Blackjack Ridge: River Bed Loop

We needed a short local ride today to seat Paul's brand spanking new D606 rear tire.  What better than a quick ride up and over Blackjack Ridge to get the job done.

Here's what we did:

1.  Entered at Doumont Road
2.  Through the Tank Traps and a left turn towards Boomerang Lake
3.  Left again towards southern end of Boomerang
4.  Past S. end of Boomerang and then straight along the N.E. side of Blackjack Ridge towards Lucid Lk.
5.  Right turn after Lucid Lake
6.  Climb up creekbed towards top of Blackjack
7.  Explored dead end spur
8.  Through open gate at the top and explored dead end logging road to our right
9.  Right turn onto untried route (went straight on previous trip up here)
10.  Downhill creek bed for a fair way here.  (approx 3km)
11.  Rotten log make-shift bridge (Hurry before it's all gone)
12.  Left turn at the main logging road
13.  Return on same route to Doumont Rd.

Photos:

The descending creek bed at #10.  We walked this for a short distance before deciding to go on.

The makeshift bridge of half-rotten logs at #11. 

Other "Real Motorcycle Diaries" blog entries containing search criteria "blackjack."  (There are some better Blackjack shots in these entries).

Here's today's GPS track on video.  Realtime x100.  (Best viewed at 700p/full screen). 

Fun ride, but only once so you can say you did.  It's not horrendously difficult, it's just slow going for much of it when going through old creek beds.  My clutch wasn't very happy.  :)  Likely quite slippery in the winter!

Blackjack Ridge - Over the Top

I've ridden the trails up around Blackjack Ridge a few times now.  The views up there are amazing and it's always worth heading that way if I just have the time for a local ride.  But, every time I head up I stop at the same steep rocky section that heads over the top, leading eventually to the trails near Lucid Lake and the lower road that runs the SW side of Mount Benson.  I decided this time around to come at it from the Lucid Lake side, with a plan to turn back if the rocky, steep section looked too nasty from the top end.

Here's the route:

  
1.  Entered at Doumont
2.  Left towards Boomerang
3.  Left again
4.  Pass Boomerang and keep left
5.  Continued along length of Mt. Benson and turned up road that leads to Lucid Lake
6.  Followed creek bed leading up Blackjack Ridge.
7.  Through new gate.  (Logging roads look very new up here)
8.  Best view on Blackjack Ridge, overlooking Nanaimo Lakes
9.  Another nice spur road with an outstanding view
10.  The steep rocky section... heading down this time
11.  Descent towards Boomerang Lake
12.  Out

The uphill creek bed at #5

 

The creek bed continues like this for about a kilometer
 

New logging gate at #7.  A few newer logging roads connect up here.

 

180° Panoramic view looking SW from the best view location on the ridge (#8).

 

Nice section of spur trail (#9).

 

A shot along the power lines at #9

 
Just past this location the road begins a steep descent towards the spot where I decided against continuing on previous rides (#10).  It's a great deal easier going down, although there are a few spots where I slowed to a miserable crawl.  No pic unfortunately...  It's funny how the thought of photos disappears when your watching your front tire so carefully.  :) 

First and Second Lake from location #8

 Great ride.  I want to return to look at the lake just 0.7 km east of location #8.  Google Earth shows an unnamed, frozen-over lake about half the size of Round Lake.  Next time!

gpx track

kmz track

SE Shore of Lucid Lake - Good Fishing Spot!

Just a short local ride today.  I left the house with the intention of fishing at a local no-name lake about 1km NE of Round Lake, (dubbed Dragonfly Lake by some of the more "flowery" local residents).

There were elk standing on opposite sides of the lake today.  They called each other across the lake for the whole time I was there... excellent entertainment, and much better than the fishing as it happens!  I bait fished there for about an hour, and after twiddling my thumbs and seeing no rising fish, I took off with a better plan in mind.

I thought it might be interesting to find the NE shore of Lucid Lake.  Paul and I had watched a fisherman on the NE side of the lake when we visited the lake for the first time last year.  Coming from Doumont Trail, continue past Boomerang Lake, keep left and follow the logging road that runs along the lower SW side of Mount Benson.  Almost 10km past the lake turn right and keep right at the next Y.  The trail opens up at the end to a large turn-around area with a fire pit at its centre.  This is the best place to park and begin a short hike to the right to get to the lake shore.  The trail does continue through a series of "tank trap" obstacles, but the trail eventually ends at a logged-out clearing some distance from the lake.

