2022 Drives - Run beyond Hope

[Alveen240/610]

My corolla is charging 16V, so I miss out on this run. I love my super bright dash and kwik take off with this charge. But it aint last long until I fry my wiring.

[bertvorgon]

Morning World!

Glad you got it all figured out Byron...I knew you would love those tires! They are the REAL DEAL!!!!!

Sorry you can't make it Alveen, next time.

Cliff, you know it's the Chevron on the old Hope/Princeton!?

I just have to throw a few things in the car and wash the windows, heading out at 7:00.

[CP]

Thanks Keith, I know which Chevron it is now. Heading out about 6:30, picking up a buddy in Langley and on to Hope.

[bertvorgon]

Afternoon World.

As I sling shotted past Cliff, I knew I was heading into a tight right hand sweeper, diving down to one of 3 hairpins corners where the signs mean what they say. I felt the ABS on the G35 kick in for a fraction of a second, telling me I was at the limit of my now older Yokohama tires.

Story and pics to follow later.

I was right,my old memory remembered there was the steam train in Seton Lake, a Pacific Great Eastern 2-8-0 # 53, hitting a rock slide in 1950.

Hope everyone got back safely, I stopped at the rest stop on #7 and a ton of fire, ambulance and other equipment was heading east in full code 3.

[butters68]

had a fun time with you guys, traffic was not to bad both ways i thought. Keith , that was my second time in 9 0r 10 years driving the route from Lytton to Lillooet. i have to say the Subaru did a bit of all right.

[CP]

So that's what sling shotting by looks like....LoL. Not having driven that road before, I hit those first two hairpins uncharacteristically fast. My white knuckles and backs of my eyeballs were showing. I was ready for the 3rd one and will know better for the next time.
It was a fun drive, thanks .

[iceD]

Am I correct in saying no pics it didn’t happen lol
iceD

[bertvorgon]

Story and pics coming...life and grandkids.......

[bertvorgon]

Morning World!

Nice day here today after yesterdays rain dump, wow was it hard at times but hope it is good for the forest fires.

Here is my story of our great road trip, I had a super day!

Stay tuned for our fall drive, up the Hope/Princeton, do the OLD Princeton highway and then loop back to Bromley Rock Park for a picnic.


Seton Lake

Before I could say G35, the R.C.M.P. SUV lit Byron up like the Griswold’s Christmas tree!

We had left the Hope Chevron right on time, but, one block away, Byron pulled off to the side with a screaming fan belt.

Luckily between the crew and enough room left on the tensioner, we were off into the wonderful morning light, up the Fraser Canyon.

About 10 Km out of Hope, on a sweeping corner that led onto a four lane stretch, we opened it up a bit to pass some slower traffic. I was in the rear, about 1 km behind, so I had started to wick it up to catch up, maybe touching 130 KMH. At that same micro-blink, I saw the lights come on and pull Byron over. I staked the brakes down to the speed limit, passing Byron and the police.

We pulled over a half click down the road. I phoned Byron to see if he was going to get towed…NO…. a minimum ticket, so, on we went. ( for you non-BC’ers, if we are over 40Kmh an hour above the posted limit, we get our car towed, Big ticket, car impounded for a week, storage fee, licence fee increase, can add up to $1,000-$2,000 and points on licence, and, you are LEFT on the side of the road!)

There were a couple of spots of single lane traffic, near Jackass Mountain, as highways repaired the November storm damage, which when you see it…WOW! Luckily we hit the end of the line as the convoy started to move. (That happened on the way back also)

We managed a nice steady cruise to Lytton, where again seeing the town GONE you have to see to understand the scale. I feel for the residents, my wife and I stopping there for a leg stretch, for over 50 years, on our trips into the wilderness.

Now the real fun began, such a wonderful stretch of highway, 64 Km (40 Miles) of rolling, undulating, smooth road, with 3 real hairpins thrown in for some excitement. Almost zero traffic too. I had planned to just bring up the rear, knowing Byron would be exploring the new A052 tires, he was GONE! Mike was doing a great job zipping along in his Subaru Crosstrek. I have driven that highway more than 100 times so I know it really well. Many, many years ago, this was the only route to Lillooet and the wilderness beyond, coming from the West.

Cliff and his friend Fred were trucking along and at one point I did pass, as I wanted to really see how the Infinity was when truly driven hard into one of the tightest hairpins.

