Keith Law's complete TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

Post by **bertvorgon** » 21 Jun 2011 19:58

more....

That's the Duffy Lake valley, below and to the left of the alpine lake. I'm at 7,000 feet at this point

Post by **bertvorgon** » 21 Jun 2011 19:59

Post by **bertvorgon** » 21 Jun 2011 20:02

landing approach...

That peak straight ahead, is the entrance to the Duffy road climb, then off to the left.

gooned · Post by **gooned** » 21 Jun 2011 21:51

as always AWSOME Keith!
I always feel right there with these "tales"

Post by **jason** » 21 Jun 2011 22:35

Wow, Juliette and I really enjoyed this one Keith! Thanks for sharing!

Post by **bertvorgon** » 15 Jan 2012 07:03

Morning World!

I thought I would try to share Matt's and my trips up to the Bralorne area of B.C. with you, while you have your morning coffee. The pictures speak for themselves, hopefully I have them posted in line with the story..ENJOY!

TALES FROM THE GREAT ROLLING DYNO

GOLD, GUNS…AND A DATSUN

“Whoa….stop….that’s a Datsun!” I yell out to Matt. We are just clearing the town of Goldbridge, on our way to Bralorne, and here is a Datsun pickup truck parked at the edge of the dirt road. As Matt backs up, we are enveloped by our own dust cloud, and I throw my door open, camera in hand.
Let’s step back a minute here, back to last spring, April to be exact. As I am involved in the mining industry, one of my good customers phoned me to ask if they could hire me to oversee the inaugural pour of the first gold bar from their mine, up in the historic town of Bralorne. They wanted me to be there as it was imperative that everything went well, due to the fact that Christy Clark, Premier of the Province was invited, the Mines Minister, and of course a ton of media. The pour was to happen in May.
I said sure of course, always jumping at a chance for a bit of an adventure, as I have spent years past crawling around the old ghost towns up there, and, back in the very early 70’s, went grizzly bear hunting in a very remote valley next to the Bralorne one. This would be a great opportunity to take Matt along, who had already done a story on the Bralorne mine and the people.
Bralorne is as off the map as you can imagine, a six to seven hour drive from Vancouver, and depending on the time of year, there are four ways to get there. Due to the huge snow load we had during the winter, I knew the one pass was still closed, with some 19 feet of snow on it. I elected to go the Duffy Lake route, to Lillooet, as I saw that it was clear, the last snow slide being bulldozed out of the way.
Matt and I loaded up the Tracker the morning of May 26, with my pouring safety gear, and the usual road food. As it was mid week, we had virtually no traffic up the Sea to Sky highway, and were up to Darcy in no time, the start of the Duffy Lake road. In climbing up, we went through rain, a blizzard, the sun, and back to rain, then dry when we hit Lillooet. We stopped at the Joffre Lake Park for a picture op, still four feet of snow there. Then at the top of the pass, we came upon the snow slide, which had to have been twenty feet deep across the road. We had no traffic on the drive to Lillooet….that is when we should do our Club drive, mid week.
We elected to fuel up in Lillooet, not really knowing what the gas situation might be in Goldbridge or Bralorne. Once you leave Lillooet, the road turns to gravel, or, a mix of hard pan. I love the drive from this point, going from semi desert of B.C.s interior, to the rain shadow forests of the Bralorne area. It was raining quite hard at this point, the pot holes full of water, and so it was hard to tell how deep things were. There are two schools of thought on driving bad gravel roads, either go quite slow, or, full speed ahead and skip over the stuff. I’m of the slow mind set, having spent thousands of miles on gravel, where you just don’t beat up the vehicle, or break things. I’m very comfortable driving with Matt now, other than one instance where he got too close to the edge of the ditch, and the wash board almost walked us into the darn thing. I stabbed at the brake and steering wheel on my side, but, Matt had it under control from his side. A few work trucks past us, blazing along, I wonder how many shock mounts they break?
At one point, near the end of Carpenter Lake, we drove down onto the flood plain, to take some pictures, the vast valley spread before us, the scale of size almost over whelming.
We had been driving for some five and a half hours now, almost in Goldbridge. Goldbridge is eleven kilometers below Bralorne, and was another gold mining town back in its’ day. There is a small store and pub there, that’s it. When I used to come up Grizzly hunting, we would grab ice from the store, before we headed up into the Truax valley.
As Matt rolled onto the throttle leaving Goldbridge, the Datsun pickup blew by on our left! Whoa…stop!
