The original plan for our first camp of the year was to hit Skookumchuk Hot Springs at the beginning of Feb. With all the truck work going on in the club, she got cancelled. So the next call of action was to hit Starvation Lake. We were joined by some others that we have met thru the BC Off-Road site's mailing list. In total, we had 5 rigs out for the Saturday romp to the lake. Unfortunetly, there's only one way in to the area at the moment, due to the ministry of highways closing the HWY.99 entrance. No problem, the only way in now is the more challenging route anyways.

We met up at the Squamish McDee's at 11:30, had a quick bite to eat and headed out. We knew we were going to hit some good snow, 'cause the highway traffic was bad enough due to slick and fresh snow everywhere. We hung a left at Alice Provincial Park turn-off and followed the Paradise Valley road to it's end. The power line access road had about 12" of snow on it. I was looking forward to and starting to wonder what the rock area was going to look like and whether we could actually get past it with all the snow in the area.

We arrived at the base of the run up to the 'rock' area and aired down. The snow seemed lighter in the area even with the slight elevation gain,,,, possibly due to the tree cover I guess. I was pulling a trailer, so I let Raf take the lead. There was probably about 3" of snow covering the rocks and it was nice and wet. Raf pretty much crawled up with ease with some minor spinning and rock placing. Just at the bend about 20' before the 'rock' there was a bit of a ledge & rut that your right tire had to climb in & over. It would cause your right tire to drop and send your left one in the air,,, loosing traction. In the dry season, this lead-up is pretty much an easy run but with the wet snow, it basically pulled you into the rut everytime. Rob (NoBalls) was next. After a bit of work rock placing, momentum seemed to be the answer. Rob gave her a little bit more speed and bounced the right side over. Pearce was next. Pearce proceeded to loosen up a nice big boulder (2.5' diameter) into the left rear side of the trail, causing that left front tire to be lifted even more into the air,,,,, great !! more fun for me and Andrew B. Unfortunetly, Pearce also managed to 'ding' his left side rocker against the 'rock'. I also had some problems in this same area,,, momemtum being the key. Then came Andrew Bauer, he digustingly made it look like a Sunday drive by just cruising over the whole thing,,,,, Ahhhh the joys of having a front locker......

Raf is first up

Pearce's coils at work

Our turn

 The rest of the drive to the lake was pretty much straight forward. The area just after the tracks is starting to deteriote pretty nicely and with a couple more run-offs should be good. (Andrew B. had to head back at this point due to prior commitments). Usually, you never really pay attention in that area, but we definetly had to choose a good line to get through this time. The lake looked absolutely beautiful with the fresh snow cover and slightly frozen look to it..... It looked like a great big Slurpee.

Andrew B. gets air time,but kept going forward

Andrew just lifting a tire

An easy 'Cruise

We dropped off our trailer in the trees and all decided to climb up to the look-out point. Pearce took the lead and used his Cherokee's front skid plate as a snow plow. The snow was about 1'-2' deep and on a fairly steep grade. Wash outs that are usually a cruise in the summer now became a big momentum game. Rob opted to using his winch at one point. We all made it to the vantage point and took our pictures and so on. Then it happened,,, my Jeep shut down,,,,,OFF..... (luckily I had already turned around). We did some quick field tests and basically found no spark anywhere on the ignition system. Now we had to get me down from the look out area, in the snow, with no power. YEY!!!!! Rob attached a strap to my rear bumper and I would basically use him as an anchor. It actually worked really well,, considering the situation. I think the snow helped a little as well, by preventing me from rolling away. I actually had to use the starter a few times to get rolling again, but it was pretty much 1st gear, 4-lo the whole way down with the odd jerk from Rob behind me.

We pretty much knew that our problem was an ignition module. I got on the cell and phoned up our saviour Phil Gough, luckily we had a connection. He would locate one for me (thanks Ian T.)and join us the next day. Pearce, Michelle and their two little ones as well as Rob (Noballs), Misty and their two little guys headed back for home. It was nice to see all the kids out having fun on the trails,,, got to keep the generations going in our game.... As for us and Raf, we had planned to camp for the night so we lit off a fire, set up camp and warmed with a rum and hot chocolate. We found out later that apparently Pearce's motor was in the process of biting the big one and he had to settle for a casual cruise back home. Rob also suffered some damage to his passenger door, I beleive on the way back down past the "rock" area.

Phil showed up the next day at about 2:30. We met him at the rock area and watched him come up. He had some very mild slipping at the same spot as the rest of us, but pretty much cruised up the works. Unfortunetly, he also managed to catch his rocker on the same spot as Pearce had and got a ding as well. We got to camp, plugged in the module and also replaced the coil and she fired up. We broke camp and headed out around 5:00.

NoBalls does a bit of articulating

Phil ,the courier is on the way

An unfortunate ding

My problems weren't over though. Just as we were cruising out of Squamish on the highway I started getting a really bad vibration. I just managed to pull to the side of the road and *bang* my rear pinion yoke broke a shoulder off. I had known about the problem prior (Hale Creek '98) and was planning on replacing it in the next little while,,, but Oh well, you snooze, you lose. We siliconed up the tail cone with a plastic bag and drove home on the front end.....

Even with the problems, we had a blast and look forward to doing it again...... hopefully this isn't going to be my path of action for the year..... knock on wood.. Later and happy wheelin'