Through the Storm and Over the Line

The road out of Kamloops was oddly warm for there being such an overcast in the sky. At this point, right at the beginning, I found it odd. It wasn’t worth doing anything other than noting it. The forecast said only a 30% chance of rain. The amount of rain predicted was insignificant.

Following Hwy 97 you quickly branch off from the Trans-Canada Highway and work southeast toward Monte Lake and Lake Okanogan. In Kelowna I grabbed a quick bite, swapped out to my vented jacket, and hooked a left onto Hwy 33, which would take me on the east side of the lakes. I’m told views are better on the west shore following 97, but there are also more towns and therefore more time.

Hwy 33 runs between the White Mountains: Big White and Little White. As the road tightened up and began the climb between them is when I first noticed the wind. An entire hillside of trees across from me were gusting, but the winds were not blowing across them, but into them. It’s more like if someone were blasting them with a giant nozzle of compressed aid and waving it back and forth randomly.

Gusts like that are dangerous for high profile vehicles. Most people think of trucks and RV’s as being in that category, but motorcycles are taller than they are wide by an even greater ratio. Buffeting gusts like that are the worst, because you can’t just lean into them like a crosswind: you have to battle them while they try to move you and the motorcycle independently of each other.

The first gusts were strong but brief, and for awhile I thought it might have been a fluke — a problem spot in a slot canyon. The rain started to spit soon after but the winds were predictable as I passed the Big White Ski Resort, then things cleared up.

As I approached Beaver Dell things changed quickly.

I didn’t notice much debris at first, but it went from leaves to branches quickly. I had been watching the wind gusts work through the trees like an angry hand batting at them, so I knew this was unusual weather, but it was still hard to understand the situation fully.

Catching the small changes

One big reason experienced people get killed in the outdoors is they trust their experience but arrive into a new situation they haven’t experienced before; Appalachian hikers getting lost in the desert, people with many black bear encounters try to scare off a brown bear the same way, rock climbers misidentify the weather or don’t bother reading reports because they’ve seen these clouds 1,000 times before.

I try not to let my experience turn to complacency when on the road and it helped a lot this time. As I entered Beaver Dell I rounded a corner to see a tree had fallen into a power pole, snapping the pole and leaving the top mast hanging from the power lines it was supposed to support. Even though it was well off the road I slowed, which gave me enough time to see a steel cable hanging down in my path.

It was a support cable and not a power cable, but still “shocked” my senses (bad pun) because it was swinging in the wind and at first I didn’t know if it was a live wire or not. I’d like to say that got my attention, but I didn’t slow even more like I should have. I was gawking at another tree that had taken out someone’s fence and blocked their cars in the driveway when the car in front of me swerved. It was another cable, on the ground but lifting up as it went to the right, still hanging from a pole.

I swerved and missed the raised part, but ran over the part lying flat on the ground. At least it wasn’t a life high-tension wire.

At the gas station the pumps still showed numbers on the LCD, but then I noticed the sign on the door: “Closed” It was mid-afternoon. Why was it closed? Rain was falling a little heavier and the wind was blasting it into my eyes. The place where you’d insert your card to get fuel said “please pre-pay inside” instead. Shit. Well, I’ve got about 30-miles left on the tank. How far to the next gas..? 30 miles. Double shit.

Just then the attendant opened the door and asked if I wanted to wait inside. Well, of course. He had lost power, and couldn’t operate the pumps or even close out his register for the day. He had coffee on that he was about to dump so he offered it up for free. It was fresh but since he had no power he was getting ready to close up shop for the day.

During my wait several people came over, as Beaver Dell is really small (no restaurant, no hotel, just an RV park, gas stations, and small shops). Information came the old fashioned way. People told us what they saw on their drive up. One guy had a tree fall and nearly crush him. Slamming on the brakes he was able to stop short, then drive over the treetop and make it to town.

A phone call later and I verified the next fuel at Rock Creek did have power, and figured I could make it since the range estimation was based on the miles since my last fill up, which were mostly climbing. Now I was going downhill. There was a chance of delay though too, so it was going to be close.

The owner of the station had come over by then and heard me talking. He was a Sikh, born in India, and mentioned how running out of gas back there just meant finding a hose and getting fuel from another motorcycle. That reminded me I had a fuel transfer pump in the trailer, and he offered to give me a little gas to make sure I made it.

What solid people you find when in small towns.

Sadly my hose wasn’t long enough (honey, I swear this is the first time this has happened) to reach the bottom of his car’s tank, but during the struggle another guy came by on a quad. He had a gas can of last years fuel for the chainsaw — the leftover he didn’t pre-mix. Perfect. About 0.25L was all I needed, and off I went.

