Wilderness Adventures includes Snowmobiling on Trumpeter Mountain this week

This is about a remote area in west central British Columbia, Canada called the West Chilcotin. Surrounded by numerous glacial mountain ranges, alpine lakes teeming with wild Rainbow Trout, and full of wildlife. Living here goes from no running water or electricity to spacious log homes with all the conveniences and without the smog!

3/4/05 8:35 PM

Bodies found in Chilcotin house fire

As per CBC News
ANAHIM LAKE, B.C. The RCMP have now confirmed that three people died in a house fire earlier this week on the Ulkatcho First Nation's 2 Mile Reserve in Anahim Lake 330 kilometres west of Williams Lake. Two men and a woman had been missing since the fire, and were feared dead in Tuesday night's fire. There had been a house party at the home, and police say there had been a lot of coming and going prior to the fire making it difficult to confirm that the three had been inside. But when the fire site cooled off, investigators were able to locate the bodies. The B.C. Coroner's Service is moving the remains to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops, where autopsies will be carried out on Monday. While it will take some time to positively identify the victims, police and community workers are already providing counselling to the families of three missing people. Their names are not being released. And the cause of the fire has not yet been determined.

3/3/05 9:20 PM

Number of People Killed in Fire Still Unknown

The Number of People killed in the house fire at Two Mile in the early morning hours of Wednesday, March 02 is still unknown. The house was completely destroyed in one hour and since there is no official fire department in the area, not much could be done to save the home. Community Volunteers from Nimpo and Anahim Lakes rushed to the scene with the ancient truck from the Ulkatcho Reserve but the fire was just too hot, said one witness. Without proper fire fighting gear and training to enter the blazing house, there was just no way anyone could hope to enter the premises and pull anyone out.

3/3/05 8:52 PM

Three People Die in House Fire at Two Mile

One woman and two men died in a house fire at Two Mile Reserve between Anahim and Nimpo Lake Wednesday morning in the AM. The fire was still too hot to determine cause of the fire and investigators are on site. Three people of the community that were known residents of the house were reported missing at the time. Since then, the woman has been confirmed to have been in the house and it was assumed the men were as well. There had been a house party earlier in the evening and all three were seen there by witnesses.

3/1/05 8:48 PM

Ice Cutting for Rainbow Lodge

It's Ice cutting time again for Rainbow Lodge on Nimpo Lake. They were casting around for help today with hauling the blocks to the ice house, a job that goes under the heading of hard labour. It's not easy to find people to help with ice cutting right now. Everyone is fairly busy and without the bribery of free food, drinks, campfire and general party after the work is done such as Wilderness Rim offers in the middle of February, it can be a tough go. For those who have never been exposed to this particular winter activity, it can be a lot of fun...the first time...:) Chainsaws are locked into a jig and run up and down a length of lake ice, cutting out uniform blocks of ice ranging from 12" square to impossibly big and heavy! The blocks are then hauled up on a skid, usually with a snowmobile or fourwheeler, to the icehouse. There, they're packed in tight with sawdust for insulation. A well packed ice house will hold the ice throughout most of the summer and is a boon for fishing lodges and resorts with lots of fish catching customers. It means they don't have to provide another means of refrigeration for the fish until such time as the customer can take their catch home with them when the vacation is done, or the fish can be smoked. Fewer and fewer lodges are doing the ice cutting in winter. Many provide alternate refrigeration, and since catch and release has become more and more popular among anglers, there probably isn't the necessity for ice houses that there once was. It is a labour intensive job, and I sure don't blame anyone for wanting to find another way to keep things cool. For those who still indulge, yep...they put the women and children to work too as you can see from the photo! For a little more information, check out the Events page.

3/1/05 12:37 AM

Images for the Photo Gallery

I'm finally compiling a pretty good library of images for the area thanks to generous donations of pictures from locals. I'm pretty excited about some of the pictures I've gotten recently, especially the wildlife photos. There are so many times I've seen wildife, such as the herd of caribou about 75 feet away a couple of weeks ago, and no camera! Fortunately, lots of people around here leave home a lot more prepared than I. Check out the photo on the upper right. Can you believe the rock that this mountain goat can hang onto? I'll be putting the full picture with the other goats on the Photo Gallery page as soon as I decide how I am going to break down the categories for the page and build it. I hope you'll come back to check it out!

2/27/05 9:26 PM

Snowmobiling on Trumpeter Mountain

Went up on Trumpeter Mountain this weekend to the cairn that borders Tweedsmuir Park. You can see the whole world up there. Or so it seems. You can certainly see all the surrounding mountain ranges. The Coastals, Rainbows, Ulgatchuz, Itchas and more. There was just the two of us, as most people went up on Friday, which was really nice. Quiet and peaceful and conditions were awesome. You could go anywhere. Because of the freezing and thawing conditions in the past two months, there was a very firm base with about a foot of powder on top. You would have to work really hard at it to get stuck, and even then, I don't think you could. We broke a trail out through the trees on the way up to Trumpeter mountain that no one had broken out before. Probably because the snow would have been deep and nasty previously, and only about two other people in the area know about that trail. And they hadn't been riding up there much before now.
We saw wolf tracks made the day before. Pretty good size old boy, but by himself. We also saw rock ptarmigan. We had stopped and were talking for awhile before we noticed him just a few feet away. He'd been careful to mind his own business and since he was pure white, was almost impossible to see against the snow. We saw two more together on a later pass and took lots of pictures of them. Unfortunately, they're all on hard film and none on digital as the other pics on the right. Since the nearest developer is 200 miles away, I'll have to wait to post the pics. But I've put one in from this fall that is still changing from his summer to winter colors so you can see what they look like. Just a reminder if you come to this region for a Vacation, make sure to bring lots of film because you won't be able to have it processed until you get back to 'civilization'! :)

Please be patient with this site. It's still under construction!
The purpose of this web site is to draw attention to a remote area of west central British Columbia. It is a beautiful area that relies heavily on tourism. The search engines don't know much about the West Chilcotin, Anahim Lake, Nimpo Lake or any of the other small communities in the region and I aim to change that! Even as large as this site will eventually be, there just isn't enough room or time in the day to fully describe this incredible country but I am going to try scraping away at the tip of the iceberg. Which is why it's taking so long to complete the site! :)

Follow the links, and see what the West Chilcotin is really like!