The Rover-Landers of BC

As some of you may know, there is a small group of trucks in the NWT doing the Canol road again this summer.

We have be in touch with them as of last night, Kris was able to get in touch with his brother over the HF radio.

All is well, there are currently (as of Aug. 21) 20 kms from the spot they got to 2 years ago (where they posted the sign and turned around) and progressing well. When they get to the sign they are going to push the “all OK” button on there Spot transmitter and keep moving. You can watch there progress here

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/face ... fTGUbP7KlZ


They left the lower mainland on Sunday Aug. 14th and got to Ross River on the 17th, they then spent a full day relaxing beside a lake and hit the trail on the 19th.

Weather has been poor, rain and cold most days. No major problems, just some minor ones. Pete;s winch is dead, mechanical failure on a long pull up a steep slope. Glen rolled backwards and crushed his exhaust and broke his tail lights, they have cut the exhaust off under the truck and it is all good. Kris dented he rear diff cover and had a power steering leak, but both are fixed now.

I have received this info second hand, some of it may be untrue.

We hope to hear from them again tonight or tomorrow and I will report any news.

Thanks for posting this! We've been curious about their progress.

And welcome to the forum.

OK...so I've been living vicariously through Pete, Kris and Glenn. My daughter is getting married on September 17th so the time was just too tight...let alone the funds necessary for the trip...alas... :(

As of 6:10pm today they have passed the point where the 2009 Canol Expedition turned back. Good on you boys!!!!!!!!!!!! :D :D :D

From what I understand the weather they are dealing with is a lot worse than 2 years ago, with a lot of rain. This will swell those rivers considerably. :shock: :shock:

Given they are down 2 trucks from the 2009 group and they have to split the raft and all the fuel necessary over just 3 trucks (no Sankey this time) they are doing fantastic.

I guess tomorrow will be a big day as they are only under 20K to the Twitya River, which is a BIG DEEP crossing...not factoring in the increased rainfall they are dealing with.

Good luck and Godspeed!

Pete called me last night at 9 pm, they are camped 1.5-2 kms past the turn around point from last year. All is well.

He confirmed what Dave said about being 20 kms from the river, and back into the thick bush, they will be going a lot slower now.

More info on the team, I just talked to Kris' brother, who talked to Kris on the HF last night.

The did a river crossing yesterday, had to drive around 100 M downstream, Kris did not figure they would be able to make it back up the same stream if they had to. Very fast flowing and deep.

Glen broke a rear axle so they will be fixing it this morning before they head out. He has spares with him.

Weather has been up and down, changes every few minutes.

Dave, Do you have a way point for the Twitya crossing? I am trying to figure out where it is and there route.

thanks

The river crossing is in this area:

64° 7'55.00"N
128°24'40.91"W

HeadDamage wrote:The river crossing is in this area:

64° 7'55.00"N
128°24'40.91"W

Yup...somewhere close to those coordinates...although I think they may need to do some exploring to find the best crossing.

If they need to use the raft...this will now be very, very challenging given that Pete now has no winch.

If they get past this then they will be on the North Side of the River. Immediately after they have a major road washout/slide to contend with around Trout Creek, then they need to stay left at the fork in the road just around Devils Pass...this will put them up on the Plains of Abraham which according to reports should be a good section of the road for a while.

Next stop would be Camp 80 (miles from N.Wells). Then they will be on the south side of the Little Keele River (Pump Station #3) and have another dangerous crossing of the Little Keele (3+ feet) just pass Canol Lake.

From there they will enter Dodo Creek with rocks the size of VW Bugs and lots of water crossings back and forth. They will pass Pump Station #2 before entering Dodo Canyon. Once through this they have one more nasty deep water crossing....the Carcajou River...then its a slog through the Muskeg to the Mackenzie River and a view of Norman Wells on the other side.

Then they get to turnaround and do it all over again in reverse.

