Shields Lake is a small lake located about 15Km north of Sooke Bay on Vancouver Island. Although we spent four nights in the area, with lots of R&R and not much driving, we still managed to find several interesting and challenging runs close by. The site itself has no tables or any other facilities (if it’s a concern) but does however offer some pretty good fishing. Some nice 15" cutthroat were caught by some of the guys.

To get there, just get onto HWY.#14 and head towards Sooke. Before actually getting to the town you’ll want to hang a right on Harbourview rd. ( it’s marked by a road sign). This road will wind it’s way by a few homes and then come to a clearing with a few different forks, you’ll want to go straight. Continue straight on the main dirt road, you’ll pass a few small forks but only really one main intersection that heads off to the left, go straight. At the 6 Km point you’ll hit the first and really only obstacle along the way, it's a nice rock face with a v-sluice on the left or a climb up it’s face on the right. You’ll be driving on this road for approximetly 9-10 Km where you’ll reach a bridge, you can cross over it or drive around it. At about the 11-12Km point you should reach an intersection (GPS--48deg27'05"N,,,123deg39'01"W ), go left, staying left will take you to Shields Lake (about 2-3Km in) or (GPS-- 48deg26'44"N,,,123deg40'04"W ). There are a few different sites around the lake so look around. Going straight at the intersection will take you up some pretty good rock faces and onto Crabapple Lake. ** Along the drive up to Sheild's Lake keep an eye open for two large pieces of cement drain pipe on the right hand side. They’ll be located at an intersection that leads off to Cleavage Rock (they're located before the rock face with the v-sluice).

Phil on the way to Sheilds

Ian @ Crabapple intersect.

Peter, camper & all (caught the biggest fish & log)

 We had five vehicles get together for this one all arriving at different times. Phil and his co-pilot Chris arrived Friday afternoon to warm up and get a head start on the rest of us. Roxene, Danielle and Andrew (that’s me), arrived later on the Friday night, got lost in downtown Victoria first ( you could hear an echo through the downtown core " GIVE ME A LOGGING ROAD ANY %&*&$ DAY"), but did find the lake in the end . Peter and Daniella in their Ford Ranger as well as Mike, Tamara and Jacob in their Chevy Blazer all arrived on the Saturday. Oh yeah!! Then there’s Ian ‘Hi Lift’ and his co-pilots Brad and Tony ‘elephant dung chucker’ (he’s South African), they started to find their way to Cape Scott ( about 8hrs north of Shields Lake) via the ‘backway’ but at 3:00 AM figured they’d park, crash and worry about it in the morning. ( Too much elephant dung ????? ). In any case we were all together by early Saturday afternoon.

Our first run, besides the drive in, was a night one, Saturday night/ Sunday morning. We headed out back towards the Crabapple Lake intersection (GPS--48deg27'05"N,,,123deg39'01"W ) and drove up about 60' of rock faces with mild ledges. These faces were fun with locked vehicles, (keeping to the left hand side), and gave us some good air time. We found a challenging hill climb about a Km past this point (off to the right) which none of us were able to climb (bigger meats) although Ian tried to roll his way down it while taking the by-pass. The hill lead to a beautiful look out (the next day). After that rolling altercation we decided we'd better head back to camp. So we scraped Phil out of the dirt and wandered our way back, hitting the sack at about 6:00AM. GOT TO LOVE THOSE NIGHT RUNS!!!!

Andrew gets a bit of air

Swallowed by the rocks!!!

3" more to the right and <<<

Peter, Mike and Phil and entourage headed out late Sunday afternoon. Unfortunetly, on the way out Peter thrashed his camper. He'd impressed us all by getting his Ford Ranger with camper and car top all the way in there. There's a few off-camber sections on the drive in to Sheilds that get your attention, let alone without the higher center of gravity. In any case, the old sun in the eyes and that partially cut timber in the trees thing managed to tear a strip out of the side of the camper. Apparently, it's been turned into ash in some incinerator somewhere.

Our original plan after these guys left was to pack up and head out towards Leetchtown with Ian, but the comfort level at Sheilds kept us there. (Let's not talk about the night before either). We opted to go find Crabapple Lake, cruise up Empress mountain and hit Cleavage Rock instead. Following the rock faces trail took us straight to Crabapple. Crabapple is a nice little lake with one area to camp at ( fairly small). We drove past the lake and took the first left, this wandered up a mountain and some pretty good obstacles along the way. Ian seemed determined the whole weekend to dump his Jeep and "tried" a couple more times on this ride (never happened). Cleavage Rock was definetly a highlight of our trip, as the name indicates it's a large v-formation about 6' deep. You climb it at 37 deg (clinometer) straddling the V. One of your front tires will get a bit of air time as you crest the top. The worst part about climbing those angles is not being able to see where your going, all I had was the tip of Ian's fingers to guide me (he's about 6' 7") .

Ian makes a clean run through Cleavage Rock

Andrew's turn

All in all we had good R&R with some interesting wheelin', we probably would of liked to have done a little more exploring.............Next time..........Later!!!!!!