Here is this truck, in very good shape, how weird to find this way out here. I snapped a couple of pictures, and then on up the hill to Bralorne we went.
As I said before, Bralorne is in its own world, not really a tourist destination, and just surviving on the bit of logging left, and of course the mine. In the winter, the snow mobiler’s use the snowed in pass of the Hurley, to go from Pemberton to Bralorne, have lunch in the Bralorne Pub, and then cruise back. We had to stop at the Pub, to get the key to our room, we being the ONLY guests in the motel. We could have fired a volley of rockets down the main street, no one in sight. The Motel is the last building before you leave town, heading to the true ghost town of Bralorne/Pioneer. After dropping our stuff off in the room, we headed down to the mine site, to see what the next morning’s schedule was to be.
The mine office was a slow beehive of activity, typical of small town life. The mine management was expecting us, and promptly took us over to the mill, to see the furnace and pouring setup. I had sold them the furnace some years ago, and it was still in good shape. Things looked ok, but, I could see I was going to have to have a talk with their melt guy. The pouring angle was wrong, and the gold would miss the mold, not a good scenario for a media event. Matt and I wandered around for a bit, looking at all the processing equipment, plus the big stage they had out in front of the mill. As the day had progressed on, we went back up to the pub, for some dinner. Only a few people in the pub, a miner and a couple of the locals. After a great home cooked burger and fries, we decided to do some exploring at the old Bralorne/Pioneer ghost town, some 15-20 minutes drive.
Driving up the Cadwallader Creek, we come upon the fallen down buildings of the Pioneer mine. These buildings were still standing when I first used to go up here. Two brothers (in 1972ish) bought the old mine site, took apart all the piping, took all the concentrated dirt from under the mine, processed it, and recovered $350,000.00 CDN. We stopped and inspected the old vaults, which stored the gold dore bars. More than $100,000,000.00 was taken from these creeks over their years, with $370,000,000.00 estimated to have come from the producing mines. Having been here before, I knew of an old walkway, hidden in the trees, the stairs to town so to speak, so we headed for them, and proceeded up.
After a 10 minute walk up, we were on the first “street”, houses scattered through the forest, or more correct, the forest now scattered through the houses. There is a park up here, a tennis court, all overgrown as only 60 years can do. The mine finally shut down in 1971, but it had long lost its luster back in the 60’s. I explored some of the top open shafts back in the early 70’s, but, this was a deep and dangerous mine, so we only went into a few spots. This place is pocketed with air shafts and other things, so one must be careful about walking around. This mine goes a mile below sea level, and the top elevation is 3,400 feet, so we have a total depth of over 8,000 feet, with over a hundred miles of tunnels, very cool stuff! Actually, the mine temp near the bottom is about 40C. (104F.). Matt and I did a loop of the old town, and as it was getting very cold, we headed out. You cannot walk around these old places without having a real sense of time and history passing by. An old sleigh on the grown over street, all broken, left me with the sound of children laughing, some 60 years ago. We then decided to take a run back on the old original road that heads up to the Hurley Pass. We heard that there was still nineteen feet of snow on it, so we wanted to see how far we could get. We got maybe 15 miles out of town and started to get into some deep snow, electing to turn around before we got stuck.
Now, as I had mentioned, my job, my expertise, was to help organize the pour, make sure it was all to work ok. After seeing what their guy’s setup was to do, I could see why they wanted me to come. My job was to convince the old curmudgeon that he needed to change his ways. This fellow was used to doing large pours, into very large molds, or TARGETS if you will. To pour a small bullion bar takes way more finesse, and, a better sense of trajectory, of the molten metal. The way he had the crucible set up, and the pouring angle, would have had him missing the mold with over half the melt. Not a good scenario with all the brass, media, and of course the Premier of the Province being there. I figured Matt and I would get up early, have some eats, then head to the mine mill, to start to explain to him WHY his method was not going to work. I also needed to make sure the melt temperature was good, so the metal would not “freeze” halfway through the pour.
The plan was to be at the mine at 9:30 and get things ready for the 11:00 A.M. show. Matt and I got up ok, no problem. We got the Tracker loaded, no problem. I asked Matt if he was done with the room, he said he was just going to use the washroom, so I locked the door…after putting the motel key on the counter. Matt comes out, shuts the door, and comes down to the Tracker. We load the last of the stuff, I jump in, Matt jumps in……NO KEY!!!!!
