RAIN FOREST OVERLAND JEEP ADVENTURE - Dangerous River Crossing Attempt! /// EFRT S6•EP16

In last week's episode of the Epic Family Road Trip, we headed out on an epic Vancouver Island adventure with a few local YouTubers. Casey from the channel Casey250, Sean from The Story Till Now, Eli of Loki Entertainment, and Chad from Wet Coast Overland who was also our trail guide. Welcome to another episode of the Epic Family Road Trip. In true Vancouver Island style, the trip was very wet and muddy with swelling streams and waterfalls all around us. Ahead was a river that can usually be crossed in the summertime when the river is lower, but now after the recent heavy winter rain, it was high and moving fast. Sean took his gladiator to test the depth and force of the water to see if it would be possible to cross. I won't be able to come back. How much was that pushing me? I started backing up and I was like oh man I don't know about this. It's not that deep but that's a lot of current. Once I got in there it was like I think I was floating a bit. All right so we're here by the river and Sean nosed in just to see how deep it is and to kind of get a feel for how heavy the flow is and it's flowing pretty hard. We've had a lot of rain lately and so we're going to walk up and check out another crossing and see if that's a little better. But right now this one's kind of iffy and the vehicles without snorkels I don't think it would be a go, but we have a couple jeeps with snorkels and we may come back and try this spot, but for now let's go check the other one see what it's like. So there's this small crossing here and there's only room for two jeeps in there so Casey's gonna back up and we're gonna get a ride across this river and then we can get in and take a look at the waterfall. That's what we came here for. He's gonna we can hop on the bumper maybe. Yeah so the assessment from from the other side is that not much? No I mean we can get out to the outcrop basically but then we'll be right in front of the waterfall but I don't think we're going across the entire river today. Yeah I don't like I'm fairly confident that I can do it if I just pin it but I don't think it's worth the risk because we're not all going to be able to go. Yeah and we got to come back like if it was to get to somewhere where we could keep going. Yeah you got to do it a second time. Yeah I think uh because we've had so much rainfall lately yeah. All right Chad's not only our guide but he comes with Tim's on the trail. Donuts to go look at that. I think I'll have that one. Whatever you'd like sir. They're so delicious too. How are they? Wonderful. Tastes like my childhood. Very good. And my adulthood. The maple. Just making some quick sandwiches before hitting the trail again. It has been wet but beautiful. It's been gorgeous scenery. A lot of fun traveling with these guys. They sure know their way around. We're learning a lot and exploring Vancouver Island which is Before heading down the next trail we aired down the tires a bit more. All right we found a or they led us to a gorgeous camp spot right here by the lake. We're probably not going to stay here tonight. Uh not enough room for four or five camps but man you could set up two or three here and uh check this place out. We've got um lots of level spots out here to camp and then it looks like a little uh washroom back in the in the bush there. So we're pretty high up in the mountains and we could get snow up here and this time of year. So we're thinking of driving down the other side of the mountain to find another spot but I'm definitely going to mark this one. Big trees here. Look at that. It looks like they've been cutting down older uh kind of dead trees. Only on the west coast it's unbelievable. I've never seen trees that big. Look at that. Valley is like one of the last pristine valleys that's been kind of left untouched. Hundreds of years old. Yeah. So this is a beautiful spot but not enough room for all the jeeps so we're going to just carry on up the trail up the trail a little bit kind of head up that way. Found a spot here in the old growth rainforest. Absolutely beautiful around here. We're just going to get quickly set up because it's still raining and then uh make some food. This should be a wonderful place to camp. There's a lake and another waterfall so we'll do some hiking around and we'll take you with us. John was backing in over there and all of a sudden his truck tipped up like that so we're going to go see what happened but it looks like he was fell in a sinkhole or something. And then all of a sudden I sunk right into the ground. No way. That's nuts. We need a flashlight. Hey guys so we just enjoyed an epic trail day through mud, puddles, rivers, and streams and it's been so much fun. Right now the guys are there making a cozy fire for tonight and I'm going to be making a warm chili to warm up everyone. We're all a little bit chilled and damp and wet so I'm just going to do with a pulled pork with some beans and some veggies. Something light and simple to get going in the kids tummies fast. Man I can't wait for that to be done. It's gonna be nice to have some hot chili. It is wet. Crazy wet. We hardly got a fire going and we had to use some diesel and it didn't even light at all. Hardly helped but it looks like they're getting it going now up there. Hope this will warm us up pretty good. Thank you. That looks delicious. You can see and smell that it's delicious. It's cold and rainy and damp. We've had a lot of fun on the trail today. No better way to end the day than with a delicious meal and so we are gonna sit around the fire tonight a little bit out of the rain as much as we can and then get a good night's sleep and get back on the trail and so Casey and Sean and Eli and Chad thanks guys it was so much fun wheeling with you guys today here. Chad for showing us all these trails and the epic camp spots. You live in a beautiful place. This is Chad's backyard and he's been camping in these areas his whole life so