Sasquatch Provincial Park

Yesterday we went into Agassiz to watch the Olympic Torch run.  The weather wasn’t as spectacular as it had been, and is again today (more like April than early February), but it wasn’t too awful either, just sort of gray and overcast.  I won’t post pictures of the run on here but for anyone who knows me personally, I’ve posted them on my Face book page.

After the event was over we decided to find somewhere to take the dogs for a walk as they’d been cooped up in the car for a couple of hours.  Our first destination was to the dyke that runs along the Fraser River, at the foot of Mount Woodside….

you can see it is a pretty uninspiring day…

I’m posting this picture, just to demonstrate how mild it has been in this part of the country, since the beginning of the year.  Those are the tracks of a Black Bear.  It is the 7th of February….we shouldn’t be seeing bear tracks this time of the year!

There is a look through the trees….those bear tracks were just below this spot.

standing at the river’s edge for this shot.  At this point, we decided to take a drive to Sasquatch Provincial Park.  This park is the closest provincial park to where we live, and yet we have never stayed there and only visited it once before.  I had checked out the website and saw that the park was open for camping year round and thought it might be an idea to check it out, so we headed back towards Harrison Hot Springs and followed the direction to the park itself.

The park is actually divided up into several areas….this is the most distant area, Hick’s Lake.  There is a campground here but a sign said it was closed for the winter, so once again, we never got to check out the actual campsites.  This spot is near the parking lot and boat launch….

a walk a bit further along, and you reach this large grassy picnic area…

just past the picnic area and over a little foot bridge brought this view.  There was an American Dipper in the little creek that ran off from this point, but it vanished underwater, so no picture.

a path from the footbridge sort of looped back and crossed the road to a trail that circles this Beaver Pond.  We only walked part way…it was very quiet bird wise and I wasn’t really wearing proper foot wear so we went back to the car…

and drove to the lower campground located on this, Deer Lake.  This campground was open, in fact there was someone camped there….we have put doing so, too, on our list of things to do….only if we can come very early in the season and mid-week as the problem with this area is it’s proximity to the large population of metro Vancouver, in other words, it is probably a pretty popular place and we don’t like popular places….

and just to prove (again) that it is really spring-like here this year….I spotted this American Robin!  I haven’t seen any at home yet but I’ve been expecting them to show up almost any day.

Unfortunately we also witnessed Search and Rescue and the R.C.M.P. doing their job.  Apparently the day before a boat had flipped and one of the occupants hadn’t made it.

From here, we drove down to the last section of the park, the day use area, which is located right on Harrison Lake…the weather and light had really deteriorated by now but I snapped these anyway…

this is taken from the boat launch, looking south towards Harrison Hot Springs…

and this is looking sort of northwards…  We will have to return on a nicer day and perhaps spend some time exploring this ‘very close to home’ park.

More photos of Kentucky Allyene P.P.

Yesterday’s photos concentrated more on Kentucky Lake, today we’ll concentrate on Allyene Lake.

This, and a few of the following pictures were taken on September 29, 2006 from where we were camped at Allyene Lake….(see the difference a DSLR camera makes!)

It is possible to walk right around this lake although it gets a bit tricky down at the far end…the walk along the west side of the lake is actually a road, so very easy walking…

The campsites in this area are accessible year round although….

you have to keep in mind what sort of winter it has been and that this is at a fairly high elevation.  These pictures show the campground on March 22 of last year….a year when the whole province had a ‘real’ winter with lots of snow and sub zero temperatures.

More of the campground in March of last year, the campsites in this area are in various levels, some out in the open and some tucked away in private spots.

That is what the road looked like that day….just a tad icy!

April 17, 2006….shows a couple of the campsites on the lower level, plus the boat launch area….note the lake was still frozen…

May 24th, 2004 The Balsam Root were in flower on the hillside on the east side of Allyene Lake.  You will find a lot of wildflowers in this area in May, especially at the far end of the lake where the group campground now sits, and above the eastern shore where the habitat is open grassland.

Sunset at Kentucky Lake, September 5, 2003.

Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park

In the last few posts I’ve made reference to Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park, so thought I’d go back into my pictures and post those I have of this lovely little provincial park.

The most straightforward way to get to the park is off of the Coquilla Connector (Highway 97C), turn south onto the old Princeton highway (5A), the turn off to the park is 11 km south of Aspen Grove.

The following pictures won’t be in any particular order although I may try to make them make a bit of sense…

This picture, taken on Feb. 27, 2005 remains as one of my all time favourite pictures…that is Ernie and our nosy little Brussels Griffon, ‘Willie’ checking out this bit of raft on a frozen Allyene Lake.