There must be a group of regular campers at this location:  A small lean-to, fire pit and a tall frame designed for some special purpose are located a few metres from the lake shore.  A small  fishing peninsula has been built, or at least added to, to get a line further out into the lake.  The lake's silty bottom looks relatively snag free except for the occasional weed here and there.  There were fish rising here!  Not many, but one alone was a 100% improvement on Dragonfly Lake.

It was late and there was no time to fish today, but this spot will make a good alternative for one of our local fishing spots.

             

  

GPX File: Doumont Trail to Lucid Lake.

Behind Mount Benson

I finally did it.  Paul led the ride today and showed me the route from Doumont Rd to the main logging road that runs around the back of Mt. Benson for its entire length, ending on Nanaimo Lakes Road.  What a fantastic ride!  We stopped first at Boomerang Lake and then made our way down the main logging road heading south.  We met up with Ryan and Adrian coming from the opposite direction.  They had just taken their bikes up to the aerial towers on one of Benson's summits.  There's no way in hell I'd get up there!  They're very skillful riders, both of them.  I've a long way to go to get to that level of riding.  :)

Onward we plodded.  Paul was in the front for the whole day today and being as dry as it was, I sucked in several pounds of trail dust into my lungs.  I gave up watching my tach after thirty minutes; the dust had completely covered me and the entire bike and none of my controls were visible.  A dust mask of some kind is a must next time!  A bandana would work well.  Next we turned right off the main trail in search of  Lucid Lake.

Google Earth View of Benson and Lucid Lake

  We took a wrong left turn not far up this trail which ended abruptly after a reasonably steep climb over some nasty logs and uneven terrain.  We did get a great view of Ryan and Adrian's aerial towers though, right before we turned around and headed back to the Y.

Dead end on first attempt to Lucid Lake.  That's Mt. Benson's aerials in the distance which you might be able to see if you click on the photo and zoom in on that high rock in the background.

 Down we went, rejoined the trail at the Y and took the other Lucid Lake choice.  This led us to a large clearcut area where we dismounted and walked off in search of the lake.  After trudging through deep dry tinder for 100 yds or so, we saw a logging road off in the distance and a smaller trail leading off to our left.  We followed it and within five minutes we were at the beautiful Lucid Lake.

Looking for Lucid Lake.

The Clearcut.  I have no understanding of logging and replanting practices, but this sure looked like the area had been stripped and not replanted at all.  Maybe there's a timely plan underway.  Sure looked like a tinderbox wasteland.

We found it!

Absolutely beautiful... elusive Lucid Lake

Lucid Lake...  Fly fisherman on the far side.

We had planned to go fishing today.  We weren't ready to stop yet... we decided to press on to the gate at the far south end of the main logging road where I had been skunked on my solo ride a week ago.

A quick stop further along the main logging road to catch the views of Ladysmith Harbour

The same view zoomed in (Ladysmith Harbour)

And... just a little further down the road, the elusive back view of the nasty yellow gate that stopped me the first time.  It was so much nicer to be on this side of it.  Paul took me up the road a short distance and showed me the "work around" that he had learned about a week before.

THE INSIDE OF THE GATE

Mission accomplished... now for some fish.  We decided to try Round Lake since it had been stocked with trout this year.  Round Lake looked fantastic except there was nowhere to cast a line in the water without standing on moving logs.  Is wasn't working, so we moved on to "Dragonfly Lake," or "Bladder Lake" as it has been more recently dubbed because of it's proximity to "Kidney Lake."  (It actually has no name according to local maps).  *NOTE:  On Oct 11th, 2011 this lake was named by the Triumph Thruxton Committee and shall be officially known as "Triumph Lake" from this moment on.  No fish there today.

Dragonfly/Bladder/Noname Lake

Setting up the rods at the only easily accessible spot on the lake

A view straight across the lake.  Note the very thin line of trees the logging company has left to obscure the nearby forest massacre.  I wonder if it's replanted???  Silly question.  

This was taken from the same "easy" location.  The far left of the picture shows another location that Paul tried, but it was difficult to get to.  These were the only two hard bank fishing spots we could see. 

Mt. Benson from the Black Bear Pub!

There, what a spot to finish our ride.  It was a perfect way to wash all the dust out of my throat!  What a terrific ride that was.  This is another one I want to do by myself more slowly so I can get my bearings.  I think I'll re-travel some of the routes we took and map them out with my GPS.

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Just for fun, here are two 3D red/cyan anaglyph images that you can view if you have any red/cyan glasses kicking around.  (click pics to enlarge).

The "clearcut" near Lucid Lake

Rock formations near "Dragonfly/Bladder/NoName Lake"