Migrating Crane 2019: Thursday July 11th

View of Lac La Hache from my brother's deck. My kayak is now on their dock ready for some action!

Went for a walk along their road the day I arrived, and took some pics of wild flowers.

Wild roses.

Common red paintbrush which is prolific in the whole BC area this year - stunning.

Local train station!

Before we left for Nimpo Lake, Bill drove me around the wildfire site from 2017.

Vast areas of burnt out forest very near to their house - they were evacuated for 3 weeks in 2017. Very scary.

The clean up is progressing, but the scale of the damage is hard to conceive.

Finally - we begin the trek to Nimpo Lake!

Yet another wonderful river canyon.

Bill & Bobbie's RV with my little trailer in behind!

The scenery is awe inspiring. That sounds corny, but in fact it fills you up and makes you feel small at the same time. You look up to the mountains, deep valleys and sky, and then down to the wild flowers tucked along the side of the pull-offs. We stopped frequently to take stretch breaks - Bill being very thoughtful of my gimpy leg!

We drove through an area which had been burned two years ago. Blackened trunks. Dead aspen with white trunks. But the ground underneath most of it was green with grasses and lush with wild flowers – fireweed and many others – yellow and white mostly – with names I don’t know. We past ranches which had been some of the earliest buildings in BC – still there, still housing a ranching family. Log homes with split rail fences which framed grassland backed by peaks. So beautiful.

More wild roses - lovely scent and seemed to be everywhere.

Steep hills rise from the side of the road. This looks dry, but they've actually had quite a bit of rain this year.

We got to Bar Canyon PP where we camped right beside the Chilcotin River for the night. The river is apparently usually aquamarine in colour, but due to heavy rains it was high, fast, and muddy. No playing in this river! The previous few days had seen flooding in much of the Chilcotin area, and we thought at one point our excursion would be at risk, but the effects were north of where we were headed and aside from swollen rivers, we saw no damage. These photos were from our campsite - right on the river. So lovely, and with the roar of the river in the background.

Not too many mosquitoes, and after a pot of tea we all piled into Bill’s truck for a little tour. He wanted to find a homestead he visited in the late 60’s when he was hunting in the area with his friend. The couple – named ‘Bliss’ – had some small cabins and they rented one for the night. We went down a few backroads by the river, by a lovely tannin coloured creek, past a few homes and ranches, and finally he did find the old buildings, now abandoned. They probably belonged to a new set of buildings some distance away so we didn’t feel we could go in, but it would have been wonderful to see the inside. The place felt full of stories.

I loved the fences - these are both old, and currently in-use fences.

The Bliss homestead.

Back in Bill's truck we explored another backroad and then back to the campsite for ‘happy hour’ by the raging river and a lovely dinner in their RV while a rainstorm moved through the area. The RV feels huge inside after my little home!

I’m excited to continue the journey tomorrow to Nimpo Lake! This area, while wild, is not as remote as I had thought. The road has been paved since Bill was last here, and there are lots of people moving about on the roads and in the park. But it’s still a long way from a town – and that feels very good.

As we pulled onto the highway, I snapped a photo of the hill rising on the other side.