Here is todays report,

Yesterday they did 8 kms in 1.5 hours then spent the rest of the day digging out a slide. The road is along the edge of the river and the hill side above have washed out. They had to tie the trucks off to trees to keep them from falling down the side slope as they drove over the slide.

There are more large slides ahead and Kris estimates 3 days of digging to get past them.

There is talk of turning back as there is only 3 of them and its lots of digging.

Plan today is to scout the area for bypasses to the slides and come up with a plan (don't expect to see them move much today)

Oh and good note they fixed Pete's winch, something had come loose in side it, but it all seems good now.

They have been lucky and can get reliable use of the HF radio every night back to Mark in Langley, not bad for 1800 + kms.

Been there...done that...I feel their pain.

The area where we turned around in '09 was almost completely overgrown, and even with 5 trucks and 7 guys it was incredibly difficult. I can only imagine doing this with 3 guys...they must be completely exhausted.

If they can make it around the bend north into the valley towards the Twitya River they "may" find some relief as the valley seems fairly broad and flat...although it could be again heavily overgrown.

Thanks for the updates via Mark...greatly appreciated.

Dave_F

Looks like they have turned around. That is too bad, I suspected that it would be a problem when myself and Norm had to pull out :( Three guys is just not enough if there is pioneering work to be done on any large scale.

Perhaps this mounted in the back of a rover might be helpful?
http://www.shurlift.ca/components/com_v ... 318578.jpg
http://www.shurlift.ca/all-seasons/outd ... cial-order

Here is the news from last night

The spent the day hiking ahead on the "trail", found away around the first slide, but it would require a days worth of rigging and winching. Then 1 hours hike farther along there is a much larger slide, its way to much manual labor to continue. 3 guys can't do it all.

Plan is to turn back today (aug 25) and head for Ross River.

They did not have rain yesterday and the rivers are running much less, so they have high hopes that they can make the 100M up stream that awaits them.

They should have 4-5 days back to Ross River, and 2 more to Quesnel, then they plan to turn west and do the Mackenzie trail and take the ferry over to the Island and head for home.

Well they tried, and they tried much harder than those of us who are watching them online. I commend them for there hard effort.

I will keep posting when I hear from Mark.

Thats too bad. All of the planning, time off and money spent....bummer.

I suspected that they were going to be shorthanded when i heard the final truck count. You just can't do this type of trip with just 3 guys.

KUDOS to Pete, Kris and Glenn for getting as far as they did with the weather, mechanical issues and the "trail" conditions...they must be disapointed and exhausted.

Dave

sdo wrote: They should have 4-5 days back to Ross River, and 2 more to Quesnel, then they plan to turn west and do the Mackenzie trail and take the ferry over to the Island and head for home.

Unfortunately Mackenzie Trail is closed too due to fires...

http://www.sitesandtrailsbc.ca/search/s ... &type=Site

Pelican Lake and Tsacha Lake have forest fires.

Dave

Too wet in one place and too dry in the other...

Well where else can we send them, they have 2 full weeks left of vacation time, what other trails are there between Ross River and Langley?

I talked with Pete last night on the sat phone, they are making good time and hope to be to Ross River in 3 more days.

He said there will be some winching along the area in front of the hunting camp, lots of water in the area.

Some one asked what HF frequency they are communicating on.
They start on 7.280 at 9:30 PM and move up or down from them depending on others on that frequency.

Hope that helps.

There is something north of Ross River called the "Wind River Trail" but I don't know much about it.

I've driven to Inuvik on the dempster, nice drive but not off road.

Didn't someone talk about an old rail line that we should try sometime that was in North Western BC?

HeadDamage wrote:There is something north of Ross River called the "Wind River Trail" but I don't know much about it.

I've driven to Inuvik on the dempster, nice drive but not off road.

Didn't someone talk about an old rail line that we should try sometime that was in North Western BC?

Hope I can make this work. I'm posting from my phone and cut paste not so easy...

http://roverlanders.bc.ca/roverforum/vi ... ght=skeena

I was hopIng we'd do this in the next year or two but since they're in the area, they can check it out.

