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Re: Kelowna

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 10:21 am
by stevec
I moved this to the "lj meets" section. Hope to see this meet come together!

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 3:23 pm
by Rich-lj
We don't get into Kelowna until Saturday, so Sunday would be the prefered day for myself. Also does anyone have a spare seat I could inhabit for the day as I don't think the car rental company would take to kindly to me taking thier car off road :hammer:

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Fri Jul 31, 2009 4:33 pm
by Ruby
Someone will have an extra seat. I would think people would go Friday night and camp until Sunday. Two days of trail rides, so at least you will be there for one.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Tue Aug 04, 2009 2:35 pm
by Rich-lj
Excellent. We don't get in to Kelowna til Saturday afternoon as we are driving down from Vancouver, so I will be available armed with my camera on Sunday :D

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:42 am
by stevec
I wonder how long it would take to drive my LJ81 up there... I know my oldest daughter will have a soccer game Saturday, but if it's early enough in the day, I might be able to swing it...

That assumes I have the exhaust fixed by then.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 10:14 am
by Ruby
Suzy drove his 80 much further, doooooo iiiit. :cool:

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 05, 2009 9:49 pm
by Glen Friesen
I might try to make it up and hitch a ride with Rick if he gets the truck done. If not maybe we wheel the sidekick just to get out. It will depend on how the prego wife is feeling though.

Glen.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Mon Aug 10, 2009 9:45 pm
by grantwt
Hi all,

I had some friends (toyota people) contact me about doing the whipsaw trail just outside of Princeton BC on Sept 12-13. We had originally been planning the wheeling trip for later in the fall, but they are camp directors, and get booked up pretty easy.

Anyways, I am still keen on doing our mini-meet, but want to make sure that we are not going to have everybody cancel last minute. I guess with just the date set, I am worrisome that if other things come up, people might cancel and I will end up sitting at home on the couch instead of wheeling.

So, it would be nice if we could confirm some sort of camping and wheeling areas. Does anybody have ideas around Kelowna? I personally am not very familiar with the area. I had thought that we could do the whipsaw trail if people wanted. The trail itself takes a fairly full day to go across, and there are other areas around if we were interested for other day trips. Princeton is actually slightly closer for us at the coast, and hwy 3 is 90km/h speed limit instead of 110km/h which might help stevec with his lj80 :poke: .

Anyways, let me know what you all think. I think it would work for rich, assuming he can swing by Princeton instead of going straight to Kelowna. It isn't that far out of the way.

Last thing I was going to ask, is how exclusive are we? I know my toyota buddies would love to tag along wherever we go, so is it ok to invite a diesel hilux and a runner, or is that a no-no? Thanks and sorry about writing a book.

Grant

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:05 am
by Ruby
I have been thinking whipsaw too. I've never been there but seen a bunch of pics and people describe it. Some of the scenery looks good too. I'll try and dig up some links to the reading I've done, Grant do you have links or maybe maps that people could look at?

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 10:47 am
by Ruby
Here's a few:

http://www.bc4x4.com/features/2007/bfg-whipsaw/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.bc4x4.com/tr/2005/whipsaw/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.jk-forum.com/showthread.php?t=91210" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Tue Aug 11, 2009 11:32 am
by Ruby
Map of where Princeton is:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Princeton&state=BC" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:30 am
by grantwt
I don't have a lot of info on it myself. I have been on the trail 3 times. The first was after a hard day on a trail that goes from Keremeos (45 minutes east and my old hometown) to Manning park. My dad got a nail through his tire as we were checking out an old mine, and we turned back before the nail caused the tire to go flat his spare tire was older than the truck (a 1963 Willy's pickup). The second time my uncle broke both axles on his land rover (Don't even ask me how). The third time we went through with no damage other than a secondary leaf spring and a few dents in a bumper.

During the later season the trail crosses dry alpine meadows for the most part. We did it in September last time, and there was only one mud hole that had no easy out. However, the mud hole is deceptive and looks a lot worse than it is. I posted a video of my dad driving through it. Worst comes to worse, it would be a short winch.

There is also only really one steep section with some rocks on it. I posted the video of one of the Toyota guys going through with a set of worn out stock wheels.

Other than that the trail is very decent. It has harder bits along the way where people can play with or simply skip. Loadstone lake at the Coalmont end makes a nice camping spot.

Anyways here are a few of my pics and vids from last year. Just click on the image and then go through the album. I'm terrible at remembering to take pictures so there are far less than there should be.

Image

Grant

edit: first try didn't let you get to vids

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 11:47 am
by Ruby
Looks like a good area. :cool:

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 4:07 pm
by Rich-lj
It sounds good, will be interesting to see what sort of off roading you guys like to do, I run a club called Gnarly Laners, the name says it all really - if your ride doesn't sustain some damage, the lane wasn't tough enough!

