From the Cascades to the Shuswap highlands (???)

We said goodby to Whistler on another beautiful day, catching the reflection of the skiing slopes on Green Lake.  

 We continued north along the Cascades, where there are MANY reflecting lakes, so we did not stop at all of them.  

 

 The road over the Cascades is very pretty, but also really steep and winding. Joe did a fine job at managing all the hair pin turns, while I tried (and mostly failed) to capture the landscape.  

 We stopped at several view points and lakes. 

  Once on the other side, the landscape changes dramatically because it is so much drier. In fact it starts looking like Arizona, or maybe the dry part of Wyoming. It is definitely not as pretty as the Pacific side, but it is interesting in its starkness.  

We stopped in the little town of Lilooet, where the very friendly young woman at the visitor center said that there was basically nothing to see in town, and that we should go to a lake further down, and to the Hat Creek Ranch - which was already on our plans. The town of Lilooet was born from the Fraser River gold rush in 1858, which makes sense. What makes less sense is why people stay there now……. Although, from the road above the canyon, it does look quite striking. (top picture)

So  we stopped at the Marble Canyon Lake, which is indeed very pretty, has crystal clear water, and loons!! 

  

Then it was on to the historical Hat Creek Ranch, which is a restoration of a 1860 ranch and road house, and well worth the stop. It also has some of the history of the original first nation people, who still live in this area. The are many different tribes, with difficult names - my favorite being the Ts’Kw’aylaxw - I have no idea how to pronounce that!  Here are a few pictures of the ranch. 

 

 

 The blacksmith made me a nail - I’m very happy with it!   

 On we continued though Kamloops, which is a largish city that I had never heard of, and puzzled me a lot - this is a dry and remote place - what do people do here?  again - the town ows it’s existence to mining, and there is still mining going on (copper and gold).  But tourism is listed as its main industry and I struggle to understand why. It is on a pretty lake, but in a VERY arid climate. It is just not that pretty. It is however almost halfway between Whistler and Jasper, and people stop there on the way. We chose to bypass it and instead stop at Sun Peaks, another place I had never heard of. It is a large ski area  (2nd only to Whistler as Canada's largest ski area), built in the 1970’s to look like an Alpine village and it is very pretty.  

Also, because it is higher, the temperature was very nice - here is what the car dashboard read in Kamloops (That’s 90 Fahrenheit- I have not packed for that!!!!). I am so ignorant of where we are that I had to ask google if we were in the Cascades or the Rockies.  

 Turns out- neither.  We are in the Shuswap Highlands, a range I just learned about. But isn’t it what road trips are all about??? Discover places you don’t know anything about?  I went for a bit of a walk, and got the wrong directions from two very friendly locals, who sent me the wrong way, but in different ways….  Of well I had a nice walk through an Alpine meadow and met a cute ground squirrel. 

We had an early dinner (the fish tacos were excellent!) and have another long driving day tomorrow - this time, we should make it to the Rockies!