Dave

That was the post I was thinking of Dave.

PS... I see they haven't moved much today, Hope they are just taking the day off.

Looks like they have made good time coming out... hope they had fun even if they could not get to the river. I'm looking forward to details and photos to see what it was like this time :)

Yea, definitely looks like they're making use of the midnight sun as they've been going all night and nearly hit the Yukon border already. (Or they left the SPOT on overnight :lol: )

Obviously they're out onto the "road" portion of the trail again.

Hi there it's Mark. I have never posted on here before but I couldn't wait until tomorrow to post what is happening. I spoke to Kris tonight and here is the story.

Currently they are camped at a de-commisioned tungsten mine called Mactung. It has been closed since 2005. There is tonnes of equipment and enough jet fuel and diesel to get them all home, but they won't be taking it.

Glen lost his clutch 100 km's back and he managed to get to this point without one. They figured he wouldn't be able to get much further so they decided to fix it the bush way.

They used two winch cables, one pulling the vehicle over on it's side and the other one holding it back, and flipped it over and rested in on the big float bags for the raft. They pulled out the transmission today and noticed that the pressure plate springs were weak and worn so the pressure plate was not engaging. Kris went to the back of his truck and pulled out a new pressure plate, clutch and thrust bearing. They assembling back together tomorrow and might stay one more day just to relax. The only other vehicle issue they have had is Pete's vacuum pump crapped out part way into the trip and it started pissing out oil. Kris went to the back of his truck and gave Pete a new one.

(If your vehicle breaks down make sire there is a polak around)

Kris figures they will be headed straight back home after this with the exception of a quick stop at the 100 mile property.

I will be talking to him again tomorrow and I will update again as long as my wife promises to type for me again. :)

Leanna... ooops I mean Mark.

Hi Leanna, opps I mean Mark! :wink:
Congrats on your first post! See these Typewriter/computor thingies aren't so hard to master....

Thanks for the update, Kris must of been carrying a ton of spares!
Are there not any trails around the 100 mile they can explore for a couple of days?

Keep us updated,
Cheers, Andy

PS Thanks also to Alex for all the previous updates.... those radios are amazing

Mark,

thanks for posting, sorry I did not answer the phone last night, I was in bed (some of us have to get up at silly o'clock for work you know)

Hey Mark,
I heard from Stuart Longair that he will be at the Prince George camp that they stopped at in 2009. So he asked me to pass on that they are welcome to stop by on their way down if they need anything or just a place to rest. Maybe you can let them know when you speak to them next.

Mark, Any idea when they will be at 83 mile????

Karl

So I talked to Kris again last night and they have Glen's truck fixed. His roof-rack still needs to be re-attached and the rest of his equipment needs to be put back in his truck. Pete is working on his calliper as it is leaking.
He figures they will be heading home later in the afternoon today after they get that stuff wrapped up. Kris figures they should be home in about 5 days or so.

He also mentioned last night that they are at an elevation of 6200 ft. at a mountain peak. They took a look at the mine shaft yesterday and found out that the mine shaft is frozen so they weren't able to get a closer look.

The weather yesterday durning the day was nice and Kris was able to walk around in shorts and a t-shirt but later in the day it had started snowing. By the time I talked to him last night at 10pm the temperature was 1 degree.

I asked him how much wildlife they have seen and he said nothing except caribou.

That's it for last night. I will be talking with him again tonight and I will report again.

Kris has turned the spot back on, so they must be getting ready to roll.

Marks not getting the credit for this one!

Mark talked to Kris again last night and they were 100kms from Ross River, and 370 kms from Watson Lake. Apparently it is a really crappy road to get there.

Kris figures it will be 3-4 days to 100 mile. He is without brakes until Prince George. A rear brake pad is metal to metal so he is using his gears until then. Mark shipped some new pads to Prince George to meet him when he gets there.

