Mt Cheam (almost) outing

 Labour Day monday and wifey is at work...what to do?

Short answer: grab the backpack and let's go for a ride! Decided to hit the Chilliwack Bench again...haven't spent much time there this year and being a long-weekend, I can marvel at all the crap left behind by the ignorants.

I drive down to the Foley Lake turnoff and then realize that I forgot my camera....AND my snack! 

Getting old sucks!

I watch one idiot go blasting past me on a quad - cutoffs...t-shirt...and no helmet, and SAR was in the area just yesterday rescuing another warrior, but they never learn.

After a few miles of Bench, I decided to take the road to Mt Cheam. I haven't driven that road in a few years....last time I tried, I followed an oil slick from a big rock protruding in the roadbed, to a parked car along the side of the road. 
This road has a history of being in rough shape....waterbars, exposed rocks, potholes and STEEP in some areas...but today, the road is wide and fairly smooth...there must have been some logging going on.
Sure enough, I come around a bend to see a huge clearcut. That seems to be the only way the roads get maintained around here...when the logging companies come to rape and pillage the landscape.
Whatever...I am grateful for the improvement.
After a mere 5 km, the grading stops as the NEW road turns uphill...the old road continues straight ahead, in its usual ugly condition. For the next several km's I am treated to countless potholes and DEEP cross ditches. Being a long weekend, there are also throngs of "outdoor enthusiasts" with the same destination in mind. All I can smell is the acrid stench of over-heated brakes...this place has turned into the equivalent of Joffre Lakes, in terms of crowd-draw.
Shortly after passing the umpteenth vehicle-that-has-no-business-on-a-road-like-this, I change my mind about the whole thing and turn around.

I drive back to where the new road turns uphill, and follow it for a distance. If memory serves me, this is an old road that I tried to follow MANY years ago, that would lead to an alpine meadow below the summit of Mt. Mercer. From the summit, one can see many roads in the area, and on my one and only visit to Mercer, I recall seeing several paths that led from the summit, to meadows near those roads. So, I hoped that perhaps, this new road would follow the old one and emerge at one of those meadows, so that I could follow the trail to the summit once again.
No such luck...it dead-ended at a landing surrounded by several slash piles.

I did have a decent view though...

After taking in the scenery for a bit, I continued my return trip...stopping to explore another spur that went nowhere...before starting home in earnest.

I wish I would have remembered to bring my GPS with me...I would like to know exactly where I was on that mountain....