Completed: Weekend on trails east of Harrison Lake

by **BC backroader** » Mon Jul 06, 2015 1:42 am

I spent Sat afternoon and Sun morning exploring a couple of the branches that lead off the Harrison Lake East FSR.

On Sat Afternoon, my daughter Andi and I picked up my rockhound friend Jim, and headed north on the East FSR from the village of Harrison. Our first excursion off the main logging road took us up the Bear Creek FSR, climbing steeply into a 7km long valley, with numerous side banches that climbed even higher onto the north ridge of the valley, giving some great views of the area. The side trails were very steep, with lots of sharp, loose rock, and some drainage trenches, bringing those sections up to 2.5+ on the trail rating. I did manage to bump the skid plates a couple of times, and pulled the right front corner of the bumper skin off it's mount while turning around at the end of an overgrown road. It took about 2 minutes to fix, as I managed to pop it back on the mount stud with a little twist and push by hand. Both the climb and descent were done in 4lo, to keep the motor, trans, and brakes happy. On the way down, we stopped at a rocky outcrop that jutted off the side of the road, overlooking the main lake, to eat lunch and take pics. Jim didn't see any rocks that interested him on this trail.

Back down on the main FSR, we went further north up the lake, past an extremely crowded campsite alomg the lakeshore. There were at least 100 vehicles parked along the shoulder of the very narrow logging road. The reason for this site's popularity is the chance to pitch your tent right on the beach, within feet of the cool green glacial lake water. At km 30 the main road leaves the lakeshore and follows the valley of the Big Silver Creek another 30 km into the mountains. At 37km, we left that road, and went up the Clear Creek FSR for 12 km , to the Clear Creek hotspring, where we found the few campsites already occupied. The original pool, built to about 20' x 50' of cedar logs by a lady prospector back in the '50s, was no longer holding water, and the modern plastic hot tubs trucked in by more recent visitors, had mud and leaves in the bottom, so we passed on taking a dip. The water is very hot, about the hottest you'd ever want a hot bath to be, and completely odorless, while most hot springs that I've found have a strong sulpher smell. On the run in to the spring, my daughter spotted a large quartz vein alongside the rough trail, so we stopped for Jim to gather a bucket of samples, and that made his day. We finally headed out towards pavement at 8PM, and were back at home by 10.

I called a couple of friends who are intersted in the area for their ATV adventure tour business, and after hearing my description of the Bear Creek trail, asked if I'd take them up for a look on Sun. morning, so I repeated that portion of the trip with them, heading out at 6AM, to avoid the worst of the afternoon heat. Just a few km up the main road, we saw a young Coast Blacktail buck, his velvet antlers not yet as tall as his ears. I got a dim picture of him in the morning light, then we continued to Bear Creek. Thomas and Bill were impressed with the panoramic views, and even more impressed when we rounded a bend in the trail to see the hind end of a long legged reddish brown bear hightailing away into the timber. The sighting was so brief, just 3 or 4 seconds, that none of us was able to get a picture, even though our cameras were handy, and from the rear view, we couldn't tell if it was a black or a grizzly. By noon, the smoke from multiple forest fires further inland was filling the valley, so we headed back to town for lunch at the pub.

Below are a few puotos from both days: