Saturday, July 3, 2010

Driving (almost) up to Granby

Camping shit spread all over the carpet. Tammy stretched out on the couch asleep. If this one's happening it'll be because I make it so. One motherin' long, hard week at work. And, oh, P90X. If that catchy little bit of code means nothing to you, well, it means we've been working out lately. Hard.

We got started packing late, what with work and hunting for a new spare tire. But that's okay. Just gotta get to the trailhead, tip back the seats and sleep like babies. Like we've done at rest stops all over the continent. Some of the best sleeps of my life. Hit the trail first thing in the morning.

The search for a spare was a failure by the way. Cause I'm cheap and will only buy used tires unless it's my annual-ish set of new snow tires for the great Canadian winter. Nobody had a used one in our size in the time we could spare for the search. Fuck it. Buy a can. The magic foamy shit that blows up your flat and fixes it at the same time.

I only get flat tires when I'm prepared for them anyway. Drove from Vernon to Lethbridge over the Rocky Mountains cold on one of those temporary-use-only, do-not-exceed-80 km/h little fake donut spares once. Without incident. Incidents weren't in the plan. Turns out I made it so it was a fucking good plan. There will always be a triumphant angle if your angled that way.

Packing for the trail is always a process of hauling out the GSAR (ground search and rescue, we're both certified volunteers) ready packs and swapping out what's gonna go - compasses, fire kits, first aid, bear spray, etc. - into the big backpacks, then throwing in all the other stuff. One day we'll have doubles of everything and this will be a much tidier process.

I got it done amid much Heineken and classic rock from the cable radio station of the same name.

I got the driving done in a similar fashion while she slept on the seat beside me. Out through Lumby and the ever wilder hills of Cherryville and up into the mysterious Monashee mountains. Dodging deer and willing away the unlikely interference of cops.

Finally turn off on Bench Creek forest service road, which immediately commences the dual processes of climbing and deteriorating. After 20 or so kilometres we take a right turn onto Scaia Road and the processes accelerate alarmingly.

Especially since we never did get around to picking up the can of foam. Saying fuck it is way easier the second time and once we abandoned the search for a real tire, well, damning the torpedoes had become a theme. A late, tired theme, Heineken enhanced. And not such an unfamiliar one.

But now, in the dark, flogging our old truck up a road that resembles nothing as much as a dried up creek bed, one where the water ran fast, the torpedoes themselves seem to be acquiring an increasing power to damn.

We're both awake now, and by the time the the question "should we turn around?" has made it out loud it's really more a question of whether we're going to be able to find a spot to do so on this seriously vertical line of bombed out rubble. Before the ever more inevitable exploded tire leaves us suddenly sitting silently in the chilly darkness a long fucking way from anywhere.

We do. On the way down we realize the road was even worse than it looked going up.

We're sorry. Okay? We're fucking sorry. Let us make it out and we promise we won't do it again till next time.

We triumph. Tip back the seats just before the highway. Fine. We'll bring a spare next time. Two maybe. Whatever were we thinking?

We're just a few kilometres from the Needles ferry. There's a lot of Kootenay on the other side of that fake lake.

Tomorrow calls for a fine new plan.

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