Wilderness Adventures - articles this week include hot dry weather and forest fires

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!

31/05/2005 8:28 PM

Blessed Be The Rain

Might be a song or something, but boy, it's true! We've been getting a faint drizzle in Nimpo Lake since this morning. It's been raining in Anahim Lake as well. Apparently the cooler temps, overcast and showers have prevalent all over British Columbia which has really helped the forest fire indices. The danger is still extreme in many areas but lower temperatures and higher humidity at least give the fire fighters a little breathing room for now. Quite a few people were out fishing in the drizzle today on Nimpo, but I wasn't around enough to see how they were doing. Went to Anahim Lake on business, still selling listings on this site. some of the business owners and resorts are very busy right now and others are starting out with a slow spring. Tabby Reid over at Wilderness Rim has said it's her busiest May yet, while Duncan over at Stewart's Lodge is a little slow with fly outs but expecting it to pick up substantially within a week. Hopefully it'll be a great summer for everyone, even with higher fuel prices.

30/05/2005 9:15 PM

Gone Fishing

Went fishing for rainbow trout yesterday evening. Picked up a few nibbles and then around 5:30, started getting some hard hits but losing them off our lines. Finally, I got a hard hitting beauty that really wanted to take my line out. Then it jumped straight up, flashed silver in the sun and was gone...broken line, fly and all. It was a nice one! That was it. A couple more hits but couldn't land anything and when I finally pulled my line in after a few minutes of no action at all, I found weed on my hook. Time to give up and go in for supper. I could see that everyone else fishing yesterday on Nimpo Lake in front of the house was getting a lot of action, but only seeing a few pulled into the boat. I can't see the trout having soft mouths right now, unless there's a lot of spawners out there right now, because the water is cold. There's lots and lots of food for those fish. Major mayfly hatch, flying ants, a brown moth that hangs around the water but I don't know it's name, and of course the ever present mosquito. I wonder if that isn't part of the reason the fish are shaking or taking the hooks. They're just plain big and strong from all the feed!

29/05/2005 10:19 AM

Skies Are Hazy With Forest Fires

Snow on the mountains looks yellow through the surrounding haze and the reports of new fires reported by the Bird dogs (smoke spotters) have been coming in steady on the radio. There's been lightning strikes to the west of the Fraser River with more lightning and 30 mph winds expected this afternoon. There was a bomber over our little forest fire yesterday but he was called to a much bigger fire in the Prince George area before he could drop his load. It doesn't sound like the Cariboo Fire Centre has enough crews on standby, either attack crews or helicopters. Probably weren't expecting conditions to be this bad this quickly in May. There was a fire reported in the Palmer Lake, Raven Lake road area yesterday evening and it sounds like they're still fighting it today, so it must be good sized. As long as this heat doesn't create thunder heads and a lightning hazard, we might be ok. It's pretty early in the year for lightning in this part of the country, but that could change too.

28/05/2005 10:48 PM

Forest Fires Already...Unbelievable

Had the unique surprise of a forest fire very close today. Less than a mile away from our home on Nimpo Lake, some of the neighbour's land went up in smoke as well as crown land because the fire jumped the road. I had no clue conditions were that dry. There's lots of standing water and the mosquitoes are vicious, and that is usually the best indication of wet ground. Not so. Get a little away from the depressions with standing water and you'll find tinder dry woods with dust two inches thick. It's a little embarrassing because my sister, a head dispatcher at the fire centre in Williams Lake only called me a couple of days ago about a fire just on the other side of Anahim Lake asking about conditions out here. I said "Ah, don't worry about it, it's pretty wet here so a fire won't go far." Oh boy, was I wrong. Right now, any fire is travelling hot and fast. Time to be really careful about sparks of any kind. I was collecting a pickup load of rock today and using a maddock to dig it out, chipping stone and creating sparks...not thinking at all about how tinder dry things might be out there. Oh well, might be another one like last year folks. Grab a seat and hang on because we could be in for a wild ride!