This picture, taken the same day shows the frozen lake, although there is no snow in the surrounding countryside.  It is too bad that on our ‘Spur of the moment’ drive last Sunday we didn’t pop over this way to see what it looks like currently. 

This is the earliest digital image I have of Allyene Lake.  This photo was taken on September 1st, 2003.  Although the west shore is quite forested, the remainder of the shoreline is open grasslands.

This picture was taken on October 2, 2004.  It and the one above are both taken from the main camping area on Allyene Lake.

and to give to proof to what I’ve said, that we often take drives up into this part of the country in the middle of winter…this was taken on February 9, 2006 and shows one of the campsites in the intermediary area between Allyene and Kentucky Lakes.  There are a couple of ‘pot hole’ lakes here, 1 of them is the snow covered area on the right of the photo.

on that same visit I had taken this pictures of the aspen trees that line the access road to the park.  In spring this area is always alive with birds, however, I noticed on our last visit that there are now signs up saying this is private property and to stay on the road……

One of the best visits we ever had was in Easter of 2006.  We took a week and initially went to Juniper Beach Provincial Park, then Tunkwa, and eventually to Kentucky Allyene where we, being virtually the only people there, had one of the spots right on the shore of Kentucky Lake that was still partially frozen.  The date was April 20th…unfortunately you can’t do that anymore, either, as the gate to Kentucky Lake’s campground doesn’t open until May 15th – one of my pet peeves – why???  They should be open all the time! We ‘retired’ and ‘semi-retired’ people with our RV’s can get by without water and pit toilets being available….just let us park!  We’ve been paying taxes long enough.

This was our campsite that visit and one morning we got up to sheer magic…..  There had been a light dusting of snow over night…

as the sun rose everything sparkled ….

with the rising of the sun the snow quickly evaporated….

but not before I managed to get out and shoot a few pictures like this one of a Townsend’s Solitaire…

and this, which is, to date, my best picture of a Mountain Chickadee, although the snow had disappeared in this sunny spot.

There were also a number of Barrow’s Goldeneye on the lake that trip.

This was also the first time we’d witness the ice coming off of a lake as we took this picture from about half way down the lake one day….and the next day, the lake was ice free.

This shot, taken on April 18, 2003 shows the extreme south end of Kentucky Lake.  The shores of this lake are forested but there is a walking trail the whole way around the lake.  There is often snow at this end of the trail well into May….depending on the type of winter of course.

This is probably enough for this posting….I’ll do some more next time.

Spur of the moment drive continued…

The town of Merritt is located in a large valley and is the hub where a number of major highways meet and is also,therefore, right in the center of a number of our favourite places to visit.  The Coquilla highway (highway 5) enters the town from the south, and continues right through, exiting to the north as it heads for Kamloops – we can get to Tunkwa that way.  Highway 97 C, also known as the Coquilla Connector, heads off to the east to the Okanagan, we can access the Kane Valley and also Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park that way.  Highway 5A is known as the ‘old highway’ to Kamloops….and today we would head out that way for a short distance….

Merritt is cattle country….here we’re looking off towards the east…

I zoomed in on this pair of Bald Eagles perched in one of the trees….you can see how sparse the snow is, although this isn’t that unusual for this area.

Our destination today was this rest area on Nicola Lake.  This is a huge lake, what is showing is only the most western portion, and the head of the Nicola River.  We were actually surprised, given the mild winter, to see that the lake, at least this part of it, was completely frozen over….

this view is looking off towards the north east and shows more of the lake, also that elusive blue sky that we never did actually get to!

You can’t get much more ‘Canadian’ than this…..

thanks to a very friendly little boy….we learned that this was ‘Aunty’ out there ice fishing and they had caught 3 fish so far…..the temperature was sitting at 0 degrees…

2 more brothers were out there, with hockey sticks and chunks of ice for pucks….

Here are Ernie and Shantz coming along the shoreline after admiring the fish.  Ernie tried to go out on the ice, but he said it was just too slippery for his runners – remember our winter boots hadn’t made the trip!

Heading back now, towards Merritt where lunch awaited….you can see this is bunch grass and sage bush country….there were actually about a dozen Trumpeter Swans at the far end of the lake where there was some open water…but too far off for a decent picture…

but just to prove that this is indeed cattle country, we stopped to take this picture, looking back the way we had just come.

