Pole Haven - Camping, Quading, Creeks, & Cameras

We got home from work last Friday and our neighbor had left a note/map in our door. They said they were camping out at Pole Haven (in the mountains near Cardston) and we were supposed to meet them. So we packed the trailer and loaded the quad and headed out. Another family from Stirling came too. Saturday morning we went out quading and found some fun trails and mud. By the afternoon it was really hot out so we all decided to go down to the creek. Tim and I along with Dave and Jeff thought it would be fun to quad up the creek as far as we could go. It was a good idea until Tim and I went around one corner. It looked like a pretty deep hole, but we were hoping to just go along the edge and ride on the slope. No such luck. There was no slope. It was a drop off into waist deep water. Yep, we tipped our quad into the hole. I was able to keep my one hand, that was holding the video camera, out of the water. Jeff & Dave helped Tim right-side our quad which was completely under water. Then I remembered that our digital camera was in the cargo holder on the quad. We opened it up and a gush of water came out of the holder....the camera was drenched. We didn’t dare to try and start the quad so Dave towed us back to the camp. At camp we realized that the keys for the trailer and truck were no longer on the quad. They must have went into the creek. Went back to the creek...no such luck. We broke into the trailer and eventually were able to break into the truck with a coat hanger to get my spare keys. Back to the quad. The water damage was bad. We drained the oil and it was milky. However lucky for us our neighbor’s dad was out dirt-biking at Pole Haven too and he just happened to be riding with THE MECHANIC FROM KAWASAKI! The guy came over and fixed our quad in 30 minutes. Something that would have cost us $250-300 if we took it to Kawasaki. We tipped the quad around 1:00 and by 8:00 that night we were up and running like nothing ever happened....other than the fact that my camera was dead. So all the photos I have are stills from my video camera. Not the greatest quality.

Yesterday I went and bought a new digital camera. That was money that I sure didn’t want to spend. It’s got so many functions that I’m pretty sure I’ll just use the AUTO mode. I needed a new camera though cuz I use mine all the time. And it’s Britnee’s (my sister) highschool graduation tomorrow. Gotta have a camera for that!

That's as they're trying to right-side our quad. I didn't get any video of it under the water as they jumped pretty fast to get it out. Ignore the water drop on the lens.

Here they are again. Yep, that was a deeper hole than we thought.

Is that a tear? Nah, Tim doesn't cry.

Back up and running. Cheif Mountain in the background.

And some mud that we found while on a trail.