https://i.imgur.com/arqjMY8.jpg https://i.imgur.com/m9UhZW2.jpg RD |
We tried to spend some time targeting Lake Trout, but that didn’t pan out so well. I did figure out a way to mount the Panoptic Transducer to my canoe, we did see activity down there, but no bites.
https://i.imgur.com/hJIrDA0.jpg https://i.imgur.com/VZWLGxG.jpg We did go catch some grayling for supper though. https://i.imgur.com/Upi5cPx.jpg So, the girls got bored of no action when looking for lakers, so they went off exploring. Brother and I packed it in a little while later. I rode back into camp a bit later, not expecting anything…. I didn’t see anyone right off, shut the quad off, and the next thing I hear is screaming, like a lot of screaming….. I’m not one to panic easily, but I must say I think I was heading in that direction for a moment. I couldn’t see anyone and no dog, no barking…… Then the screaming turned to laughing mixed with screaming……. I pulled my helmet off, something caught my eye……. Up in a tree…. The 3 girls were up at the top of a freakin tree. Have you ever had a double spike of adrenaline? Like you think something very bad is happening, that tingling spike of adrenaline fires through you, then you realize there is laughter and the tingling fades to heat, then you see your kids precariously perched in the top of a pine tree and that adrenaline fires through you again….. that can mess a guy up. Anyway, once I collected myself together I as like “What in the hell is going on here?” Their reply: Are you ready for this???? “We’re trying to shake each other out of the tree” https://i.imgur.com/g0nHjrP.jpg https://i.imgur.com/Hh5ONUO.jpg I was once told that “It’s easier to keep girls alive than boys” I’m no longer confident in that statement….. Where was my wife, you might ask…. She was off walking with the dog, taking pictures. Rd |
The next morning we decided to pack up the boats/kayaks, etc and headed to Crooked lake for the day. This is actually a big deal, it’s not easy to move all that gear, especially on these rough narrow trails.
This is Crooked lake it’s mostly full of Pike. https://i.imgur.com/5zv2agZ.jpg Everyone caught a lot of fish that day, it was kinda epic in fact The girls rode to the lake, of course https://i.imgur.com/5ZdVijC.jpg https://i.imgur.com/wQtyGZF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ksn9Unz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/QCiw8xj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/TI9J2RF.jpg https://i.imgur.com/RmzClmz.jpg https://i.imgur.com/0JtJaq5.jpg Actually, I believe I was wrong about everyone catching fish, I don’t believe my wife even wet a line. She just explored the lake with the hound. https://i.imgur.com/vNBsfwX.jpg As you can see from the look on my face, I firmly convinced myself that I had the bigger of this trip… https://i.imgur.com/pBHGN8M.jpg OH MAN WAS I WRONG Continued….. |
This is my brother, the a-hole, with the biggest fish of the trip…
https://i.imgur.com/QzYKPJE.jpg So, if you’re brothers boat is so small that you can’t get far enough away from him to get the whole fish in the frame, would that be considered a First world problem? He knows damn well he got me on this one. https://i.imgur.com/yFA6aXH.jpg https://i.imgur.com/5oZoh2q.jpg A few pics from west lake https://i.imgur.com/9T0JWio.jpg https://i.imgur.com/C3IbnTa.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ltiV7g2.jpg The girls all headed back to camp at around 5:00. Brother and I stayed till about 8:00. I had to at least try to redeem myself, lol. Brother and I returned expecting something for supper, but I guess if you lock your wife out of the camp, you can’t really expect her to whip something up for you. “Just a second, I’ll find the key….” Rd |
Ok, last one. My wife and girls were headed home the next day, brother and I were staying a couple extra days. I asked my wife to Airdrop any good pics to me from her phone. She handed me her cell and said just take what you want.
