Roads Near Okay Mountain and Okay Lake

I've been thinking back to when I went out to explore the roads around Okay Lake and the NE side of the Okay Mountain Valley and returned home with a loose GPS battery and a massive grey cloud over my head.  Well I headed back out there again this evening after work and had a terrific short ride.

I entered through the Doumont Trail, turned left towards Boomerang Lake and started my track at the next intersection, (what I call "Intersection B").  Here's the track on Google Earth:

Below:  A YouTube video retracing the route.  I hope it's visible here...  You might need to bring it up full screen and crank the res. up to 720p. 

 

I made a stop in at Okay Lake to snap off a photo.  You can see from the yellow track above that the road in towards the lake now extends further around the south side of the lake.  Lots of active logging in this area.

  

 All those stretches of roads running N to S are in great shape and it's possible to maintain speeds well over 50km/h for most of it.  I must have seen no less than twenty elk in three separate herds today.  The crazy things take off so quickly that it's near impossible to have a camera ready in time to snap off a photo.  At one point, I came around a corner to find them blocking the road and damned nearly joined the herd as they clattered into the bush.  Fantastic head rush!  Here are a few of the ladies off the road.

I encountered this "bridge out" while heading south.  You can see the location on the YouTube movie above:  The arrow, (which acts like a house fly walking on your lunch), stops and turns around on the southern facing stretch after encountering the missing bridge.  I return to the same spot heading north after taking a detour south on the usual road that skirts Okay Mt.

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Ahhhh, the view from the other side after attacking it from the south.

Really nice creek view where the bridge used to span across.

There, a nice big truck to offset the beautiful creek.

   

Wow... Logged Out.  These people need to smarten up and change their messed-up logging methods.  :( 

Terrific local road to do again... really liked it.

GPX track file 
KMZ track file

Friday Workday... then FISHING! ڷ

I zoomed out of work really quickly today so that I could get a few hours of fishing in at our local lakes and by 4:00 I had a line in the water at Kidney Lake.

It was a great ride down there:  1Km before the lake I heard a thunderous clatter to my left and made a mad scramble for a camera as a herd of 8 to 10 elk crossed the road right in front of me.  They were pretty spooked by my bike and so they moved really quickly to conceal themselves in the trees to my right.  I managed to get one shot off with my Garmin which was close at hand, but got nothing of the herd.  So, off I went with my heart pumping about twice its normal rate only to meet a single female still looking for the herd.  She gave me a bit more time and loped well ahead of my position so she could cross over to the other side.  I captured her with the Garmin...  Not a quality shot, but at least I got it!  Totally thrilling watching them motor by like that!

Purple route from "Intersection A" (bottom right) to NE end of Kidney Lake.

Get out your magnifying glass!  She's that clump of pixels near the centre!

 
So, I got down to the lake and fished with some bait for a change.  I set up "Andy's Handy Dandy Lake Trout Rig" which consists of an egg sinker (1/8lb lead weight that slides freely on the line), a swivel clip (which doubles as a stopper to keep the weight on) and an 18" leader attached to the swivel for floating bait.  For bait I used yellow and orange scented Glo Mallows.

The beauty of this rig is that it allows the line to slide freely through the weight.  That means that when the trout hits, it travels away with the line unimpeded by the weight and sets the hook when the slack is taken up.  It's perfect for stocked trout that have a tendency to hit aggressively in this way.  A small treble hook can be used also, providing it's small enough to be lifted by the bait (#14).  Great for molding bait around with Power Bait.  Also, leader length can be changed to match the weed height in any particular lake to keep the bait floating right at typical feeding height, (slightly above the weeds), for bottom swimming trout.

I fished that setup for about two hours without so much as a nibble today.  There was lots of action on the surface by 6:00 and so I switched to spin casting my "Super Duper" favourite spinner.  I caught the youngest and smallest trout in the lake with this.  IT WAS DELICIOUS!!

YUM