“Where’s the Key?”….” I dunno, must be in one of the bags!” So……we start unloading things, going through everything with a fine tooth comb……NO KEY! I say, “Did you leave it in the room?” “No, I don’t think so….!” So….we go through the STUFF again. NO KEY! It has to be in the room! There is no reception at this place, everything is done from the pub, which at 9:30 is CLOSED! There is NO phone here..cell phones..Hah…might as well be on Mars. I vaguely remembered seeing a sign for a phone….where? I walk back down the hill, and in the entrance to the Hall, I see the phone sign. Ah, ha….money in, call the owner of the pub, who owns the motel. They are in the middle of breakfast, will be up as soon as they are finished….the clock is ticking…..! They finally arrive at 10:00, all smiles, not realizing the panic that is starting for me. Sure enough, Matt had thrown his keys on the bed!
Zipping down to the mine, we were greeted at the gate with souvenir hard hats and T-shirts. We quickly parked. I grabbed my safety stuff, and headed off into the mill and the furnace area.
The fellow had the furnace running, which was very good, and had the pouring cradle set up. This is where my work began. I pointed out to him the angles, and suggested a different way that the two of us should use the pouring cradle. Let’s do a “dry” run I suggested. He balked at that for a minute or two, so I pointed out that the mold was in the wrong position, and was this how he has done it in the past. No he admitted, this was not how he made the “cones” of gold, he used a different style mold. Ah…this made him realize this was different. He was also starting to get nervous about the whole show, obviously never having this many eyes on him……and….what IF it did go wrong. I’m very comfortable with lots of eyes on me, so I suggested AGAIN, that we do a dry run, so he could get a feel of a two man pour. I could see the light come on in his eyes, and, at the same time, the mine manager got a big smile on his face, this would go just FINE!
The clock had blown by, accompanied by the sound of a helicopter with all the brass arriving. Alas, our Premier could not make it, caught up in the controversy over our HST tax (you locals know what that is all about), so she had to pass. The disappointment in the eyes of the mine owner was really sad, this was a BIG deal for him, having spent a lot of time to set this show up, and, that the mine really was back on track.
As soon as the Minister of Mines was in the building, it was time for the pour. Even though I had done a dry run for the melt, I wished I had one of my co-workers with me, or even Matt, as he knows “THE FLOW”! When you crack the lid of the furnace open, you are staring at 2,000 F. right in your face. We have to take the large tongs, and pick the crucible out, lifting it high over the edge of the furnace, then setting it safely into the pouring cradle. Already I could feel he had forgotten the sequence, and who was to set the crucible safety lock. As soon as he set the tongs down, I reached over and set the lock. We lifted pretty much in unison, and accomplished the pour with no over flow or surge spill. After much hand shaking and some time had gone by, it was time to bump the bar out. They wanted to knock it out right away, but, I suggested due to the metallic content that is NOT gold, it would be better to wait, let the bar cool right down in the mold, so it would not break upon bumping out.
Matt and I faded into the back ground at this point, to watch the major PR show. The bar got bumped out, cleaned, and eight million pictures were taken. The mine manager and owner came and thanked me, shook my hand, and disappeared into the crowd, ready to give their speeches on the stage. At this point, Matt and I decided it was time to hit the road. We headed up to the pub to fuel up, and grab a bite to eat.
We decided to head back a different route, one that has us going back along Carpenter Lake, then, instead of continuing back to Lillooet, we hang a right at the dam. It heads over Mission Mountain, a crazy windy road with a zillion hair pin corners. It gains and looses serious elevation quickly. We then would follow the Anderson Lake hi-line road back to Pemberton. It is a beautiful drive, following the power line, up high above the 21 Km (13 mile) lake. It used to be a 4 x 4 road, but is passable in most vehicles now, gravel the whole way. I went through here with my 1972 wagon back in the early 70’s, just making the climb on the one end, and frying the brakes on the other. There are 9,000 ft mountains all around, and the pristine lake below.
Six hours later we were home, agreeing that that is the better route to get to Bralorne, which, in the next story, we should have stuck to that plan.

