Posts for August, 2016

So we are on the road again and the "journey continues". Since the last entry we have been back to our house in Washington, to undertake a series of chores that deserve no discussion. In addition we had a visit from our eldest son Brendon and we accompanied him into the mountains of British Columbia where Nina and I played support team to a brief solo mountain biking expedition.

We expect today to be a bit of a model for our time in British Columbia. A relative short day in terms of mileage, but a good stretch of that mileage on rocky roads, and at the end of the day a really picturesque campsite (this time beside a glacial lake). There is not much to say about such a day that is not captured in the photos.

Gun Creek Camp Ground, where we camped tonight, is located in the bed of Carpenter Lake where Gun Creek enters the lake. The campground is provided and maintained by BCHydro and the lake is a source of water for a BCHydro generating plant. Just near the campground is the site of an old town that was flooded when the lake filled after the damming of Bridge River. The campground is very popular as 4x4 types can easily access the dry floor of the lake to have some fun, and make some dust, in the dry silt. However, as we discovered the dry silt might be fun but when wet the stuff makes for getting quickly and thoroughly stuck.

We did a bit of exploring around Gold Bridge this morning before heading down the Hurley Wilderness road, a summer only road that provides a short cut to Pemberton from Gold Bridge, it was quite rough and rocky as it seems to get a lot of traffic that is in a hurry.

Into Pemberton this morning for the usual type of chores after a few days in the "wilderness", groceries, internet, real coffee, a visit to the Visitor Info center.

The day started with another rescue mission. One of the other campers at Twin One had managed to flatten their vehicle's battery overnight and came calling asking for a jump start; which of course we did. We like to pay it forward, we have been helped by other people many times.

A rest day at Birkenhead Lake, a short hike, and some general relaxing in the forest and by the lake.

Today we traveled back to the Goldbridge area via a spectacular series of roads. The first of these was called the Highline Road, and it was well named. It followed the western shore of Anderson Lake but was cut high on the valley wall rather than on the lake front. Spectacular, with a number of really steep rough climbs. At the Northern end of Anderson Lake was a short section of flat road through Seton Portage to Seton Lake and the village of Shalalth, and then a 3000 ft climb and descent over Mission Mountain Road to Carpenter lake, Goldbridge and a return visit to Gun Creek CG.

Another warm summers day and a stop in Lillooet to do some laundry before heading up highway 99 and then 97 to the town of Clinton to a real campground with showers and electricity. I felt the need to give the camper batteries some real electricity as we have been having trouble getting them fully recharged. The electrical system in the ER seems inadequate but I have not entirely worked out what the problem is. At some point I will do an entry devoted to electrical issues.

We hung around the campground this morning enjoying the nice sun and the camps wifi. In Clinton while filling up with fuel we got talking to a local guy who had ridden a motorcycle to Ushuaia, Argentina, you never can tell about people.

There was some cloud in the sky this morning and threat of rain (which eventually arrived) as we got onto the road for a pleasant drive through a series of valleys and eventually along an escarpment beside the Fraser River with really spectacular views. Finally the road dropped off the escarpment and down to a steel bridge across the river where to our surprise we met up with the motorcyclists from last nights camp. There after followed a discussion about our proposed route. They thought they had found the correct road but it was rough and boulder covered, so not to their liking.

Not a very interesting day. After a fast drive from last nights camping spot (the first of the two photos below) to Williams Lake we spent over half the day in the car park of either Walmart or Canadian Tire catching up on "business".

As we headed to our chosen camping spot this afternoon, Greeny Lake near Lac La Hache, it dawned on us that we stayed at this very same park on our way north in 2009. A quick look at our blog confirmed this and even gave us a date 3/31/2009. As you can see from the pictures below conditions today are a bit different from that previous visit.

We spent the day following various backroads past a series of picturesque lakes finally arriving at Howard lake for our nights resting place.

Our backroad wanderings continued today and a series of logging and other gravel roads led us past a series of lakes. The wet nature of the countryside produced a good supply and variety of fungii and the bright sunshine had us more than a bit carried away with the photography.

We continued our wanderings this morning heading south along forest roads from Bridge Lake with the plan on getting to the area around Castle Rock Hoodoos Provincial Park. But that proved a little more challenging than we had expected as we had to reconcile differences between various maps. The result of this resolution was that we ended up traveling along Brigade Creek Fire Service Road. It was clear from the start of this 12 mile section of road that it was little used as there were no tire marks in the sand, an impression that was eventually reinforced by a series of fallen trees blocking our path. So we spent some of our time either pulling trees off the road with the front winch or simply pushing them out of the way with the front bumper. The final mile of the road was a steep descent into Deadman Creek and we were nervous for a while that we would be faced with an impassable crossing of that creek; but all was well.

It was raining this morning, and the road was now muddy, as we traveled North along Deadman Valley to Vidette Resort. We just wanted to get as far up the valley as we could to see if we could unravel some of yesterdays navigation confusion.

We got off to a healthy start today with a 3 mile hike around the lake, pleasant weather and nice views. Thereafter the day was about getting to Princeton. Though of course we chose not to follow the obvious highways but instead chose Kane Valley Rd, Voght Valley Rd, and Otter Lake Rd to Tulameen.

We spent a couple of nights with some of Nina's Canadian family at their house on Vaseux Lake in the Okanagan region of BC. They were kind enough to conduct us on a tour of a few of the local vineyards, show us some of the local wild life, as well as allow us to enjoy the tranquility of their loverly lakeside cottage.

Just a short drive today to a resort town called Summerland situated on the western side of Lake Okanagan. This is a really popular vacation and retirement place. The campground we stayed seemed to be fully occupied by "permanents" and advertised itself as "affordable lakeside living". The travelers like us that wanted a nights camping got relegated to the "grass area" without facilities.