Saddle Sore

We left Tuesday morning, September 23, for our jade mine trip. It was a beautiful day - as though it were tailor made for us. It had been raining off and on for close to a week prior to this. There as not a cloud in the sky as we pulled out on that chilly morning - ready for our adventure. About 30km up the road we stopped to visit some friends who were in but would be leaving before we came back through - Ron and John of MS Gold. We had tea and thawed our faces out then were on our way again. We made good time travelling, stopping at a few places to look around and have some lunch. We felt as though we were in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles until we came around a corner onto two mining camps - one right after the other. Serengeti Resources and Alpha Gold. We did not drive into the first one, it was a little ways off the main trail, but drove right through the second one and were surprised to see more than half a dozen people working out in the middle of nowhere!

Continuing on, we made a quick stop at Dream Creek, where around ten years ago, a young couple started to set up a guiding operation. They built a cabin and a few other outbuildings. Part way through the winter, she left, he followed not much later and there it sat. It was burned down by someone a couple of years later and the only thing left there now is a hay shed. It's a beautiful setting in a valley with a creek running through - very "Legends of the Fall." We got into a little rougher road after that, lots of ruts and mud holes, a mining company had just brought a large loader through there and left the road in mucky shape. We trudged on, and thought we would go a little out of the way and make camp at Old Hogem, there used to be a town at this site on the Omineca River. We were surprised after going down a long trail off the main logging road to see an old Native woman greet us from her cabin. We went down there expecting to see an old ghost town (there was not much left) and found someone living there! She was very friendly and told us to go ahead and look around. There were a few buildings that may have originated with the trading post, but other than that, not much. Since there was someone living there, we decided not to camp there. On the way out - we lost a wheel on Tim's quad trailer and limped it to where we decided to camp, about 25km away, beside an old cutblock near the Fall River.

Heather and Paul are well equipped for camping so we did not have to bring much other than our cots and sleeping bags. The guys put up the wall tent, the girls unloaded the trailers and started to make our gourmet supper of hotdogs - and they have never tasted better! After a few hours by the fire, we retired to the tent and slept soundly, until the stove filled the tent with smoke. After that was cleared up we slumbered until morning. Following a pancake breakfast, and after letting the fog lift a little, we took off. Final destination: Jade Mine. We got a little lost and wound up on the right side of the base of the mountain when we should have been on the left, and after a 70km correction, were on our way again! There was a lot of beautiful scenery so we didn't mind too much.

After a bit of a rocky climb with the quads 3 km up a mountain, we pulled into the jade mine (inactive for many years) just to see a helicopter taking off. There is no work taking place there and all the fuel barrels are empty, so maybe he was working in the area and sightseeing like us. There are jade boulders everywhere, most with cuts made in them, to show the rock face and presumably check the quality of it. We assume the ones left there did not make the grade. We scavenged between the boulders looking for pieces with small cuts that we could take home and keep as souvenirs. There are still a few buildings up there, hundreds of empty fuel barrels, diesel generators, and other junk, remnants of a busier time. We explored up there for an hour or two, Heather and I going further up the trail a little ways to a little a lake that flows out right through a jade formation, it looked like the Emerald City in Oz. Prior to that the trail had changed from grey gravel to green gravel, almost like following the "green" brick road to there. We were a little tired and it had been a long day so we headed back to camp. On the way a bull moose ran up out of the trees and jogged in front of Tim's quad for a while - lucky for him we were not hunters!

It was back to camp after this as we were all tired. The wind had picked up a lot and so reinforcements were made to the tent pegs, I think Heather and I slept with one eye open though, for fear that the tent would topple on us. The next morning, the wind was gone and we packed up and headed out. On the way we stopped and watched a helicopter land and fuel up (in the middle of nowhere!!) then load some fuel barrels and take off. The rest of the way was pretty uneventful, only that when we arrived home the quads were running on fumes after our side trips and getting lost once. Round trip - around 340km.

Since I am not a blog expert yet - the pictures all posted at the top of the post - so, in no particular order, are the helicopter fueling and taking off, our camp, a jade boulder, the jade mine and our quad convoy.