BRALORNE / MT.TRUAX REVISITED

We’re in a long, dark tunnel, sound of dripping water, every horror movie we have seen comes to mind. Did you ever see the movie, Descent? Our lights are not strong enough to penetrate ahead, so the imagination is left to run wild. Matt suggests that I stop playing so many video games, maybe go back to Mario Cart.
At just under 7,000 feet, we are in an old antimony mine, buried on the side of a mountain called Mt.Traux. The cold is starting to seep in, as we are dressed for the sunny day it is outside, and the hike up to an even higher elevation. There was still ice in the entrance, pointing out the fact this mountain face hardly gets the sun even in the summer, and, that this past winter was brutal up in these mountains.
For years I had talked to Matt about this place, this valley, and how so very cool it was, with an antimony mine on a steep mountain face, at 6,500 feet. Back in the early 70’s I first came up here grizzly hunting with my co-workers, the beauty of the place sticking with me since then. Having the Tracker now has opened up the ability to re-visit some of my old adventure places (unlike the G35). So, with that in mind, we decided to head up there, to see if it had retained the pristine beauty that I remembered it as.
The long weekend of September was to be the trip date, with an extra day taken to really be able to set up a base camp in the valley, and range out from there. As the Bralorne area is one of the last southern areas for Grizzly bears, and we would be high up in THEIR area, I was a bit concerned for our safety. With that in mind, I elected to take one of my guns, plus, some pyrotechnics. I have bear spray, more a feel good thing than anything, and having literally run into a ton of black bears in my life, never had an issue. Matt and I had a huge black bear stand up ten feet away from us once; his head had been buried in the mountain blueberry bushes. The wind was coming down the mountain, so he did not smell us. He could not have heard us, as he was rustling away eating. He looked 20 feet tall that close to us, snorted once, and then bailed down the hill. A grizzly is a whole different animal though, especially if you surprise one in dense bush. I remembered that part of the trail to the old mine took us up along a rushing creek, and through some over grown areas. Really great for running into something, that both you and he cannot hear or smell.
With that in mind, I wanted to get some “Bear Bangers”, so off to my local outdoor store I went. The sales guys asked if I had ever used them and I said, “No!” He gave me some instruction about making sure I fired it at a 45 degree angle. Having no preconceived idea of how these things worked, I just filed that away in my brain. More on this later.
Our intended route from Vancouver was to go up to Pemberton, do a left, and head up the Hurley Pass. This is where we should have remembered our original decision about using the Anderson Lake Hi Line route. We cleared Pemberton early in the morning of September 2, heading out the Pemberton Valley, a stunning sunny day. The climb out of the valley is steep, with many hairpin corners, and of course it is gravel. This is where my memory started to come back about this route…IT IS ROUGH! In the summer, the Hurley becomes the main route for the outdoor crowd, heading to some hiking trails at the top. The loose gravel gets blown out of the road bed, leaving just the tops of the bigger rocks sticking out, and the washboard gets magnified. Of all the gravel roads I have travelled, short of a true 4 x 4 road, this one is the roughest.
There is also the issue of dust. For those of you out there, that have traveled the back roads, you know what I mean. The road bed becomes a lineal ball mill, grinding the surface to the consistency of flour, which then boils up into blinding, fog like clouds, which penetrate every seam in a vehicle. We just took our time, trying not to beat the Tracker up, arriving at Goldbridge almost at noon.
I vaguely remembered the route out of Goldbridge, to get to Truax. We head back along the south side of Carpenter Lake, through some alder flats, then, the road starts a very steep climb, winding its way high up into a sub alpine meadow. It was at the end of the road, that we used to camp, and it was where I hoped we could on this day. I had no idea if we would find impassable cross ditches, bridges out, etc.
Cresting the top, we encountered our first cross ditch, complicated by the side of the bank sloughing down, increasing the attack angle. Matt carefully angled the Tracker, and slowly went down and through the ditch, not even dragging the rear skid plate. While we don’t have the height, the short wheel base is nice sometimes. There were cross ditches every 200 meters, with only one ditch catching the back of the Tracker. After a kilometer, the valley opened up for us, the vista before us was incredible.
The valley was logged back in the 80’s, as it turned out. I was prepared for that, as we had looked at Google earth. That was a shame, but, it is growing back…only take another 400 years or so. The face of Mt. Truax dominated the end of the valley, an impressive rock face, still speckled in snow, even down to the level of the mine shaft. It took us another half hour to get to the end of the passable road, finding the wilderness campsite I had stayed at, looking untouched for a few summers, grass growing out of the fire pit. It is right at the edge of a sub-alpine meadow, just beautiful.
Within an hour, we had camp set up, still in the warm sun of the late afternoon. High above us, we spotted two wandering herds of mountain goat. We went for a quick scouting hike, up to a sketchy creek crossing, using a fallen tree to cross. I could see that the sun was going to set in the valley very quickly and that we should get back and get dinner, before the temperature dropped. Little did we know how much!
