Access Denied

On one particular morning as we made our way up the trail, we immediately realized this wasn't going to be your ordinary ride into the backcountry. The snow was so heavy in the lower elevations that it loaded up the Alder trees bending and braking most of them the entire way up the access road.

We figured this situation would only last a couple of kilometers, so we shook the unbroken trees to free them of snow, allowing them to gain some height. For the completely broken ones, we had to cut them in half and move the debris off the road. This technique worked well, but the going was slow, which we could tolerate since the day's plan was exploration mode due to steady snowfall, with no real promise of shooting or filming.

Around the fifth kilometer there was a pretty big grouping of trees we needed to remove for passage, so after we started in with the cut, a big Alder snapped and fell just a few meters away. It was definitely a close call and made us rethink our plan...we could continue on and risk other trees coming down, but we also had to consider what the trail might look like at day's end.

With the facts in hand, we decided it best to not continue up the trail, laugh it off, then eat our lunch and call it a day. On a side note, we made it five kilometers in two hours time, and we still had seven kms to go until reaching the lower alpine. After loading up the sleds and gear in the trucks, we made the drive back into town, while witnessing other situations happening along the highway...downed trees and cars off the road...it was just one of those days. Blotto