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Chipmunk TrailsChilliwack AreaJuly 1/09 Written by Greg WhiteRock posted a Canada Day trip, and there were a few takers. I decided to ride along in WhiteRock's Rhino so I could take some photos and video; it's tough to do when you're trying to get your own quad through the obstacles. 
We wanted to run the steep trail that we took DirtTrax TV down, but from the bottom. At the start of the trail, I noticed that Stanjake had a flat right rear tire; he found a hole in the inside sidewall and fixed with a plug. 
We entered at one of the exits for the Jamtart Hill trail. This trail is NARROW for a Rhino. In a couple of sections when the trees were a little tight against the roll cage, we had to back up and take a different line, and in one particularly Rhino-unfriendly spot we had to pick up the Rhino and manually shift the front end over a foot to the left to clear a tree, as no amount of jockeying would free us from what we were caught on. The rear tire was frequently right at the edge of the shelf. But we made it through. At one of the steep switchback climbs, Jax somehow got caught by a rut and sent her quad sideways into the bushes. She was assisted by Freddie Fudpucker, Roadhog, and WhiteRock, and after some tippiness she was facing the right direction again. In the video, you can hear somebody saying "Now doesn't THAT feel better!" and I am sure Jax was agreeing. 
At the same time, unbeknownst to us, Stanjake was having problems of his own, down the trail behind us. But he got it worked out and pulled up as Jax was being sent on her way. Shortly after that, in another steep rutted climb, Jax slid her right-side tires into the rut, started to toppled over onto her right side as her two left tires rose up, and was almost tossed off of her quad. In the video, you can see her pushing against the ground with her right hand as Stanjake steadies her quad. Then in about the same spot, WhiteRock dropped his left rear tire into the rut and three-wheeled the Rhino, the right front tire about 3 feet in the air. Just past that point, he had our right front and left rear tires in the air, rocking the Rhino through. We then decided to follow an overgrown road that headed further up the mountain, that none of us had explored before. I hiked it with Roadhog's chainsaw, trimming back the larger branches and deadfall, as Roadhog rode his quad and cleared the debris. After a while I started getting tired, so Roadhog took over chainsaw duties. After a while, the others came up from behind, and passed me. 
I dragged myself up the trail until I found everyone stopped at a washed-out section of shelf road. WhiteRock said "Sorry, I thought you were up here already, or I would have given you a ride!" I was pretty tired after that hike. The washed-out section was caused by a small creek running down the embankment, then down the road, then over the edge. After some discussion, we decided that the wash-out didn't look too bad, so the quads and Rhino went across. Jax didn't feel like riding across it, so Roadhog took her quad through it. Jax and I walked through it, and once we were in it, I commented that it didn't look so bad when were actually standing in it. WhiteRock's Rhino, being a bit wider than the quads, knocked some of the rocks down over the edge as the rear tires slid to the right. 
We continued up the trail; WhiteRock and I alternately trimming branches up to 2" thick with the Fiskars bypass loppers from the seats of the Rhino. It was obvious to us that this trail hadn't been maintained in quite a while. At one point, Jax was waiting for us to get over a cross-ditch. We stopped to chat, and Jax remarked "What's that strange smell?" WhiteRock sniffed the air, and said "Yeah, what is that?" I couldn't smell it, so I walked closer to Jax's quad. *sniff* I said, "That's the smell of tree sap against your exhaust." Jax looked down; sure enough, she had backed into a sapling and it was jammed in against her exhaust and her rear fender. 
The trail eventually ended in a clearing with a nice view of Mt Cheam, where we stopped for lunch. The trip back down was uneventful, and we noted that some nice ATVers had trimmed the larger branches back for us. Jax decided to ride her quad over the washed-out section (under the watchful eyes of Stanjake), and had no trouble. 
We headed down to the first gravel pit, and were amused when what I think was a large black pine sawyer beetle buzzed Jax and she suddenly jumped up and ducked and vigorously swatted at the air. Then it did it again, and she leaped out of her seat dashed away from her quad. After that, we couldn't see it, until WhiteRock noticed that it was siting on Jax's goggles, and remarked about how funny it would have been if Jax hadn't noticed and had put the goggles on. At this time, we were joined by Pussimunger, who had left late and by chance had found us. During our break, I chatted with a couple of dirtbikers, and I hope they've checked out Quads.ca. We decided that we'd try to find a new-to-them trail that WhiteRock and Reidler had found a couple weeks ago. We headed off and started checking out the side trails. After a couple of dead-ends, we found a great little technical loop that got us off-camber and had us squeezing between the trees. And the best part was, this wasn't the original trail we were looking for, which means we'd found another new-to-us trail. 
In one spot, WhiteRock managed to get whacked in an eye by a branch, so he put his goggles back on. I had my goggles on for most of the trip, and had gotten whacked in the goggles numerous times. There was one section that was just too narrow for the Rhino; we had to put one tire over a log but couldn't do it due to the angle and position of the tires, so we winched over it. I got stabbed by a sharp branch in this location; I have a 4" gouge on my rib cage just under my armpit. 
On the final section of the loop, we had to travel at an angle from a berm down into a ditch; WhiteRock was certain that we'd tip over as soon as the left front tire dropped into an upcoming hole, so I hung off the right side of the Rhino while Jax grabbed on to the back of the Rhino's box. So because I was occupied, there's no video or photos of that part. Once we were back at the main road, some of the group left for the trucks. After a while, just WhiteRock, Jax, and I were left. We chatted for a while, then finally headed back to our trucks at a leisurely pace. We had been on the trail for about 8 hours (including breaks), and had travelled about 50 kilometers. Watch the video - Part 1 (6:03) Watch the video - Part 2 (6:02) Watch the video - Part 3 (4:51) Sorry, I tried uploading the video in one part, but the file was too large for Metacafe, which would have required me to reduce the quality, so I split the video into three parts so the quality would still be somewhat decent. |
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