Is the Skagit/Silverhope FSR open to Ross lake?
Thanks.
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Is the Skagit/Silverhope FSR open to Ross lake?
Thanks.
Closed until Spring 2019.
The road is open from the freeway up to a KM or two before the park boundary, but the road through the park is closed (as is the park itself I believe).
There is more information on the BC Parks website.
http://www.env.gov.bc.ca/bcparks/exp...arkpgs/skagit/
thanks for the info!
Last I checked you can only get to 33km before the gate, about 5km before the park which is around 27km from Ross.
2 weekends ago I was up there and there was a gate across the road
The gate is still around 33km. It's a dead zone in there. They logged the crap out of a lot of the main road to the north side of the valley over the winter (left a thin layer of trees to give campers the illusion they are in the bush) in places the grouse were burrowed, where there was alligator lizards, rubber boa snakes and all sorts of cool stuff. The fire wiped out another 60 hectares of moose and deer wintering area from just before the park boundary into the park, even though they knew about the fire several days after it lit up and remained small (lots of rain that weekend) then once it hit 50ha they fought it for a day before "modified response" to let it burn (conveniently as they wanted to log to build roads up into the alpine to mine a piece of crown land between Skagit and Manning before Seattle reminded them about the treaty... seriously convenient for Horgan and crew)
All the grouse pockets I know of are dead. Still finding random birds in here and there... mostly in the timber but some of the FSR's. I haven't seen any on the main road and the ones I see on FSR's the closest I have got is 60 yards. Made a video this weekend of a 70 yard stalk on a grouse... only got to 60 lol ... most are hanging in cover and flush from thick crap to deep into thick crap... gotta be quick with the shotty. With the modified choke I'd be lucky it hit 45 yards. I switched from size 4 to 7.5 just incase but just can't get it done. We have watched owls, hawks and ravens going after them in broad daylight as the preds from the burn are competing for them.
I'm blocked from my good deer spots in the park (or what's left) so we started looking around for new area. Unfortunately the most deer sign I have come across has been deer hooves in cougar scat or wolf scat (didnt look like bear at all) and old kills and bones. Found one spot that looks decent with a lot of tracks and some fresh ones, 3km hike into the timber. I hung a camera there a few weeks back. The salt I left was hit but the camera malfunctioned... go figure. The other camera we hung on a trail near and old deer kill didn't pick up anything. Over 100km on the boots easy since bow opener looking for sign and hanging cameras, but all we see is a dead valley.
For the first time in camping there 50+ nights a year for over 20 years we had wolves howling all over (maybe fighting over the last 2 deer or a wintering a moose that didn't get the memo?) I'm wondering if they will spray round-up over the burn too just like they do all the logged areas. It's really a wasteland. Coming from one of the most stubborn hunters out that way, I'm pretty much done with it. Time to move on. That valley is fubar.
I flew over in a bird today and saw one massive bear, other than that an old plane crash and no deer. We covered a fair bit of ground.
ya it's dead... not even douglas squirrels to announce your presence. I'll do up a video when I have time of what 100+ km of educated ground work is looking like (I have the footage, before and after) trails, old sign and what's left. I've never seen anything like it anywhere. Wasteland. Some deer will show up when the snow flies up top mid to late november... for bears, way up sowerby or upper silver would be my only suggestions but on foot probably looking at 10-15km hike for a "good" chance at a bear... atv less footwork, but why bother... so many easier places to shoot fall bears. I suppose it is still possible to get lucky... had a pretty big (300+lbs) blackie on a cam last fall near the valley bottom (pretty much ground zero of that fire though lol)
Give it 10 years if they don't f*** up that valley even worse if that is even possible at this point :)
Well I was there on thanksgiving weekend and I know the gate is set up at 32.5km. The park rangers are set up at 39km. Hiked the 5km or so to a spot I know to find it destroyed by the fire.
I did see a couple grouse and lots of squirrels now. But saw no sign of deer or bear at all. I am heading back there this weekend to.check out other areas that aren't burned out. Hopefully will see something.