It was not clear sailing.

The final push to the border

I’d like to say it looked like a war zone, but that isn’t an accurate description. It looked like a storm came through, because one did. It was odd because there was so little rain. There wasn’t enough rain to push fallen twigs and leaves off the road, so I went slow, worried I’d grab another fallen cable and have it wrap around a wheel.

The devastation was so random. Young trees, old ones, thick or thin. Some snapped in the middle, some pulled at the root. None seemed to have fallen in the same direction either. You could generally guess the wind came from the south and moved north, since trees fell pointing east, west, or north, but never south.

I passed dozens of trees, several of which either blocked a lane, or had blocked the entire road and someone had already been out with a chainsaw. Even though there wasn’t a town, outlying home owners were clearing the road in front of their property. A fire truck passed, which I assumed was heading to another fallen tree or car wreck blocking the road.

Even less reason to hurry, as I’ll eventually get to wherever that fire truck is going. There’s no smoke indicating they’re rushing to a fire caused by lightning or power lines, so the only danger was if the fire dept decided to block both lanes so they can work the scene better.

Either way, chasing them to get to the problem faster isn’t the right move, and that proves true quickly. Power lines are hanging across the road or laying across in multiple spots. You can’t just see a fallen tree and ride around it; you have to look at the problem you see with the corner of your eye, scan for other threats with the main part of your focus, and save only a small part for the actual path you are taking to avoid the main problem.

Our brains like to hyper-focus on the problem in front of us though, which is why you see things like people staring at an avalanche as it comes right at them,and not trying to run until well after it’s too late. Using wide-angle vision, you start to see more things at once, but modern life doesn’t really help develop the skill.

Fortunately, between racing, the military, meditative and spiritual practice, and spending a lot of time alone in remote areas, I do have the ability to use wide-angle vision when I remember to actually use it. I wish it came natural, but fortunately it didn’t let me down this time.

Dodging trees was easy, but the lines were hard to see, and it was much more hard to tell at a glace if they were power lines, support lines for the poles, phone lines, or something else. We were stopped a few times by fallen trees, but people were already out with chainsaws sectioning them, so they were short delays. I saw one car going the other way which gave me hope the road was open down to Rock Creek.

A long time went by without seeing another though, and I tried to tell myself it was because people were just staying home. I got an answer pretty quick though when I saw a line of brake lights. The line of cars had been getting longer each time I stopped to wait for a tree to be cleared, but this line of cars stretched well longer, and several didn’t have their brake lights on anymore; that’s a strong indication they’ve been their long enough to shut the engine off.

The wait

Well, it ended up taking over an hour. First thing I did was look for trees that might fall on me where I was stopped. I looked around in between the trees too, noting no trails or homes and wire fences on both sides of the road with no gates. GPS showed the road following a river on the right, and no roads to the left.

Dead reckoning showed we were descending into a narrower valley where the river likely met up closely with the road. That would be a place where power poles would have to be very close to the roadway, so there could be multiple poles down.

Within 15min someone came the other way in a work truck and passed on information that live power lines were wrapped around a tree and they were waiting for the power to be cut before they could clear the road. Fair enough. The temperature wasn’t bad, the rain was barely spitting, and the wind storm seemed gone and done.

I chatted with locals who were milling outside their cars. Plenty of people knew each other so it was like an impromptu picnic, without food, or a place to sit, on a road. So, not like a picnic. Anyway, I got more information from others who had family down in Rock Creek. Apparently there were fires south of there, on the US and Canada side of the border.

Great.

So, after an hour-and-a-half things were clear and down we went. I never actually saw the crew, which was odd: I thought they’d still be there sawing away, or there’d at least be a debris pile on the road. But no, we just plodded along until we saw a line of cars waiting to go up. But why were they waiting if both lanes were open? Man… I’m too freakin’ tired. Time to find a motel.

And that’s what I did. In Rock Creek I hit up the first gas station with plenty of fuel left because we were driving so slow my MPG went through the roof. After that I booked a room in the closest spot I could find. It was already about 6:30pm and the border crossing closed at 5pm. And so quickly I made the last miles as the sun got lower and headlights came on and the deer were just looking for a way to commit suicide by roadkill.

Not me, not today. And so I sit, warm and happy, getting ready to ride into autumn as I move south. I still have things to see, I still have people to visit. Hell, I still have a plan to create. That will come in time and I’ve mentioned my vague plans enough that there’s no reason to hash them out again. 2024 feels like it’s winding down though, but it depends on how fast the next five weeks pass by I reckon. I’m happy enough to keep roaming but also looking forward to setting up a winter camp too.

I’m even more happy to not deal with fallen power lines though, no matter where I am.