27/05/2005 8:29 PM

Hot and Dry

The weather has finally turned and gone to the other extreme. It's been extremely hot the last two days, and temperature records have been broken all over British Columbia. This is unusual weather for the end of May, but we'll take it. Other than not being used to the heat, at least I can finally get things done outside and everyone's mood locally has improved substantially. The only problem with the weather is the mosquitoes like it even more than they liked the cool, moist weather we had. Not to discourage anyone from visiting this summer, but bring bug repellent with you when you come. Snow is fast melting off the mountains, and water levels are still way up. Forest fire danger may rise though if this warm spell continues to dry out the woods. Supposed to be cooling trend toward the middle of next week. At least we're way better off than Nova Scotia. Those poor buggers have been getting hit with everything since last winter. They're flooded out now. No worries of that happening here. Hope to go fishing tomorrow in Nimpo Lake for some rainbow trout to go in the frying pan. Fishing looks like it would be pretty good right now.

25/05/2005 6:47 PM

Changing Computers is Such a Pain

Changing over to a new computer is a huge pain and one I try to only do about once every five years. Since I have my computers built especially to suit the needs of my businesses, they last a long time before they become so outdated and slow, and full that no matter how good your habits might be with defrag, scan disk, keeping files cleaned up and backing them onto disk, eventually the old girl just says it's time. She's been hinting to me quite a bit. Locking up is common for me because I was running Windows 98, but locking up in DOS mode on restart was beginning to look like it might be bad, and if I didn't change over soon, I was going to lose everything. I had over 500 MB of RAM in the old computer, which was considered a lot 5 years ago but with all the programs I run at a time, it just wasn't enough. So, I not only needed a bigger hard drive, I needed more RAM. So, bigger everything except monitor. I went to a high priced flat screen, which is absolutely marvelous because the quality is stunning, but stayed with 17 inches, mainly because that is the size of screen the majority of my clients and Internet using public use. For right now, anyway. It's too hard for me to judge what a web site is going to look like on a 17 inch monitor when I've built it on a 19 inch. I've already gotten a few surprises. I had been eagerly awaiting getting an updated operating system, (no, I didn't go overboard, just to 2000 Professional) so that I could run the new Firefox Browser. Web pages that had looked perfect in Explorer didn't look quite so perfect in Firefox. A few 'oops' showed up. So you go looking in your code and find out that no matter how picky you were or how careful, you've still managed to put a p in the html where you shouldn't have, and so on. So besides spending over a week moving programs and data over to the new computer, I've been spending some time fixing up oopsies on web sites that show up on the Firefox browser. And at least another few days to go....

24/05/2005 9:57 PM

The Timber Guest House

Just finished a header banner for a local Bed and Breakfast on Nimpo Lake. Steve and Lise James have a newly built post and timber house on a peninsula jutting out into the lake with a full circle view of the mountains and surrounded on three sides by water. They have a brand new suite over their garage that is just a beauty. It features a private entrance with a little deck to sit on with a view overlooking a private bay at the back, and large windows on the other two sides that overlook the magnificent mountain ranges and a bird's eye view of Nimpo Lake. Ranges surrounding the lake include the Coastal Mountains, Rainbows, Itchas, and Ilgatchuz. The suite includes a full kitchen, dining area, large bathroom and living/sleeping area. Tile and hardwood floors, and cedar and pine tongue and groove walls and ceiling throughout. The window seat, storage counter in the kitchen and the large vanity in the bathroom were built by the homeowner and are unique and beautiful. You can cook your own meals or take meals with your hosts, or have them cooked and brought to your door. Activities include hiking, canoeing, fishing, wildlife photography, birdwatching and mountain biking in summer or you can bring your cross country skiis or snowmobile for winter fun. Other activities can be arranged for you and include trailriding, longer horseback packtrips and flightseeing in a chartered floatplane..
If you'd like to know more, check out the B&B page.