The quickest route to return home would be to retrace our route and go back via the Coquilla, but that wouldn’t be us, so after lunch we headed out the road that follows the Nicola River, from Merritt to Spence's Bridge on the Thompson River…..

our destination would be through those mountains.  At this portion of the route, while we were still fairly high up, you can see there is a fair amount of ice along the Nicola River, although virtually nothing in the way of snow….

this route is through very arid country, in a couple of months the hillsides will be covered in flowering Balsam Root….this trip we had to settle for sage brush..

the ice along the river is disappearing as we drop in elevation…

and when we stopped at one of the informal camping spots along the route, there was virtually none…

and if you need proof that this is normally a very hot dry location…

this picture of one of the many Prickly Pear Cactus growing amongst the sage should do it.  Notice though the fresh shoots of grass….that shouldn’t be happening until about March….

we’ll take this one last shot of this area….the day is moving on and the light is failing but we aren’t far from the town of Spences Bridge…

In fact, here we are.  That is the Thompson River there, with no ice, no snow, in sight….

we looked back up in the direction of Cache Creek and you can see for yourself….no snow…

Just before the road we were on joined highway 1 we stopped to take this shot…there is a waterfall off in the distance…

and this one….by now it is really way too dark for pictures so packed the camera away as we pulled onto Highway 1, heading towards the Fraser Canyon and eventually, home.

Spur of the moment trip…..

Yesterday, was a sort of dull gray day around here with nothing really on the agenda.  We decided to take the truck that has been sitting parked for the last few months, for a bit of a run having just had it serviced in preparation for the spring and RVing season (at least for us), arriving.  Our intention was to drive over to Chilliwack, but as we were heading towards Agassiz and noticed a bit of blue sky in the east, Ernie said “We could drive that way and try and find the sun”…to which I responded “mmmm”  He then said “We could drive to Merritt for lunch…” to which I said “that would give the truck a good long run….” and so it was decided. 

Now these sort of D-R-I-V-E-S aren’t unusual for us in the winter, by this time in January our feet our getting itchy, but normally we make the decision before we get in the vehicle and start out.  For example, I would have thrown our winter boots in the truck, and taken along some dog food – just in case – even thrown our emergency packs in, after all this is B.C. and is supposed to be winter! and I would have taken the GPS…not because we need it, our vehicles have driven to Merritt so often they could do it on their own, but when you have the toys you might as well play with them….we had none of these….I did have a camera because I never go anywhere without one, but that was about it….

First stop was this lovely new Tim Horton’s which has recently opened in Hope (we even have it programmed into the GPS that was sitting at home in the cupboard)…needing a coffee ‘for the road’ – Note the lack of snow…this will be a recurring theme – it is January 24th – it is supposed to be the middle of winter….

this is the snow shed hill on the Coquilla Highway.  The Coquilla climbs constantly from Hope, the ‘snow shed’ is to stop snow from sliding down and covering the highway…no worries this year! and also starts the very steepest part of the ascent….when we had the Dodge 1500 and the trailer, this was the section I always held my breath as we were in ‘I think I can, I think I can,’ mode.  We always made it but…

Here is the road as it looked yesterday.. we’re pulled off to the side…don’t want to give the wrong impression….the road is paved…this is just the shoulder.

and here we are, just past the summit….notice…no snow!  Normally there would be snow banks higher than your vehicle along here…and there is that elusive blue sky off in the distance.

This is one of the parking lots at the Britton Creek Rest Area, the larger parking lot at the rear was so full of pickups with trailers and snowmobiles that there was no where to park!  This has always been a spot where snowmobilers play in the winter, and I guess, the fact that there is so little snow this year had them all concentrated in the few areas where there is some.  There were even a bunch of army cadets, or maybe army (who knows with all the Olympics security that is happening)…who ever they were, they were having lunch and the Gray Jays were helping them.

Since this is as far as I’ve managed to get on this today….I’ll post it and continue on tomorrow…

Trip to Southern Alberta 2008 – the final leg

Today I’m going to finish off this entry…just as we were heading home in a relatively quick fashion, I’ll end this the same way…

We left Alberta, entering B.C. via the Crowsnest Pass, skirting the city of Cranbrook and spending the next night in a delightful little provincial campground, located right beside the highway in the town of Yahk.

this was one of the lovely sites which backed right onto a little river…

Shantz was quite delighted to have the water to play in as the weather had turned warm again once we’d got back to our side of the Rockies.

This squirrel was very busy in the campsite the whole time as well….

Next morning we were up and on the road again.  Anyone who has driven across B.C. via highway 3 (The Crows Nest Highway) knows it is like driving a roller coaster….up one side of a mountain range and down the other, then up again and so on.  The steepest ‘up’ you encounter is going over the Salmo – Creston summit.  Fortunately, there is a lovely rest area situated at the summit to allow for frayed nerves to calm and engines to cool….

this little lake lies between the two main sections of the rest area and there is a lovely trail that winds along the back side….a great place to give the dogs a bit of a walk…

Up here the fall colours were much in evidence, these tall stems are what remains of the flower heads on this unique plant known as ‘Bear Grass’.  I’ve only ever seen Bear Grass in flower once, and that was in Waterton National Park, the year we accidently discovered the Wildflower Festival.

