Date: 12 July 2001 (Thursday)

Start: South Park RV Park, Prince George BC

End: Canyon Alpine RV Park & CG, Boston Bar BC (351 miles)

The temperature was 48f when we arose, even though the max/min thermometer said it had been down to 39f during the night. The skies were blue and the temperature came up quickly to something comfortable.

We ate and departed, continuing south on BC-97, now the Gold Trail Highway. It seems there were BC gold strikes as well, up and down the Rockies. BC-97 follows the Fraser River (the same one that we see again, it goes all the way to Vancouver) south for some distance to Williams Lake.

This period was comfortable but there was more traffic than we’ve become accustomed to. The road leaves the Fraser to climb up the San Jose River to follow the old gold fields trail. It goes over the top out of the San Jose valley, and goes through a few small valleys. Someplace in here we had our only animal sighting of the day, a deer and her two spotted fawns at roadside.

Then the road drops into the Bonaparte River valley, and everything changed. The green landscape turned brown. The roadside plants turned to sage brush and cactus. The air turned dry and dusty and our mouths got dry. We’d come into a desert in the mountains.

The max/min thermometer retained the highest temperature of the day as 101.3f. This had to have been somewhere around Cache Creek, where the Thompson River canyon begins. It felt hottest there. We had thought we’d stop in Cache Creek, but we decided that it was too hot to stay there and pressed on.

Just south of Cache Creek, BC-97 ends at TC-1, the Trans-Canada Highway. Now we join the westbound TC-1 running south here, down the canyon.

This canyon is the toughest piece of work I’ve seen in some time. Through it run two railroads, one on each side, complete with tunnels and sheds that allow falling rock to pass over the rails (same for snowslides in the winter), and the highway. The railroads were there first, so the highway has to find a way to weave over, under, or around the railroads as well as the normal obstacles.

The river drops rapidly through the canyon, there are always rapids. Lytton BC is the rafting capital of BC for good reason.

The temperature was still hot, and the wind was screaming up the valley from the south off a high pressure area to the south. When we had to climb to get around something, the engine temperature on the truck would climb toward the top due to the load of the trailer and fighting the wind. At one of these climbing points we climbed for 2km behind a lumber truck that was doing 15mph since there wasn’t room for a passing lane at that point (they do have passing lanes where they can, but it’s still a two-lane road).

We continued down the canyon until we had just plain had enough of the road. We stumbled into Canyon Alpine CG near the little town of Boston Bar, and paid our fee for the night.

Then we climbed the side of the canyon for a hundred yards to the very top space in the park and pulled into it. For a second I didn’t think we’d make it, the rear tires were slipping and then catching as the limited-slip-differential did its thing to continue progressing. It’s a nice site, but rather hard to access. I can hardly wait until morning to see how we’re going to descend.

We unhooked the truck and ran into Boston Bar (3 miles) to get bananas, milk and ale. Then we had dinner in the little house.

I sat outside and then our neighbors came over, begging information on the current road status up north. Brian and Marianne are on their way up to Inuvik, NWT. They are from Vancouver Island and we got on well trading stories – they’ve been in Alaska before. They got a kick out of our description of Canada Day in Dawson City.

It’s time now to settle in, type these notes and go to bed. Tomorrow we arrive in Vancouver.