thank you for showing us around. Like I said earlier today BC has blown our mind this year just seeing how much beauty is here how much wild country to explore and there's a lot more to explore and we're going to take you guys with us every step of the way. First chili. Oh wow that is so good. Some dry stuff. No it was dry like five minutes ago. Yeah it doesn't take long to get wet out there. By the time I put the paper or the wood around the paper it was already soaked. All right we're heading out to get firewood to keep warm tonight while we're sitting around the fire and Casey's out here with his electric chainsaw cutting up some dead wood that was laying here so we're gonna haul in a few more logs and then we should be warm and toasty for the next couple hours. Should be good. It's a lot of wood yeah. Got a little firewood. Those last couple we got three big pieces there plus these four. Yeah it should be locked. Funny. I'm a little dry. Pretty dry. Good morning. Another wonderful sleep. Super quiet out here in the old growth forest and just like everywhere on the island there's waterfalls everywhere. We can hear one in the forest here. It lulled me to sleep and it's a beautiful sound to wake up to so we're gonna go we're gonna make some coffee and there's also a lake down here. We got in here just as it was starting to the sun was starting to go down so we just had time to get our tent set up our camp set up and make some dinner and it was raining really hard all day yesterday and last night but it looks a lot better now so we have I think a bit of time to to show you around and then we're gonna hit the trail. Sounds like Lando wants to get up. Hi. Good morning. Hi Lando. Hi. Hi. You slept in your jacket. You that tired? Sean from the Storytell Now YouTube channel he's parked right over there and there's Casey from his YouTube channel Casey250 and his roof rack rooftop tent and all that is delayed but has been ordered and I think he's looking forward to that because he's probably done with ground tenting now and then up in the forest there we okay Sean set up a rain tent which was really nice last night we had a fire and then here's our camp spot nestled amongst these huge original growth trees look at that the sun coming through the trees after a couple of days of heavy heavy rain that is a sight to behold. Hey guys I'm gonna introduce you to another of our new friends you met Sean yesterday this is Casey. Good morning guys I'm Casey my channel is Casey250 and this is my 2020 EcoDiesel Jeep Wrangler which has been a whole lot of fun taking it all over British Columbia over the last eight months since I bought it and we're slowly trying to outfit it for a little bit better camping and overlanding because right now we've got a summer tent under a heavy duty tarp which is okay but we want to get something a little better. You able to straight stay dry last night? Yeah it was inside the tent was fine I've got a little pool on the back side of my setup here but nothing came in the tent a little bit of moisture just because it's so cold but I stayed dry my new sleeping bag was awesome and uh definitely improving my camping situation which uh being cold and wet are two things that have really pulled me away from wanting to camp so the more more of that I can improve the better I think. Yeah so you also have a YouTube channel here on the island? Yeah so yeah we're I'm based out of Victoria on Vancouver Island and I go back and forth on the ferry to visit Sean and explore the rest of British Columbia you check out my channel KC250 I'm also on Instagram as well and I upload new videos every week trying to do more camping and overlanding but I do a lot of parts installs and reviews and how to's and guides and just general thoughts of jeeping and off-roading and overlanding. That's very a lot of good information I'm sure in there. Yeah I like to have a bit of mix of everything I like to talk about parts and gear a lot and get out and test it and see how it goes. So if you are a jeep enthusiast or a overlanding camping enthusiast or you just enjoy exploring the wilderness you know on YouTube then you got to check out KC250 YouTube and Instagram you're gonna love it. Thanks so much had a great weekend. Yeah it's been fun yeah it's been fun. Don't forget your coffee. No way am I forgetting that. Where else other than beautiful British Columbia can you just wake up in the morning to a place like this have your coffee overlooking something as scenic as that waterfall through the rainforest it's I have to tell you this place is magical absolutely magical. I just want to show you we were in here last night this is a Coleman instant canopy 10 by 10 it's a just a simple setup but man that sure came in handy when it was pouring rain. It was awesome and kept the heat in the fire reflectors really helped with the nice fire that we had going last night. Yeah it was great. Check out that double reflector setup. That was awesome. It just created such a cozy atmosphere in here. This is the best living room that I've been in where you're sitting around you know not a tv but this beautiful campfire with the fire reflectors and then the forest it was pretty awesome. It took a while for the fire to get going but once it did yeah it was hot and then I went to bed early and you guys you and the boys stayed up till yeah we had some good conversations it was a great night just hanging out around the fire just talking about all kinds of things that's awesome enjoyed ourselves love it we might get ourselves one of these yeah it's pretty I mean this is Sean it takes up a lot of space that's the only challenge yeah handy right yeah we might not have the space for it so but we could do something similar with our our side awning that's what I'm thinking that's what I when I get the roof rack I want to put an awning on it so that I can have this space without taking up the space in the vehicle because I'm kind of at the same issue like I'm not living out it but space is definitely at