A Ride to Bella Coola erkaneva©1999

I met Jean-Marc up in Snohomish after he got off work. I already had my R80G/S loaded down and ready to go the night before. Jean-Marc was still getting his gear together and attaching it to his R11GS when I arrived at his place in Snohomish. We left Snohomish at a little after 2:00PM took Hwy 9 up to Sumas. After crossing the border we rode on up the beautiful Fraser River Valley.

The weather was nice and unusually warm for this time of year. We were making good time going up Canadian highway 1 and we stopped for a bite of food at Cache Creek. It was getting dark fast and by the time we arrived at 100 Mile House it was time to get off the road. It was one of those warm nights were animals come out onto the road in mass. We camped at Lac la Hache Provincial Park campground with the hungry mosquitoes. Eva and I had camped at this same campgrounds when we were riding back from Alaska a couple years prior. I just remembered when Eva and I were here we were so worn out from sitting in the saddle all day long that we took the nature walk that weaves around the forest surrounding the campground. We were eaten alive by the mosquitoes then too.

It rained hard during the night. We climbed out of our tents and quickly packed up the camping gear and headed into Willians Lake. We had breakfast in Williams Lake at some bad shopping mall restaurant. We gassed up and took the turn off onto Hwy 20 towards Bella Coola. The road was paved up to somewhere past Tatla Lake. When we reached the first section of dirt road it was quite muddy. A slippery 3cm thick sheet of mud covered the road for the few miles. It was slippery in section but controllable because there was a hard base under the mud. It is a gentle rise up to 1500 meter Heckman Pass then it drops you into the valley towards Bella Coola. We stopped at the top of the pass to take a picture of the road sign indicating the grade. It was an 18% grade down a muddy single lane dirt road with no guard rails to keep you from sliding off the cliff into valley below waited before us. As we headed down the pass the mud ended up being quite manageable.

We met a truck coming up the pass who wanted to know if we had seen his buddy in another vehicle who was supposedly 20 minutes ahead of this guy. We never saw him. This was the only way unless he went over the side. It was fun turning around on the steep hill in the mud to go back to see what this guy wanted. I don't know why this guy just didn't back up. When the road started to level out in the valley we hit the paved road and stays paved all the way into Bella Colla.
Arrived in Bella Coola around 2:00PM and rode out to the ferry landing on the edge of town and took some pictures of the bay and surrounding mountains. We found restaurant in town had some lunch. We were not having very good luck so far in selecting restaurants in Canada. Bella Coola is a very small town and I am sure we were the talk of the town later that night.

We headed back up the pass, it is definitely more fun going uphill. This time I had a track log of the pass on the GPS and was able to see the sharp corners before we were actually upon them. It was a good reminder for a couple sharp turns. The mud had dried up on the upper pass by this point and more time was spent enjoying the scenery.

Camped near Tatla Lake at a BC Recreation campground. There was nobody there and we had our choice of campsites. We quickly built a campfire to stay warm as the sun was disappearing. It was a clear sky and we know it was going to be cold that night. With the clear skies and being far from the light noise of the city made it possible to see many stars that night. Altitude of the campsite was about 1100 meters.

It was very cold that night. It was one of those mornings where you lie in your sleeping bag trying to determine if it is better to stay were you are (warm) or jump out of the tent into the cold. There was frost on the tents. Jean-Marc read -3 Celsius on his watch when the sun came up. He was out of his tent very early to build a fire to help thaw us and the bikes out.
We rode into Alexis Creek for breakfast at a restaurant run by an immigrant from Brugge, Belgium. Talkative guy who also ran the Hotel in town. He gave us the story about a biker brawl in the pub with some Indians a few days before and he was happy to see we (bikers?) were not going to make any trouble.

We made a right turn at Hanceville and headed south. There was a shortcut on the map that showed an un-improved road that headed south east out of Hanceville. It ended up being a logging road going nowhere. We thought we had a good idea. The trail went into the woods about 20 kilometers and it was hard to decide if looking around for a way through or turning back was the best strategy. So we gave up trying to find the elusive passage and headed back to the main dirt road.

We got back to the main dirt road and headed south. Lots of gravel roads in this area. Seems to be a retirement area for Canadians. Lots of little lakes for fishing lined with small cabins. Following the Fraser River there was some good places to pull off the road to enjoy the sights. Jean-Marc's R11GS was a bit of a handful when we climbed over the drainage ditch to get over to the edge of the canyon. He had a no speed fall over, no damage to the big GS in this get off. We stayed on the dirt to the town of Pavilion and took the shortcut dirt road to Lillooet.
We camped in Lillooet at the campground where the BeeCee Beemers used to hold their rally. I knew this would be a good place due to the fact that I knew they had hot showers.

It felt good to wash off all the dust and mud. Nice G/S day with less than 150 km on sealed roads.

The rain finally found us. We left Lillooet in a light rain and preceded to head over Lake Road. When we reached the south side of Duffey Lake Road we turned onto the dirt road that goes around the north side of Lillooet Lake. Our plans were to ride to Port Douglas and see if we could make our way around Harrison Lake. A few years ago I was on the east side of the lake looking for a route around through to Lillooet with no success. Our map showed an un-improved trail on the west side of the lake.

The road around Lillooet Lake was muddy and very slippery at first but changed to sand/gravel mix. When we arrived at the small town on the north side of Harrison Lake we knew we had found the un-improved road that goes around the lake. A steep boulder strewn hill climb that looked like it was created by a D6 Cat sat before us. I gassed it and bounced my way up to the top of the hill, Jean-Marc followed. This trail is not for the timid. Lots of big rocks and stream crossings.
I was happy that there was no downhill sections like some of the uphill parts. There was one downhill section with very large wet rocks. Going on a steep downhill on big wet rocks is no fun. Jean-Marc later told me that he never turned off his ABS brakes. Turning off the ABS brake was the first think I did when I had my R11GS in situations like that one. I guess Jean-Marc just wanted a more exciting ride down this trail.

We were very tired when we got to the end of this trail. I checked the GPS to see we only averaged 50 km/hr including the ride over Duffy Lake Road which we crossed at least 80-90 km/hr. This was the end to the fun and the way back to Seattle was to be on paved roads.

We crossed back into the States at Sumas and headed down I-5 to Seattle. Many Harleys stopped here and there on the sides of the highway (Edison Oyster Run). We saw one Harley in the grass median trying to be a GS but was stuck. Who knows what he was trying to do.