There was an array of native berries….including these Wild Currants…

this Mountain Ash sported not only edible berries for the birds, but some bright red fall colour.

Next destination was Kettle River Provincial Park, located just outside of Rock Creek.  This is another park that we enjoy as it is a birder’s virtual paradise, especially in the spring.  The varied habitat located in the park itself attracts a wide range of bird life.

This trip we didn’t have a lot of time for birding but couldn’t resist a picture of these Oregon Grape berries, with just a hint of fall…

Chipmunks were busy here.  I did see some White – breasted Nuthatch (only the second time I’d seen them) but couldn’t manage a decent picture.

Back on the road, we headed north to Kelowna via the east side of the Okanagan, then up the Coquilla Connector to Kentucky Allyene Provincial Park.

When we first started traveling, back with our original truck and camper, Kentucky Allyene was our favourite place to come.  There are actually two campsites here.  One sits on Kentucky Lake and is only open for part of the year, the other sits on either side of the road that actually bisects the park and is therefore open year round, although without any amenities, such as running water, during the off season.

When we first started coming to this park, you could actually camp on that grass covered hill in the distance…there was one site on the hill and another few located at the bottom of the road I am standing on to take this picture.  They were isolated from the rest of the campsite that is located at the other end of the lake and we have many wonderful memories from our stays here.  This park used to be run by Douglas Lake Cattle Country, whose lands abut the park….but when the running of it changed hands, the access to this end of the park was gated off.  A ‘group’ campsite was created at the end of the road and the hillside was completely blocked off and reclaimed…as an environmentalist I should applaud these measures, but I do miss being able to camp in this isolated spot…..

This isn’t actually the lake itself, but a small lagoon which is what those original campsites sat on…you could access Allyene Lake by a very narrow channel….just wide enough for a canoe…

here we see the lagoon and in the distance, the end of Allyene Lake…..and I think with that, I will bring this entry to a close.

Our next trip isn’t planned for a few months yet and our destination, as yet, unclear…possibly eastern Canada…..but I will continue to make postings.  I have approximately 20,000 pictures in my computer that I am working through, editing, tagging etc. so you’ll never know what might show up. 

Trip to Southern Alberta 2008 – heading home

With only two weeks time off, it was now time to head towards home.  We hooked up the trailer and headed to the sani-station which was located up on the plains.

While Ernie dealt with that nasty business….I snapped a few final shots of Writing on Stone….there are those Sweet Grass hills…

and a look back towards the south west….

and eastward, with the visitor’s center (closed now for the season although the park is open year round), that flat building up on the hillside and the campsite down in the trees in the middle.

As we headed back to where the park road intercepts highway 501 we found this small herd of Pronghorn Antelope

These Antelope abound in this general area, although this trip, these were the only ones we saw.  I’m always amazed to see them…they just don’t seem like the sort of animal you expect to find in Canada!

A bit further along managed a few pictures of this…

 Swainson’s Hawk.  There are a lot of raptors in this area as well, although more so in the spring and summer than at this time of year.

We needed to fill the fuel tank, so stopped in the little town of Milk River and decided to stop at the visitors center there to get some pictures of this life size Dinosaur…

this was quite a remarkable visitor’s center…the building itself is under that blue roof…

this angle shows part of the large parking lot and the general area..

back on the road, I made Ernie stop so I could get a picture of this Prairie Coneflower which grew all along the shoulder of the highway….a wildflower that was completely new to me.

These White Asters were also flowering in some places….I haven’t been able to identify them specifically.

We had a fairly long run this day as our destination was Beauvais Provincial Park, which is located a bit west of the town of Pincher Creek.  This would be our second visit to this park, we had been quite enchanted with it when we had last visited it in June of about 2006 or 07.

the sun was getting low in the afternoon sky when we finally passed through Pincher Creek, on our way to the campground.  Pincher Creek is the wind turbine capital of Alberta as these stormy pictures, taken along our route, prove.

Had just pulled in and set up camp….

when a Conservation officer stopped to advise us that a Black Bear had just been in the campsite behind us. One of the many things we love about Alberta parks is the strong presence of Conservation officers in all their parks.  Unfortunately, in B.C., seeing a conservation officer is a rare occurrence….not so in Alberta.

Knowing a bear was in the area made us a bit more cautious as we went for our evening walk…there are a lot of lovely walking and hiking trails in this park.

this wide meadow area lies between the campground and the lake itself….

although the east side of the lake is quite populated with houses, there is a nice trail all along the west side of the lake.  We weren’t able to take advantage of that trail this brief visit…

and here is a look from back at the edge of the campground. 

Tomorrow, we’ll be back in B.C.