Verg is not, strictly speaking, integral to this story. But his van is. And while maybe that means we should just start there, with the van, and not go into to any superfluous detail about it’s owner, fuck it, this is our website and Verg (pronounced Verge) is our friend. So tough titties. Besides, the only thing we’re going to say about Verg is this: if you don’t know what a Verg is, if you don’t have a Verg, if you don’t know somebody who knows a Verg, then you’re doing it wrong. The practical point is that it’s not that easy to vehicularly accommodate four people and their fully loaded Fat Boys. A minivan like the Chrysler Town & Country could almost do it, but it would punk-out as soon as we hit dirt, of which there was several hours. A 15-pass would do it but they cost too much to rent and taking the seats out of the back is a dick. Plus, they’re too big and too difficult to furnish with warmth, trash and vibes. What’s really called for in a situation like this is a Sprinter Van or better yet, a Sportsmobile. But both of those are too nice, too perfect and too contrived/wanky/precious/affected/etc. Also, nobody in our group belongs to the Leisure Class yet. But we know Verg and Verg has van.

ADDITIONAL SUPPORT PROVIDED BYHere’s what we know about Verg’s van:

1. It’s a Ford E-350.
2. It’s white(ish).
3. It doesnt have windows.
4. It’s lifted.
5. It’s going through a pretty serious transformation, albeit slowly. It’s still only a 2-wheel drive van, but soon it will be 4-wheel drive.
6. It has oversized tires on it, mud terrains.
7. When you corner the tires buzz the inside of the wheel wells.
8. The CD player does not work right.
9. The Bluetooth code to pair your phone with the stereo is 445698.
10. The speakers and amp and woofer are after-market-as-fuck.
11. A lot of that after-market-as-fuck stereo equipment is screwed to a piece of plywood which is itself screwed to the side of the van, Russian-style. On fireroads that shit will come lose and swing from the top but it wont fall down.
12. If you look under all the snowboard jackets and plastic two liter soda pop bottles long enough, you will find firearms and an AC converter.
13. Verg’s CD (all of the burned, obvs) collection is hella…..something.
14. The van itself, like enginewise, is next level reliable.
15. Some of the seat belts are not installed according to regulations.
16. Verg’s van tore-up the fireroads.
17. Verg’s van sailed through Customs—the firearms were removed prior to visiting Canada.
18. All we can think is this: the Customs Agents took one long look at the Van and said something to the effect of, “Tyson, I’m going on lunch in 30 minutes and I don’t have time for this Can of Worms. Besides, anybody driving that van is either a genuine Chechen Rebel, in which case that’s going to fuck-up my lunch hour most definitely, or they’re your standard issue Hobo-tech of some kind of surf or mountain bike variety, in which case they’re rolling so cognito they wouldn’t dare be anything but squeaky clean, so why bother, it’s a lose-lose.”

On the way to Tyax lake in Verg’s van we picked up James Crowe in Whistler and saw a young bald eagle standing on the side of the road near Downtown Lake, just chilling. It wasn’t hitchhiking. It didn’t look injured. And it was nonplussed by all of its many admirers and paparazzi. It might have been smoking a cigarette, something filterless, like Lucky Strikes, or maybe it was a Camel. It was definitely waiting for something to happen—aren’t we all—but it wasn’t in what I would describe as a hurry. This was basically the James Dean of eagles. In fact it was probably waiting on the side of the road for some babe to come back with his motorcycle.

We parked in the parking lot at Tyax Lodge, unloaded, finished packing, locked the van, which van still had a SHITLOAD of food in it.¹¹Side note: we thought about Verg’s van cum refrigerator a lot while were in the bush. Like when we returned to the parking lot four days later, would we find the van roofless, some kinda custom tuna-can job done by an infamous grizzly the folks at Tyax Lodge lovingly call Dumpster Dan? Then we got in Dale’s Beaver. There is no point pontificating about the sensations one experiences flying in a Beaver over the Chilcotin Range. Maybe the only thing we can say is this: Dale charged us something like $1500.00 dollars for what was effectively a 45-minute airborne cab ride to a lake, and the experience alone was worth the money.

The Cabin at Crystal Lake is called Sky Camp. First things first; to reduce Sky Camp to a cabin is a gross misrepresentation of what’s really there. Also, while the main cabin is technically a cabin—you know, because of the log construction and it being in the woods and all that—it’s about 90% as nice, and well-equipped, as the house I live in. We assumed Dale and the folks at Tyax call it “Sky” Cabin because of its elevation and remoteness and the misty-cloudy mountains surrounding it. Either way it reminded all of us of Lando Calrissian’s outpost Cloud City.

That night James made a fire so hot I had to sleep on the porch like grizzly bait for two hours. He also liberated me of my Luna sandals and put them, one can only assume, in the Croc Box. Erik did some mapping and Kyle some farting.