23/05/2005 1:23 PM

Victoria Day Long Weekend

Well, it's the long weekend in May and the weather just isn't great. For those of you in other countries, we celebrate an English Queen's birthday here in Canada. Don't ask... Traditionally in Canada, this has been the spring planting day. One hopes that all the frosts are past no matter what province you are in, and you plants your annuals and your veggies out today. I never did because I don't like buying the same plant twice. But for those that get eager to get on with their gardens, the greenhouses thank you. They're the first to admit that they do a whopping business about a week after the May long weekend when everyone comes in to replace the plants they lost to frost the weekend before.
On the BC news the weather man has indicated that the last 9 out of 15 May long weekends have had showers to heavy rains, but that's down on the coast. Here, you can usually rely on it being pretty darn nice. Usually. I'm really beginning to wonder about the global warming theory. We ended up with spring in Nimpo Lake in the middle of winter, and now when it should be spring? It's periodically sunny, cloudy, overcast, spitting rain and breezy. Not the ingredients for a really memorable May long weekend that is generally the first vacation weekend of the summer. It's especially disappointing to those that return here year after year on this weekend expecting it to be nice as usual. The big plus, however, is the cooler and moister it stays now, the less risk of forest fires in mid summer. Which is actually a huge plus considering we are still in the middle of a seven year drying trend according to the Forestry Ministry.
The fishing in Nimpo Lake is excellent right now, as are the fish. Had a couple of nice rainbow trout off the Bar-B-Que last night and it just doesn't get any better than that!

22/05/2005 10:33 PM

Welcoming Escott Bay Resort

Escott Bay Resort on Anahim Lake has signed up for a listing on Resorts BC. Escott Bay has been around for a long, long time, and Bill and Darlene Van Es are your hosts. Their lodge is located on Anahim Lake and has a little bit of everything. They have full service cabins as well as a couple cabins where you use central facilities. There is a large chalet with several separate bedrooms and there are several 'sleeping' rooms in the lodge itself as well as a fully serviced campground. They also have a huge covered and screened gazebo with an awesome stone firepit/Bar-B-Que for those evenings around the campfire where you don't feel like being carted off by the mosquitoes. Bill Van Es will take you out horseback riding for a day or for a longer pack trip that can last several days, where the cooking is done for you over a campfire and you roll up in a sleeping bag at night. You'll see some incredible country from the back of a horse, and lots of wildlife. Go fishing, hiking, birdwatching or canoeing, or come for the winter season. Bring your snow machine or your hosts will provide you with cross country skis and show you their groomed trails. Meals are available by reservation in the fully licensed "Corral" and great hospitality guaranteed! If you would like to know more about this Resort you can check out their listing on the Resorts page or go directly to Escott Bay Resort.

21/05/2005 7:31 PM

The Mountains

One can't begin to describe the mountains in this region of the West Chilcotin. The Chilcotin is a high plateau surrounded by mountain ranges. The Coastals to the west and south, the Rainbows to the north, and the Itcha/Ilgachuz ranges to the north and east among many more ranges. Mt. Waddington, or Mystery Mountain as it was once called, is the highest mountain in British Columbia entirely within her borders at 13,704 ft.
The mountains, covered in a mantle of snow in clear, magnifying winter air makes you feel as though you can reach out and touch them. In summer, the alpine abounds with wildlife both big and small. In any season, they enhance the view no matter what direction you look and give endless pleasure to hikers, photographers, snowmobilers, and trailriders.
Unfortunately, we so take them for granted that I don't have enough pictures that could begin to describe their beauty and diversity.

On another matter, you will probably notice that I have reverted back to an arial font for this feed. Although the serif font has traditionally been considered the most readable on printed matter, personally, I don't think it is as readable on a computer screen. I prefer the sans serif fonts for lots of text, and I think bolded and italicized text is far more readable in an Arial type font. If you don't agree, you can always let me know.
JB

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 hope 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, so join me!

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

Wilderness Adventures - May Week Three