Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Wilderness Camping in Luxury

Laura, Gilbert and I joined Luke at Tacheeda Lake Recreational Site. Luke had driven up in his Toyota truck carrying the Honda 230 CRF motorcycle on the back with a tent and sleeping bag in his cab. . I'd come up in my Ford F350 Diesel Harley Davidson Edition Truck with a Polaris 500 Sportsman ATV in the back towing a 26 foot Forest River Mini Lite Trailer.
After we set up camp it wasn't long before Luke was hanging out for dinner in the trailer and having showers there as well.  He slept in his 2 man tent and built great fires in the outdoor fire pit.  Sometimes we'd sit about his fire and sometimes he'd hang out in my heated trailer.  Gilbert liked being inside and outside. We were ostensibly on a moose hunt but we had fun doing other things as well.
All that goes with camping and RVing took place. We target practiced with bow and with rifle.  Luke and I swam in the lake and he even got an air mattress out for sun tanning while floating about the lake. I had a Honda 2500 generator going to provide electricity. It served all our needs. It even worked with a sump pump in the lake and hose that ran to our water tank. A switch of a switch and I had the tank refilled in minutes. No hauling water and no trips back to civilization for basics.
We did pick up more fuel at Bear Creek gas station and Convenience store, about an hour drive away on logging road and highway.  It was the closest town. We were about 120 km north of Prince George on the Cuchinka Red Forest Service Road just south of Mackenzie Junction. Since we drove up some mornings to the logging roads by Kennedy Siding we picked up fuel at the Mackenzie Junction gas station and restaurant too. So we did add fresh bread and coffee to our stock. We were using about 5 to 10 gal a day of gasoline for the ATV and Generator.  A couple of gals of fuel ran the generator 8 hours and 5 gals of fuel let me drive the ATV all day.  We used less really, those being max numbers since we were walking and sitting alot as well.  At first we had a couple of really sunny days  and I had the solar panels out charging the battery When the wind came up I put these away and settled for the generator.  I had a 'honey bucket' for emptying grey and black water.  Grey water is the water from washing and I just dragged this on it's wheels   to the nearby sand dump.  The septic tank served us for the whole week only needing emptying on the way home at an outlet.  Partly that was because we were away most of the day using the woods for a toilet. Laura was back at the RV guarding the site and as everyone knows girls don't shit.
I'm always amazed at all the wilderness activities that are encompassed in a hunt.  This time it involved camping, photography, hikin,g, swimming, 4x4 ing, RV'ing, offroad motorcycling, and ATV'ing.  Gilbert, Laura, and Luke were great companions.   The only lack of cooperation was with the bear, moose and deer who outsmarted us.  The grouse on the other hand hung around long enough so that we could bring them back to the barbecue.
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