This is only the second time I have truly driven the car as hard as I could, like in my 510. The turn-in on the G35 is very, very good and considering my Yokohama’s are 5 years old with a 200 tread wear, it stuck quite well. The rear of the car I am still a bit unsure of. I sure don’t like the hair of lag in the VLSD, and, it seems a touch “skippy” on broken or rippled pavement, like in the tight corners. I never changed the factory springs and the Bilstein shocks are NOT fast enough to handle the rapid movement at high velocity, short stroke. All in all it is safe enough at 80% of the performance window. In a couple of spots, at speed, I got light in the seat, always a cool feeling for me, the car handling that well, settling back down with no drama. The low end torque of this great engine makes it fun too, as it gets up and goes in a blink. I installed that SprintBooster many years ago and it sure helped with the lineal throttle response with less throttle “hang”. For the most part, we cruised along at 115 KMH (72 mph). At one point my GPS registered WAY more than that! The scenery is spectacular along here too, running on the East side of the Fraser River.

We could see the Nohamin forest fire and three helicopters trying to bucket water to it, looking all like it was a fart in a hurricane. Hopefully it does not get over the big ridge and get into the Stein Valley area, a pristine wilderness park. Fortunately the smoke was blowing west and over the mountain top, so other than a bit of smoke smell, it was clear to Lillooet, other than the normal forest haze.

Outside of Lillooet, there was Byron parked, waiting for us to regroup and head to the Chevron station for fuel. I did not need any as my G35 has a tanker sized fuel tank and at this point had not even used ½ tank.

We then zipped up to the Seton Lake lookout for our lunch. An interesting point was that over the many years coming here; the trees have grown to almost block the view now.

Some of the history of the area we talked about, the trains that had gone into the lake over the years. Seton Lake is very DEEP, some 400 Meters or around 1,200 feet depth. For some reason they have never found the steam train that went into the Lake in 1950.

Fred is a mining enthusiast so we could talk placer mining and other related topics.

In all the years of stopping here, really as a photo op, we never noticed a narrow road that led down to the lake itself. This year the Lookout WAS the destination. So, down we went after lunch and low and behold, a nice swimming beach! Next time!

The temps were now hitting 38 to 39 on my car gauge and soon would hit 40C ( 104F)on the way back.

We could not have had a better run back to Lytton, Byron disappearing again off onto the Great Rolling Dyno. I tucked in again behind Mike and we again zipped along at 115 to 120 KmH.

We rallied up at the Esso station on # 1, one of the few buildings to survive the fire in Lytton. The drive back down the Canyon was just a reverse of the trip up, lucking out on the convoy again.

One wake up call for me, as I zipped along one of the more narrow stretch’s, and should be a heads up for all of us, as I swept around a basic blind corner, was a stopped truck and recreational trailer! It was blocking ¾ of the lane! I got on the brakes, watching my mirror and luckily, one car came opposing me and then I could get around, jumping on my 300 HP throttle. I hope they survived that, as a semi-truck might not have been able to stop.

I pulled into the rest stop n #7 for a leg stretch and as I phoned my wife, a ton of fire and ambulance headed east. I wondered if someone clocked that trailer.

I really enjoyed that drive and the Company of the day, thanks gang!

Some stats for the day:

My car showed we did 618 Km ( 384 miles), at least home to home for me.
A moving time of 7:20 hours
Moving average of 84 KmH
Overall average of 65 KmH
And a total time of 9:27 hours.
Max speed was ***
My fuel economy for the whole trip was: 30.510 MPG, and that is exactly what the conversion showed…homage to the 510 drive, go figure! Not bad for a 3,500 lbs barge.

Keith Law
Aug. 5, 2022

[bertvorgon]

And more

[bertvorgon]

More

[bertvorgon]

And more

[bertvorgon]

And last, I hope that gives you a sense of the trip and territory we went through.

The town of Lytton was burned to the ground last year at this time, cause still unknown, but it was thought that the train may have started it. Lytton has always been the hot spot of Canada, hitting 49 C ( 120 F.) last year when the fire started.

[CP]

Great recap as always Keith. So, on the drive home I managed to leave my gas cap at the Chevron in Loch Erroch. Had a nice drive out Sunday morning to retrieve it.
Was a great day, looking forward to October.
Cliff

[bertvorgon]

Thanks!

Many years ago, I was fueling up my car and decided to check my tire pressure. The first thing I ever bought, when I started racing in earnest, was a GOOD tire pressure gauge out of the States. Came with a nice rubber case to protect it.

I had set the gauge on the fuel Island and drove away! AAAHHHH...a few days later I realized it was gone. It was truly a nostalgic piece and have it to this day.

I went back to the Chevron station and some soul had turned it in at the till, and it was still there. I was so thankful, small thing but a symbol of my racing days.