Glen's truck is also still having some issues and is without 3 or 5th gear for now. They are thinking that it is just from an oil leak, but that was getting check today.

That's all for now

Leanna

so I got off the radio with Kris A few minutes ago. Oil didn't fix Glen's transmission he still doesn't have 3rd or 5th gear. It grinds really bad when he tries , they figure must be the syncros. Their top speed will be 80 Km .

They just left a motel restaurant at Watson lake when I got a hold of him . Kris said that they have to drive 70km till they rest tonight.
I guess thats all for now from MARK!!

With No help of the Wife :)

Glens seems to have fixed his transmission, he now has 5th gear. It seems like it was the spring ball on top of the shifter that engages the fork, so their average speed is about 95km.

The figure they will be hitting Prince George this evening, they were still driving last night at 10 after a late dinner. Kris' brake pads should be arriving in PG today just in time to meet them.

Kris figures by tonight they should have cell reception, and will most likely be home on Sunday.

You're getting quite good at this Mark!

Soon you'll graduate from a Grease Monkey to an Apprentice, and before you know it you'll be a Big Wheel. :wink:

Thanks again for posting and keeping us all up to date.

cheers, Dave

I just talked to Pete on the phone, they are having lunch in Fort Saint John, headed to PG tonight, 100 mile on sat, and home sunday.

OK Guys, how about jarring loose with some photos for the gallery? Kris? Pete? Glen?

While we patiently wait for the photos :roll:

This news is interesting....
Magnitude 5.3 Earthquake - NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA
2011 September 25th 07:02:57
63.454°N, 126.330°W
Depth
2.9 km (1.8 miles) (poorly constrained)
Region
NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA
Distances
205 km (127 miles) South of Norman Wells, NW Territories, Canada

Maybe a few more land slides accross the road now!

Two guys tried it on Quads this summer, some good video here:

http://www.fieldandstream.com/adventure ... -mountains

They got to the main river and tried to cross but couldn't make it all the way.

Just found this article:

http://www.nnsl.com/frames/newspapers/2 ... 11can.html

Who owns the rights to Mother Nature?
Land Rovers on the Canol Trail spark questions on future use of Mackenzie Mountain land

Nathalie Heiberg-Harrison
Northern News Services
Published Saturday, September 3, 2011

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
The Canol Trail is slowly being destroyed by Land Rover enthusiasts intent on conquering the 320-km heritage route, according to Garth Wallbridge, a Norman Wells resident who has been hiking the trail since 2006.
NNSL photo/graphic

Tire treads from Land Rovers seen on the Canol Heritage Trail were seen from the sky. Mark Patrick, manager of tourism and parks for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, took a photo near the Yukon border about two weeks ago. - photo courtesy of Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment

"They've made a heck of a mess," he said.

The trail, which stretches through the Mackenzie Mountains from Norman Wells to the Yukon border, is touted by the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment as one of the most challenging hikes in Canada.

It was constructed during the Second World War by United States Armed Forces, but later abandoned when the terrain proved too hard to maintain.

Now it attracts people on foot, bike, horseback, ATV and in four-wheel drive vehicles who want to see the canyons, mountains and valleys left behind by the soldiers.

"The harm is this: it is a very fragile environment and a very harsh environment," Wallbridge said.

The Rover-Landers of British Columbia, which he said caught his attention in 2009 when they first tried to conquer the trail, is a non-profit society for Land Rover owners and enthusiasts, according to the group's website.

In 2009 members of the group managed to complete one-third of the trail before running out of fuel, and this past August they reached just farther than that before poor driving conditions forced them to turn around.

Wallbridge said the trips, although adventurous, pose an extreme risk to the environment, especially during river crossings.

"It's kind of like being in a big washing machine, because these rivers are so fast and the water is so hard and fast and furious. They're getting the underside of their vehicles cleaned, and that stuff is getting left in the river," he said.

"Nobody is fully aware just how bad things are out there."