Anyway, as for the location, I have to drop my wife and daughter to our hotel in Kelowna first before I meet up with you guys, hopefuly there will be sat nav in the rental car :? Google earth says its 160km from Kelowna to Princeton, to us Brits thats a long way, but whilst in Canada I'll quit my whining and drive it if I have to haha

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 8:11 pm
by Ruby
160 km's is like going to the corner store and back for us. :D Sat nav, like a map?

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Wed Aug 12, 2009 10:22 pm
by grantwt
Ok I couldn't figure out how to do a good map so I traced the whipsaw trail in Google earth. Sorry if you do not have it, but I couldn't figure out how to make it work with Google maps. Anyways, just click on the link below, download the file and then open it with google earth.

My sister is in England right now, and she was all excited when she bought a sat nav. Doesn't seem they are near as popular around here so you can hope, but I wouldn't count on it unless you specify. But in all honesty the road between kelowna and Princeton is just two highways. If you can navigate a back-country lane, you can navigate your way to Princeton.

What I propose is that Saturday night we camp at lodestone lake, and travel through the rest of the way in the morning. Lodestone is about 1/2-3/4hr up the trail from Coalmont and someone would just need to pick up Rich from there or Princeton that afternoon evening. We could then get an early start on Sunday, and do the whole trail. It will take the entire day, especially if anybody has trouble, or we mess around on fun stuff too much. From the far end we would have to ferry rich and the few trailer rigs back to Coalmont so that they could get their rigs.

I don't know what people want to do on the Saturday though. We could either just do some exploring around the whipsaw, or we could go to a different trail. Anyways seeing as nobody made a stink, I'm going to tell my buddies with the toyota's to tag along. They're both running fairly stock rigs though so they should be comparable to us. And we'll just have to try and convince them that Suzuki's are better.

Grant

http://www.4shared.com/file/124712060/a ... ipsaw.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; password: lj

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 12:48 am
by Rick Friesen
Bigger trucks can be nice to have around if someone needs a pull, it's quicker then the winch. I'm still not 100% sure I'll be able bring the LJ81 or not, depends on if I get it finished. I might bring my tin top if I don't.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:00 am
by Ruby
Thanks for all your work Grant, helps having someone who has been to the area.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:29 am
by stevec
Rich-lj wrote:...its 160km from Kelowna to Princeton, to us Brits thats a long way, but whilst in Canada I'll quit my whining and drive it if I have to haha
It's about 500km from my house, about a six or seven hour drive. You can usually rent a nav. system with your rental car, though it's not too hard to find your way around up there. Just make sure you keep your car on the right side of the road!

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 10:41 am
by grantwt
Ok, I did a quick search and it was possible to import the Google earth map into google maps. So if you don't want to download earth and all that you can just go to the below url and see the map. You will have to zoom out before you see the trail.

--Link Deleted--

Grant

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 1:45 pm
by stevec
Great map Grant. It looks like the whole thing is about 50 miles (80km); how much of that will we need low range for?

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 2:03 pm
by Rich-lj
Sorry to throw a spanner in the works, I can't get to you guys until Sunday, we leave Vancouver on Saturday to travel to Vancouver, its our family holiday and I think my missus will get a pissy on if I spend the first night camping with a bunch of off roaders :pissed:

I can leave early on Sunday morning and head to Princeton, thats the best I can do unfortunately. Besides, you guys have slower speed limits over there compared to here in the UK, and lesser penalties if you get caught too!

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:29 pm
by grantwt
Probably about half of the length. I added points on the map where the trail goes to more backroads than forest service roads. Last time we did it (we went opposite to what I think we should do this time) we left at 8:00 from Princeton and made it to lodestone lake around 4:00-5:00. However, this time I would like to have more time to try some of the optional hill climbs and stuff. We went straight through, and while we didn't beat our machines apart, we didn't take our times either.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:39 pm
by grantwt
We'll have to think about it then. Unless you can be in princeton by about 7:00am I don't know if we will have time to do the whole trail. Unless maybe everybody is good with staying until the Monday. For me I only work Tuesday through Friday so it's nice and easy, but it might not work for others that way.

Re: Kelowna

Posted: Sat Aug 15, 2009 2:26 am
by Rich-lj
I told the wife about it and she said she doesn't give a dam, if I want to go play in the mud then she and my daughter will go shopping :| So I'm up for the Saturday night thing :)

Next problem will be... I won't have a tent or sleeping bag as we are staying in a hotel :roll: I may be able to buy a cheap sleeping bag when I get there, but don't fancy going to the extent of a tent too as I will have to leave it in Canada when we come home. Does anyone have a spare or fancy sharing, or do you guys just sleep under the stars lol

I'm going to have a busy day on the Saturday now - jetlag, a drive from Vancouver to Kelowna on the wrong side of the road, then kelowna to Princeton. I'm going to need a beer at the end of it! :whiskey: