I imagine few people have visited the Adams Dam on Adams Creek, a tributary of Bonanza Creek. Maybe some people don’t even know it exists. I didn’t.

Jeff has known about it, and wanted to visit it, for years. But his intel for how to find it ranged from “long hike” to “oh it’s just 20 metres past where you can drive with your truck”.

Let the record state that that last piece of intel was not accurate. Although I guess thinking it wasn’t too hard to find got me to go on the adventure.

Turns out it wasn’t a fun time, for me anyway. I can usually hold my own, and very occasionally I may nope out of something stupid scary and unsafe and one of the guys will take my quad off or up the cliff ahead of us.

But reaching the Adams Dam was one challenge after another. In the creek. Out of the creek. Steep up the bank. Steep down the bank. Get off your quad. Now hang on just on the uphill side so you don’t flip. Now reposition and hang off the other side and lean across to grab your throttle.

No. No I don’t like this kind of riding. I was tense. Grumpy. And all I could think about was that I was going to have to do it all over again in the other direction.

Eventually I had enough. Go ahead and have your adventure. I’m staying here.

I hate being the grumpy scared one. I hate holding everyone else up. But I also don’t want to be broken, or stuck under my flipped-over quad in the creek.

Turns out everyone else tapped out about 50 yards ahead of me anyway. A couple of the guys went ahead on foot to scout and spotted this through the trees:

So we went on foot. It was hot and sweaty in that woods, and there wasn’t much of a trail. Trees were down all over, and some were standing dead that fell when you touched them. Not a pleasant hike!

I was wearing my stiff leather hiking boots, which I’m finding I really strongly dislike walking in. Great for riding. But they limit mobility so severely I’d have given anything to have a pair of shoes on.

Turns out Jeff was having the same experience in his stiff hikers because next thing I know, everyone’s saying “Are you alright?”

And there is Jeff lying on his back on the rocks.

He said he was okay, yet he was still lying there. My nerves were shot! I can’t carry Jeff out of here! Jeff! Don’t be hurt!

Eventually he was ready to stir, and Steve helped him up. He said he was fine, as he always says, but his elbow was all scraped up and bleeding.

He sat down and seemed more concerned that he may have smashed his phone or bear spray, but everything was fine. The flies kept sitting on his wound though! Gross! So he tied a bandana around it until we could get back to the first aid kits in the quads.

We were only half way up to the top of this huge dam at this point. I thought he had decided to climb down, so I climbed down too, and next thing I knew I was all by myself by the creek and everyone else climbed the dam.

Great. Guess I’m on my own. Totally matched my mood.

I explored around a bit. I found this barrel that had no wood left, but was it full of concrete or something? It was solid!

I drastically prefer the fun, adventurous Lisa! How was I going to cure this crushing fear of getting back out of there?? I was ready to walk out and leave my quad for the bears to ride.

I pushed my way through the thick scrub brush, trying to get to the river to see if I could get a view of everyone else up top. That would be a neat picture. Every once in a while rocks were tumbling down. Maybe it was best I didn’t go up there in these stupid boots.

The creek had a little waterfall coming down, in the middle of the dam.

Here are some pictures Jeff took from up above.

I may have to remind him to turn his phone sideways for better blog photos 😀

This dam is INCREDIBLY large and tall! It was built in the early days of mining around here. By 1906 from what I can find in my research. It is fitted with stone and filled with earth and is known for being particularly well-built. The Engineer (and cartographer) J.B. Tyrrell designed it, and he was later designated a Person of National Historic Significance by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board (source).

It’s so overgrown though, I couldn’t get the entire thing in a photo. I found a photo online from 2013 that shows the entire thing much better than our shots. Go see it here and then come back.

They used this dam to control water, to provide it for hydraulic mining on the hills and benches along Bonanza Creek. I read there was a gatehouse here (I’m guessing in the middle?) and a steam shovel was used to build it.

Jeff came back before too long and we tried to find our way back. We went way off track, but found some neat old relics.

We found some old fuel cans, and this pot in a tree, and an old stove.

We eventually got back to our quads (and one side-by-side!). I was so done I didn’t even have the guts to turn mine around. The ground was so uneven.

Jeff and I got a head start and he took my quad over some of the worst stuff for me. I don’t mind the rocks and driving in and out of a creek. It’s just the straight up and down and places you need to stand on one side and hang off so you don’t flip that do me in! (I’m the one in orange, who noped out of the incline that Jeff just went up and had his front two wheels off the ground). Tim rescued my pathetic self that time and drove it up for me.

I really have no pictures of the sketchy stuff, because I was too busy freaking out.

But it went faster in the other direction. I knew that as soon as the center of the trail didn’t have the big trees that we had to mow down, that we were back on the path that wasn’t going to be treacherous from here on out. Whew…….. what a relief!

We stopped to explore one old building, and then Liz got stung right above her eye! Ahhhh the poor thing. I’ve been stung multiple times by wasps in the face and I know how badly that hurts! There are so many wasps and bee-like creatures around this year.

We got back out to Bonanza Road and everyone else was done for the day. I was just feeling good! I was zipping along, purposely revving it through puddles, just getting back to feeling myself.

I wanted to have more adventure. Mostly because I didn’t want such a sour memory of today. But also, this was my first time out on my quad this year! And with a bunch of other stuff lined up for August and September, would it be the last?

Jeff said he was in, so we headed out to the far end of the Ridge Road trail to follow the footsteps of our epic hike from earlier this season, while the rest of our posse headed home.

This time we took the turn off to check out some open pit mines that Jeff had to sign and fence off a few years ago for work.

These pits are likely for quartz and hard rock gold mining – probably just exploration. They are pretty deep!

There is the neatest blue rock found here! We thought it was lazurite, then azurite, and now my rock ID app says it is cyanotrichite, a mineral associated with copper oxidation. Whatever it is, it is really pretty! It looks like blue chalk.

We rode the Ridge Road trail for about 13-14 kilometers. It was grown over a bit more than when we hiked it. We knew the end closest to town was so washed out that we’d need another way out. We could go over to Bear Creek, and then ride the highway back.

But when we came across the road/path to the left, where I remember us sitting down for a break on our hike, we decided to take a path not known and see if we could find another way back to Bonanza road so we wouldn’t have to ride much of the highway back to town.

The road started out so nice! Not grown over much at all, not really washed out, you could drive a truck here!

It was down hill, steep at times. Jeff took a path off to the left and discovered the neatest old cabin!

It was built with poplar trees! That seems rare! It had this outdoor kitchen/dining area, all screened in.

It was connected to the cabin with a back porch overlooking the valley behind it.

There was an old fridge and table and outdoor stove in this outdoor kitchen.

I went around to the far side.

There was a route here to the back porch where I discovered the cabin door wide open.

This place was signed by hundreds of people, everywhere.

Why?

I guess it is just what people do.

There were recipe cards spread on the table.

It feels so personal to walk into someone’s cabin.

With all their knicknacks left behind.

And a phone on the wall.

Wait, what? A phone receiver!! Ha! I picked it up but no one was on the line.

I couldn’t find a date on the calendar. I imagine this place has been used from time to time. It even had drain pipes running outside, from the sink inside, and the sink out on the back deck. This was (is?) a nice place!

Out back there was a cache and another outhouse was up the hill.

From here the road got really overgrown for awhile. So strange how a road you could drive a truck on, suddenly becomes overgrown. Maybe we turned on a lesser known path at the cabin, I don’t know.

But then we started seeing many paths off the road, and relics everywhere!

Cans and wood planks and just wide openings in the trees.

So much mining and exploration around these parts. Roads and paths off in every direction, soon to be lost to history forever.

Usually you can’t read anything on the old cans, but maybe these weren’t so old! There were many Nescafe cans, and this one said Squirrel and had a squirrel on it!

I was feeling so much better about the day! Although I did go through a period of guilt and shame for being so selfish. I bet Jeff was getting sore from his fall and wished he was back home, napping, and cleaning out his wounds.

Also here, we found two lines of rail!

There was a Klondike railroad for a very short time period. I bet the track either came through here, or I guess someone scavenged some of the track!

And it is also mushroom season! Big mushrooms everywhere!

It was dusty riding on Upper and Lower Bonanza. I hate wearing my goggles, so I didn’t, so I’m still picking gravel out of my dry dusty eyes. But there wasn’t too much traffic on a Sunday afternoon, mostly just tourists heading to and from the dredge tour and the free gold claim.

So overall, it was a lovely day. Just not that middle part where I was a scaredy cat chicken shit.