We're up and out Saturday, not as early as Stuart would like and earlier than I would like. The trip is as amazing as we suspected: the mountain road is twisting and slow, huge old trees and rivers and distant glaciers around every curve in the road. Cananda Highway 99, the Scenic Road, is lightly traveled beyond Whistler. There are little Provincial parks every few miles, but it is not National Forest. Wonder who owns all this land? We drive through Parkhurst, Green River and Tisdall, and stop for a hike to the Nairn Falls, about 2 miles from the small dirt parking lot. There is a campground here, too, and I can see a few tents and small RV's in the trees, by the river. We learn that the only boa constrictor in the country lives here, the rubber boa. At 18 inches long and brown, if we see one, we are likely to mistake it for a stick. You know my eyes are glued to the ground in hope! The falls are pretty, and most folks will never see them, too far from the parking lot. That's OK with us, leaves the trail much less crowded. The river is green. Really green.
From the rocks it washes down from the mountain. No rafting here, there is no easy place to launch. Back in the car, we drive on to Pemberton, pop. 1800 people, where we find the tiny market and supplement our picnic supplies. We have lunch at a tiny park on One Mile Lake, the sun, breeze and ducks on the lake.
Just beyond Pemberton, the roads turns east, tiny dots on the map indicating it is Scenic Highway, and we begin to see fewer trees and it's getting drier. There are tiny pockets of First Nations Reserves all along the road from Vancouver, the Reserves getting larger as we get farther north. Soon, we pick up the Cayoosh Creek, which looks more like a river to me. The road follows it for a couple of hours, and it is the greenest water we've ever seen! The pictures, again, won't fully show how green the water is, or how beautiful the mountains are. Gradually, we begin to see signs of high desert: sage and other desert plants, and the stands of trees are much thinner. Of course, we pass some areas that have been clear cut. At one large area, there is a big sign boasting that Anson Tree Company harvested in 1999 and replanted in 2000. We cross several one-land bridges, but no problem: we've seen only about a dozen other vehicles since we left Pemberton.
Our destination for the night is Lillooet. The First Nation people called it Lil'Wat. The Europeans 'fancied' the spelling when they arrived about 9000 years after it was first settled. At the height of the Gold Rush, Lillooet's population was about 36,000. In a place that must have been terribly difficult to get to! Today, the population is less than 3,000. Not much going on here, so far removed from any other population centers.
We are now in the high desert, you can see the dramatic change in the photo above: see the green ridge just in front of the brown ridge? The change really was almost that dramatic.
We walk through Lillooet, and learn that it is the Jade Town. Chunks of jade, the size of a washing machine, decorate the streets. Not just gold found here! There is also one 'historic' house, the sign tells us that it belonged to a Japanese doctor who came here right after WWII. The man did many good things for the village, one of those small town legends. This is a tree in the back garden, dropping small yellow, soft fruit. I guess it's not edible, the ground is littered with it. Smells not-so-pleasant. What is it?
So, Saturday night in Lillooeet. Wheeee! We're staying right in town, at the 4 Pines Motel. Even Stuart thought it was marginal! We walk down the street, to a chinese/western restaurant, to find it closed. There is another closed restaurant, and we're beginning to think we might be eating from whatever we find the in grocery store (pretty nice for such a small town!) again. But, we find the Downtown Diner, and join the cowboys and their wives, out on the town. I had stir-fry, Stuart had salisbury steak. Yummmm! Hey, they even had a Okanagan Valley wine!
The view from the ridge just above the city...that's the Fraser river below, the same Fraser that flows down to Vancouver. There is much fishing here, and we see the remnants of the summer fish drying shacks along the river. Sorry, no photo!
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