July 13 2012

    Well the hot weather has arrived. There has been over a week of 30c+ weather, and it has been 37c over the mountain at Lytton. I know a lot of people around the world will read that and laugh, but that is about as hot as we can stand it up here in Canada.

There has been a smoke haze in the air for some time and has just now began to go away, from massive fires burning in Russia and Asia apparently. Hard to believe.

The hot weather has kept up the level of the river, still just normal type high water for this time of year.

Been pretty quiet down at the old hot spring.
Very slow during the week but visitors pick up naturally on weekends.

Deer tracks around the edge of the hot spring, attracted by the mineral licks.

The front yard is in full bloom.

On a hot afternoon I can always come up with a project close to the water. The 'pull' rope on the cable trolley across the river has had quite a bit a slack in it, making a harder pull across. Maybe a good time to tackle that.

I clamped this line puller on there and attached a winch line from the quad.

A couple pokes at the winch button and she was all snugged up and tied off again.

It is cooler up in the high country too, I can hop on my little pony and before you know it be up at 1000meters (3000'). Lower sections of the log road are washed out for the most part, there has not been anyone up since I rode the 4 wheeler up here on top of the frozen crust last December.

Panther Valley.

That's the Lillooett River way down there in spring run, and more of that Siberian smoke.
On the other side of yonder mountains lies the resort town of Whistler. A good place for it.

There was a nice prime fir tree that had to come down at the campsite, a 'danger' tree.
The river had undercut the roots and it was going to come down on its own. 

But nothing goes to waste around here, it is either saved for the sawmill, or in this case bucked into firewood.

That is a lot of wood there, and represents just a few feet of the tree. I bring home a load of it now and again so to avoid permanently injuring myself. I prefer firewood of the smaller variety if I can help it.
It certainly kept me warm loading it today. It will warm me when I split it all later in the year, and finally it will warm me in the stove over several winters. The entire tree is oozing with sap, prime firewood when dried.

I did a rough count of about 300 rings.
It would have been 150 years old during the gold rush, and stood quite close to the site of the old hot spring roadhouse.  I mentioned the river had undercut the roots, 150 years ago this tree would have been I would say 10 meters probably from the river, that much of the bank has eroded away over the years.