He called the disregard for Canol wildlife "disturbing in its ignorance."

"What happens is these folks see pretty pictures of the Canol Trail and they go, 'Well, we'll just ride down the trail in our bicycles, or our four-wheelers, or our vehicles,'" he said.

Wallbridge said regulations have to be put in place to ensure the trail is kept in good conditions, but the trick isn't deciding who gets to use it, but who gets to rule it.

"Who manages it? Nobody. That's the bottom line," he said.

Although the Canol Heritage Trail is technically Crown land, and its clean-up falls to the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development, Wallbridge said it could very well become a part of a land claim agreement and eventually fall in the hands of the territorial government.

"It's those Aboriginal governments, working with the feds and with the GNWT, that have a legal and moral responsibility to sort this out before it becomes impossible to correct. And I think it's heading that way," he said.

"The damage will be so extensive. If the woodland caribou are chased out of there by these people then what is anyone from the three levels of government going to say? 'Woops, we should have acted earlier'?"

Funny that the article doesn't mention the Toyota's that attempted it, or the ATV's that have also been on it.

This is an older article and they did contact us for a response, but we decided not to add fuel to the fire.

Really...it is just a small fringe group that wants to keep it all to themselves.

Still classified as a road and with public access.

In closing they really need to look at the trail and perhaps consider cleaning up the environmental mess left behind before casting stones at us.

My dream would be to one day do this trail,but now I'm not sure that will happen.

Has anyone every successfully finished the trail from start to finish?

franko wrote:Has anyone every successfully finished the trail from start to finish?

I believe the consensus is that is is not driveable without some heavy machinery work. The route chosen, which follows river valleys, was not the best choice for a sustainable road and pipeline.

Dave, this is from the 2011 trip, not 2009 that you were on. No one tried to contact Glenn, Kris, or me about this.

They said the picture that was used in the article was taken near the Yukon-NWT border and they claim the tracks were from us. The road is still in good shape for dozens of kilometers past the border so we had no reason not to use it. Why would we subject our vehicles to the abuse of leaving the road, not to mention that we were on tight schedule with no time to veer off the well established road. The tracks in the picture are not ours.

They go on to say the damage from our tracks will last for years but no mention is made of the oil soaked ground and asbestos filled buildings that will need to be dealt with. What are the dozers and trucks going to do to the ground if they ever find the funds to clean up the toxic dump areas? The government up there used to publish a hiker's guide for the Canol but stopped doing so because of their concern over the liability of the areas that need remediation. But it's our tracks that are killing the Canol...

No mention is made of the tracks left by hunter's trucks and ATVs, that go in and out over and over. We're chasing out the wildlife? By passing through twice a year (once in, once out)? I don't recall killing anything as the hunters do. I have no doubt that if we paid for the mining rights, they would be happy to allow us to pave a road right through...

But we're the ignorant ones... Whatever. Better to be ignorant than a hipocrite.

Thanks for dragging that load of BS back out Andrew, much appreciated. You better sell your evil Rover along with that raft of yours.

I would recommend the Canol to anyone that has the time (it's a very long way). Just pack out what you packed in and be prepared for the kind of BS published above that is sure to follow.

Rant finished.

I just thought that you would like to see the article so that you know that it is out there. I posted it because it came up on another rover forum. No offense intended.

Despite all this BS that has followed each one of these trips it has been by far the
best adventure I have been on and would not hesitate to go there again,
after all it is within anyone's legal right to be there !

In fact, if anyone ever thinks of organizing another trip to the Canol count me in!!

kRiS wrote:Despite all this BS that has followed each one of these trips it has been by far the
best adventure I have been on and would not hesitate to go there again,
after all it is within anyone's legal right to be there !

In fact, if anyone ever thinks of organizing another trip to the Canol count me in!!

:thumbright: :thumbright: :thumbright:

Have to agree with Kris on that!

Pete...i knew that, in fact i think i showed you the pics when i first came across them online.