Ok. I was surfing through her pics, my gawd she takes a tone of pictures. Anyway, as I scrolled to what was obviously the start of her trip up to see us I find some rather disturbing images. Pictures of the girls hanging out of the truck windows, hair blowing in the wind, tongues hanging out like hounds in a hurricane. Pictures of the girls laying on top of wife’s truck canopy with fingers gripped to the little boat rack bars…. I’m like WTF is this as I hold the phone up to wife????????? She has that deer in the headlights look. “ oh, you weren’t supposed to see those….” “Hmmmm, I can see why I wasn’t supposed to see them” So I turned to the girls and asked if there was anything on their phones that I shouldn’t see, they almost tripped all over each other trying to show me their pictures. Pictures of them on top of one of the old collapsed buildings. Pictures of them at one of the old houses, they got inside, stacked a chair on a table, accessed the house attic, forced their way through the roof and took pics of each other up there. Pics of an old underground cement tank, it had an open man way, they climbed down the rusty old metal ladder rungs to explore that ( I was like “ DOUBLE FACE PALM”). So, yes, I had to run through the whole toxic gas thing in deep, dark holes with them…… AGAIN. The craziest part of those pictures was that they were ALL taken in the dark. The girls were exploring old fallen buildings and underground tanks IN THE DARK. I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t catch me dead in any of those places after sunset. Sometimes I wonder what I’ve done wrong, or if I’m doing something wrong ( the old house they found was almost 11km from our camp, and they went there alone in the dark ). Well, there you have it. The bare bones of another family trip. Wife and girls went home the next morning, brother and I stayed a bit longer. There is tons of other pictures and video, I might try to add more to this post later if I can find the energy. Have a great day people RD |
Awesome story and pics! Very enjoyable.
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looks like a great time.
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You gotta put a show together.....always an adventure with you and your clan!
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Great story! Thanks for sharing!
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Another great adventure! I really enjoy them, thanks for posting them.
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Awesome adventure RD, Thanks for sharing!!
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I’m relaxed just looking at your photos, just great. Thanks for posting
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Sweet trip
Similar to the hike in lake we did a few years ago what could’ve went wrong did lol |
Catching baby grayling. Cute. You said you weren’t sure what they were. Guessing you did.
Gotta love a fishing trip like that. |
Thanks again for sharing. Great fun reading your stories. Always enjoy them. As a matter of fact I was reading and was a bit put out as I got interrupted and had to take a business call. Rude I tell you:sHa_shakeshout:
Also, neat to see the Dragonflies in the pics. Wonderful bug eaters |
You're living my dream. Great family fun!
BW |
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RD |
Very cool. Those are quite the adventures!
I keep saying that one day I need to take a month leave of absence and just disappear like that for a while. I had no idea there were abandoned bases up North. I remember the dew line and the radar stations (we used to skidoo up to one near Pine Lake often) |
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I don’t know about other Bases, my father was stationed at this one and worked the Dew Line long before I was ever a twinkle in his eye. He’s passed away now, but he had some good stories. There is one story in particular that I recall about when they shut the base down. MOST of the buildings, equipment, parts, vehicles, etc were all pushed into a hole and buried. Also, some of the Dewline stories about driving bulldozers across frozen rivers stick out in my mind. Some of the following pics may have been posted before, I’m just looking through some older photos to find pics of what’s left there. This was supposedly my fathers old Jeep, it’s located very close to where we camp https://i.imgur.com/R8AlDRP.jpg There is an entire car graveyard in the bush if you know where to look https://i.imgur.com/STPNfdl.jpg https://i.imgur.com/HE2HNqm.jpg This thing always seems to be surprised when I show up https://i.imgur.com/FlxN8Ow.jpg This is the house the girls found, it’s a long ways from any other structures, I suspect it was an officer’s dwelling https://i.imgur.com/nONjoL4.jpg Remains of another building, this one is close to the airstrip. https://i.imgur.com/i3aZ9bB.jpg The straight line to the binoculars is only half the airstrip, it continues the other way. The Airstrip is freakin huge, it’s getting overgrown but you can still tell how large it was back in the day https://i.imgur.com/XqytduT.jpg RD |
Life long memories and stories that will never be forgotten for sure. This will be one for you and your family forever to share. Bet you got a few more grey hairs when you finally found out what the girls were up to in the tree. Awesome for you to share with us. THANKX
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Thank you for sharing , some of us were not able to get away this year. Your pics and stories are very well done. To think that when I was 21 I told my wife I wanted 10 daughters, even bought a table to seat 12.
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What an awesome thread. Your family sure knows how to have good fun. Great job, Dad!
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Awesome!! This is why I come here, stories like this. Unlike most who just enjoy a pi##ing contest in a covid thread. Very refreshing. Looks like you folks had a great time.
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Wow what a great time. That's my kind of family trip!! Maybe except for the rain storm lol.
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Late august camping trip
Almost certain those are baby grayling. Notice the small black spots on the sides that are typical of grayling. Awesome thread, best I’ve seen in a while. Glad you guys and gals had a great time. Thanks for sharing.
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Thanx for sharing your family stories my friend. I always appreciate them.
If there were more families like yours, this world would be a better place to live.:) |
Wow! Looks like a fantastic time sir!
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Reading this was a great way to spend my break at work! Thanks for taking the time to post and share. Your brother caught a beast of a pike!
Your girls sound like a hoot - and could probably show lots of boys a thing or two about the outdoors! I love the slippery pike pics :) |
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