hotrod180 wrote:

Fraser Farmer wrote:Last week I went Stones sheep hunting with two friends up North......

Great pics!
I esp like the "gun barrel" pic of the goat.
Looks like good hunting country.

Glad you enjoyed them. It was great hunting country and a great time.
The goat picture is actually a camera held up to a spotting scope. He was a good billy and we could easily have had him, but the pack down would have been brutal and effectively ended the sheep hunt.

For Christmas I had promised my Dad a fishing trip into Tweedsmuir at Nimpo Lake. We had intended to go in May or June but it pretty much rained here until mid-July so we planned it for this week, squeezing it in just before my kids headed to school. Monday, however, arrived with 35 knot winds, not much fun for crossing the rocks so we had to make it a very short trip of 2 days and one night. Tuesday we headed up the coast to find that the wind had brought in fire smoke, we have no forest fires nearby so this came quite a distance, we flew in smoke halfway up Texada and then we were in the clear. We went up Knight Inlet to the Klinaklin River, to the Atnarko and the Turner Lake chain where we set down on Turner Lake to check out Hunlen Falls. From Hunlen Falls we flew to Nimpo Lake where the fishing and accommodations at Stewart's were great. We enjoyed some great fishing with Tweedsmuir Airs Beaver and Cessna 185 flying in and out all day. Wednesday we did a little more fishing then drove to Anahim Lake for some horseback riding along the Dean River. We flew back in the afternoon via Carpenter Lake, Hurley Road and the Sea to Sky to Indian Arm.
Lunch at Turner Lake

Hunlen Falls

I didn't take any great fish photos, most were in the 20-24 inch range

Tweedsmuir's Beaver

Nimpo Lake from the cabin patio

My daughter crossing the Dean River on horseback

Not much of a trip, but had some flyable weather and headed up the coast to scout some family spots for Spring break trips. Totally forgot to take pictures of the destination lakes.

A good friend has a beautiful spot he's built for his family in the Gulf Islands. Took my family over for a visit yesterday. We did a little exploring and had a picnic on the dock. It was the first day of Spring Break for the kids and the weather was beautiful.

Nice pictures, looks like you had a great day.
Always looking forward to updates, this is one of my favorite threads on BCP.

Enjoy that beautiful 185 in beautiful BC.

Sierra7 wrote:Nice pictures, looks like you had a great day.
Always looking forward to updates, this is one of my favorite threads on BCP.

Enjoy that beautiful 185 in beautiful BC.

I'm glad you enjoy it, nice of you to say that.
Thanks
Matt

I'm loving this thread too. I assume that is salt water and think the plane has been in that environment a lot. I've flown several 185's in salt water south of New Orleans in the oil patch. Are you doing a lot of ACF-50 after being in the salt or just washing or ?????

All the flights end in fresh water, then we hose it off. The 185 has all the seems sealed on the skins, floats and the plane itself. The inside of the sheet metal is sprayed with a sticky oil compound at annual. All this plus the Cessna factory float kit corrosion proofing.

It's a really beautiful Easter Sunday here. We're not allowed to go to church or meet with family so it seemed like a flight into Gods country would be appropriate. For our mornings entertainment we flew to Chehalis Lake and unloaded on a beach without road access for a little snack and a hike around. The other side of this lake can be reached by road. In the one picture you can see where the whole side of the mountain slid into the lake a few years back creating a tsunami in this small lake that scrubbed the shore clean of all trees about 20 feet up from the water line in places.
Kids and the plane

Some runoff coming down off the hills already

The big slide

More kids and planes

Looks like a perfect Easter to me. Well done!

MW

Yesterday I took a quick trip up country to check on the family cabin and scope out a couple welding and repair jobs I need to do up there. I hadn't yet gone up there with the 185. One hour and ten minutes flying versus 4 hours driving the canyon so that was pretty nice. The pictures show going from the coast, over the coast range (straightlining between the airport and cabin) and onto the interior plateau.

So the 180 sold and part of the deal was delivery to the new owner. This was our last trip in our beloved yellow 59 Cessna 180B and we took her from Pitt Meadows to Yellowknife via the scenic route. Our first leg was Pitt Meadows to Shearwater on BC's central coast. It was a bit cloudy but really a nice flying day. Shearwater is taking an isolationist approach to the 'rona so we weren't welcome there. They had a woman on the dock chasing away out of towners but they did let us buy gas and our buddy in town hooked us up with some smoked salmon for trip snacking.

Around Seymour Inlet

Our next stop was the float dock at Prince Rupert, Seal Cove. Super friendly folks, gassed us up and one of the pilots from Inland Air gave us a ride into town where we got a great fish and chips dinner and a hotel room for the night.

Dock at Seal Cove

After spending the night at Rupert we headed inland up Portland Canal and Observatory Inlet. Our first stop of the morning was Kitsault at the head of Observatory Inlet. Kitsault is an abandoned mine town from the early 80's, they are not a welcoming place. Directly across from Kitsault is Alice Arm where they are very friendly. Alice Arm was a silver mine back in the day, it's now a getaway for people who want a quiet spot and some fishing, water access only. There is some coring and prospecting going on in the area.
Pics from Alice Arm


From Alice Arm we flew to Anyox. Anyox was a copper mine that opened in the 1920's. Water access only, they had an incredible bunch of buildings and their own hydroelectric dam and powerhouse. Many of these buildings still stand, albeit in ruins. Currently the tailings from the smelter are being washed and loaded out for use in abrasives.
Dock at Anyox

Tailings being loaded out

Powerhouse







The dam

From Anyox we hopped over a ridge and back into Portland Canal, we overflew Stewart and made our way up to Dease Lake where we stopped to top up the tanks. While there isn't usually fuel sold at Dease, I'd made arrangements ahead of time and the guys up there were great. The lake was very high this spring, the water was over the docking area at BC Yukon Air. Dease is a beautiful area if you're looking for a place to visit. From Dease we flew a straight line over the Northern Rockies to Muncho Lake. We passed numerous alpine lakes, flew over all kinds of sheep hunting country and right past Terminus Mountain, the northernmost Rocky Mountain. Most of the pictures I took on this stretch were taken with a camera that would ultimately end up on the bottom of East Bay on Great Slave Lake so here's a few pictures taken with my phone.


Bowser Airstrip


Iskut Airstrip



Docks at Muncho Lake

We left Muncho Lake the next morning, we'd been unable to get the fuel we needed there so we had to make a fuel stop in Fort Simpson on the way to our final destination of Yellowknife. It was a nice day of flying. We followed the Liard and then Mackenzie up to Fort Simpson. On the way we stopped at Fisherman lake and tried out the fishing. We caught nothing. Things got very flat after Nahanni Butte. Slave was still partially frozen. At Yellowknife we turned the plane over to her new owners, a really nice family looking to have family flying adventures of their own. They arranged for us to get a tour of the Buffalo hangar and planes. We got to check out the CL215, DC-3, C-46 and Lockheed L188 Elektra.

Wow!!!!! That was some of the best reading I've done lately and the new owner should have a little confidence in the plane he just bought.

180Marty wrote:Wow!!!!! That was some of the best reading I've done lately and the new owner should have a little confidence in the plane he just bought.

I'd hope so. They seem like really great people and it's a great plane, been absolutely reliable for all the time we've had her and I've flown over the big rocks with absolute confidence. I was sad to see her go but I do need a little more seating than she offers.

Wonderful trip report and pictures! Thank you!

A fantastic trip, thanks for sharing it.

Looks like a great trip! thanks for taking the time to share!