How not to drive a Mercedes

We had an intrepid adventure today, I can tell Dr Fred is much better – we decided to try and drive up a nearby mountain – mount Marston.  The camp host advised us that the road wasn’t good and wasn’t really suitable for such a low slung small car but we thought we would try anyway.

beautiful meadows contrasting with burnt out trees

The road was marked as a paved road on one map and a gravel on the other so we just hoped for the best.   It was a 15 mile drive up to the look out tower so we needed the road to be quite decent.  The first 4 miles we good, gravel but quite good, we passed a craggy looking area and marked it for investigation on the way down.  We had been disappointed that the road wasn’t paved but we pressed on anyway.   Mile 5 beckoned and hurtling down the track towards us was a huge – seriously huge - cloud of dust enveloping a logging lorry that we hoped had spotted us as it was going so fast there was no way it would miss us we did manage to pull in. It charged on by covering the car in white dust.   Mile 6 saw the road deteriorate mainly due to the logging lorry tracks, the road undulated in every direction and the car was finding it difficult to not scrape the front…. It was slow going, then the road improved for a short way, we were slowed by the rubber drainage strips put across the road.  These were much more suited to larger vehicles as they were quite high – however out little Merc took them it its stride and straddled everyone with no problem, every now and again I had to get out of the car and guide the best way across.   All went well until about mile 11 when the road just changed into huge stones, and our paced slowed from 7 miles an hour to about walking pace or less – slow and unsteady, the trees were getting smaller and the drops off the road were getting higher.  We decided that when we could find a place to pull in and turn the car we would leave it and walk the rest but we never found the place so we battled on, I was out of the car moving the bigger rocks and eventually we got to the top. 

living quarters for look out for three months a year

  Sat on top of the summit was a wooden structure built on stilts, windows on all four sides and some wooden steps up to the door in.  We went up to be greeted by a woman who it turned out was a full time look out and she lived up there 5 days a week. It was a small space with a bed in the corner and a cooker and heater in the other corner, and in the middle was a contraption for detailing the fires spotted across the area.  All the furniture was stood on glass as the whole building was a lightening conductor and the warden told us when there was a storm it could be pretty scary up there and she had to stay away from the metal equipment and getting into bed was the best option.  It was an amazing space, really open to the elements, with views across the mountains in every direction.  Sadly on that day the views were very hazy, mainly due to the smoke drifting from the fires in British Columbia and a local fire that was now under control.   It was still pretty stunning though and it felt like the kind of place to spend a week in – I don’t think I would care to do fire watching up there alone for 3 months of the year like the warden. She assured us it was fine, she had radio contact and talked to her husband on her cell phone everyday.

view from mount Marston Look out

We left her to her look out duties and went and had a little picnic on the summit and then started the torturous journey back down.   Driving down wasn’t so bad, as we now knew what to expect, but it was slow!  It took us two and a half hours to drive the 15 miles, and I was still getting out of the car to move rocks,  it was dusty, and the car was just covered, now it was almost white, and all the finger prints stood out – it looked like a crime scene car!!!! 

the natural habitat of Dr Fred

We counted the miles off and finally got to the craggy bit and pulled over.  It was an esoteric canyon, some sort of weird metamorphic rock reminiscent of some welsh crags – fab to have as a local haunt.  Plenty of climbing potential, and evidence of lots of climbing done, chains, chalk and the like.  Sadly Dr Fred is still not up to climbing and this was the kind that was serious needing ropes and gear not just a bit of idle bouldering, still he got to have a little clamber about which is a massive improvement on this time last week when we thought we might be coming home early. 

Finally we hit the main highway and sped off at speed… all the dust and bits of grit flew off the car it sounded like the car was falling to bits but we think we managed the whole adventure pretty much unscathed apart from a couple of potential scrapes to the underside of the bumper.  To celebrate we headed to the nearest town to camp Trego, four houses and a pub from which we  bought a couple of beers and went back to camp to chill.