a premium when I go out right if I start taking my daughter yeah and it's even more even more so you got to pack more gear and so on yeah so we uh removed this round pit you'll find these pits at a lot of rec sites or camp spots but what we don't like about them is that they kind of hold the heat in you almost have to stand right up over the fire to get any kind of heat whatsoever so we removed it had an open fire which we'll clean up of course before we leave and then put the fire reflectors around it and that creates a whole different experience much I mean it just shot the heat right back at us where we're sitting and uh yeah so anyway another use for the another way to use the fire reflectors right there to put two of them together and have a bigger bigger space might as well give a sinkhole update um showed you last night that sinkhole's getting a little bigger I don't think it is a bear den otherwise I think the bear might have popped his head out but I don't know that would have been uh and he's always welcomed by the fire but that that's kind of uh on the other side of the reflector Lando are you getting some adjustments on your jacket you getting some jacket adjustments going on oh boy wow mom thank you so much what's on the menu uh eggnog french toast it's amazing wow thank you mom okay oh my god get biking oh yeah you were supposed to get biking thank you I'm just going to show you a bit more of the trees here it's rare unfortunately but you know that you find old growth forest that's never been logged and thankfully this stuff is all protected here but I'll stay in the shot just to give it perspective but I mean these things have been around forever some uh a fellow yesterday Chad who was with us yesterday he estimated some of these trees are 500 years old or older and they're just beautiful beautiful living living things and I don't know if you're as impressed as I am but I cannot get enough look at that a couple of huge old growth cedars now the fact that that perfectly straight tree is still standing is unbelievable because they're worth so much money to the loggers I mean a tree like that is I don't know I don't know that much about logging but I do know it's worth tens of thousands of dollars so they're usually picked out of the woods but I'm so thankful for this huge grove and I don't know how big this area is but we drove in and we'll show you on the way out it's it's not a small grove it's it's quite large and there's thousands and thousands of trees here so that's pretty cool all right so we've had breakfast we're all packed up and we are going to go hit the trails we're going to take you with us we were absolutely blown away by the breathtaking scenery all around us on this trail and we were lucky to have a day without rain to fully enjoy the beauty of the view but we are going through the misty mountains and the huge trees and we've been following a gorgeous lake I just flagged this spot on Gaia we are not that far from Port Alberni so we came in this way went all through and now we're coming back and it looks like a couple of logging roads and then we can get back on the highway and there's Port Alberni so if you're in this area that's this is a great camping spot in fact if we don't use it tonight we're going to come back here so I flagged these potentials you know as we're going along if you find a spot like this you're in the trees you've got a river right behind you and lots of level space here to set up camp so these are the places we're always looking for and we've got another one to fall back on anytime we're in this area oh big truck uh-oh move over Pete all the way just to show you what what's down here so we've been we follow the lake and then the river empties into the lake and this is kind of where it joins to the salt water inlet exactly yeah so you can take this east all the way to Port Alberni and you can take it west all the way to you or japan or japan if you want so Chad uh hooked us up with yeah we'll need a bigger boat they need bigger tires right yeah so Chad hooked us up with some uh halibut which he caught about five miles off so he can take his boat all the way from Port Alberni out to the open water and we can't wait to get into that halibut that's gonna be a meal lucky yeah i know that is delicious yeah halibut is uh it's common out here but you go other places and it's like a premium it is yeah this is kind of a cool little lookout here it is gorgeous all right we'll pull up with trash it's actually not been bad i mean there's some people camp and leave their trash but in general bc's been pretty clean we use uh this made canadian made by northbound expeditions or new brunswick expeditions they used to be called they're out of new brunswick good solid bag we drop it down low so that our uh brake their brake light is visible from behind typically you'd probably have that up a bit higher but since we have brake light right here we just drop it down does a good job so we're just airing up the tires before getting back on the pavement road here we had a blast with these guys saw all kinds of trails that we probably wouldn't have found um just want to say thanks to Chad and Eli for coming along on the first day and uh yeah man i hope you guys enjoy this video we sure enjoyed making it yeah that's the speed plate so now you can just wait till it's done airing up wow doesn't shut off but you can watch it on the gauge and all four tires are the same psi i can go do other stuff all right guys it's been a blast yeah thanks for showing us around we really enjoyed it i hope you guys enjoy the video a lot of amazing scenery here on the island and feeling uh driving around with Casey and Sean uh just opened up some more trails that we're gonna we've marked for you so i hope you uh get out here someday and have a lot of fun so guys once again thank you very much for taking us make sure you follow their youtube channel kc 250 and the story tell now you won't regret it and in the meantime we'll see you down the road