One thing we did not count on was a localized camp fire ban..AARRRGGG…..! Due to the extreme fire hazard in the Lillooet area, and the bad fires from year previous, they extended the camp fire ban right to the Bralorne/Goldbridge area. Not being able to have a fire changed things dramatically, making standing around after dinner virtually impossible. We went for a walk after dinner, having chilled down from sitting around. It went from +27C (81F.) to -2C (29F.) in the span of a few hours, after the sun went down!
After our walk, I decided to try out the bear banger, just to see what they are like. Very important you know what something is going to do, especially if one is under duress…like a charging bear! A bear banger is made of two parts, a pen sized tube, where you pull one end, which has a spring with a firing pin attached to it. On the other end you screw a cartridge onto it, about the size of your thumb. This cartridge has a .22 caliber shell, for ignition, which then propels the cartridge into the air, for some distance, and then it EXPLODES! So, imagine Matt and I, at the end of this quiet pristine valley, not a sound, air dead still. We walk out onto the dirt road, Matt stands behind me, and I pull the firing pin back. I have the device angled at 45 degrees, as per instructions. I let go the firing pin, instantly accompanied by the sound of a .22 high velocity round going off. The cartridge instantly blasts into the air, some 100-200 feet along, and maybe 60 feet high, then EXPLODES, shooting red hot debris into the bush! The valley is reverberating with the sound, a huge cloud of white smoke in the air. Our ears were ringing. Holy Cow, more like an air burst artillery shell. Matt and I go into the bush, and watch for awhile; just to make sure WE did not start a forest fire. Glad I tested it out as all the instructions said point it at a 45 degree angle. Bullshit, I’m firing it AT the bear! Quite funny actually.
Being that it was now below freezing, we elected to retire to the tent, to the warmth of our down sleeping bags. If anything had happened that night, in our tent, what with all the firepower and pyrotechnics, our tent would have been blown to smithereens, leaving a cloud of high tech fabric and down feathers floating about, all smelling of chili peppers.
Funny thing, I was really worried about Grizzly bears in the valley, so I took a gun (a lot of good it would have done other than pissing it off), some bear bangers, and my bear spray. Part of the old trail/road was through some over growth, along a noisy creek, and that is the dangerous time for a bear encounter, as that scenario can surprise both of us. Ultimately, other than bear sign, we saw none. The sign we did see was the late spring droppings, with the bears likely higher up in the mountains. What we did see, were 3 herds of mountain goat, high above us on the cliffs and alpine scree.
On the Saturday, we hiked up the valley head, and scrambled up to the mine, which is between 6 and 7 thousand feet. I have a picture friends standing in the mine entrance, in about 1972/73. In comparison now, a rock face had failed, and fallen in front of the entrance. We went inside for maybe 100 feet, but the air temp was so cold we could not stay long. There was ice in the entrance, as the sun does not hit that face for very long.
Upon leaving the mine, we then headed up to the 7,000 foot level, scrambling up a slide chute. We tried to cross a snow slide, but we were not equipped for the steepness of it. For safety reasons we dropped down below it, then headed back up. The pictures don’t do it justice, but it was really steep and sure made the ole’ legs work. We had lunch and the decided we better head down, to try and beat the setting sun, so we could get dinner made before the real temperature drop happened. As we turned to leave, another herd of mountain goat passed above us, 7 in all, with two small kids bouncing along. They passed over the rock faces like it was nothing. What a gift to see these animals in their world, so high on these windswept ridges.
Tragedy of the weekend was our Saturday dinner, our wonderful T-bone steaks, which were to be seared over an open campfire, redolent with the smoke from the fire, ended up getting cut into strips, and cooked in a pan fry. We’re good camp cooks, used to making do with whatever resources at hand, but, to cut up those steaks brought tears to our eyes..
We decided to head back a bit early, to avoid the weekend traffic on the Sea to Sky. We elected to go back on the Hurley Pass. This was our mistake. On the way back we cut a tire, destroying it. Matt had to move over, as this idiot came flying along, and never slowed down. I grew up with the convention that you always slowed, when you came upon a fellow traveler, so as not to throw gravel up and break headlights or windshield, or BOTH. Been there! This clown could have cared less, so when Matt had to move over off the beaten path, a sharp rock just ate the rear tire. In my fantasy world I would have like to have emptied my magazine at HIS tires. We sweat bullets till we hit pavement, as we now had no spare tire. It took us an hour to get the pavement, finally breathing a sigh of relief.
The real treat for me this weekend, was to revisit this valley through my sons eyes, see his amazement at the beauty of this valley, the richness of the land, and the utter quiet that the mountains can gift to you.
In 2012 we are going to go back to Mt. Truax, better equipped to explore the old mine, and to hike a different trail, one that may lead us to another old mine, and who knows what adventures.

Keith Law, December 2011