One thing here in Canada, and in the USA, that really annoys me, is how they don’t list tax in their prices. Most prices you see, or they quote you, are before tax. So you look at the cost of your burger, and you go, yah, that’s good, that’s a good price for a burger. Then they add tax and you’re surprised.
Or when you buy a car. Hey, that’s the cost of the car, but now you have to pay tax on top of that! Here, let me give you a quote for your car chains. Great, good price for car chains. At the counter, oh wait, they’re actually more than that.
I guess if you’re used to it, it would be fine. But I seem to forget every time, and then am sad when things always cost more.
We woke up kinda late, checked out, then continued on our Journey towards Chase. We headed up past the Joffre Lakes Provincial Park, and Duffy Lake. The roads were clear for the first bit, but the road climbed for the first half hour, until we were driving through a desolate winter wonderland, surrounded by nothing but super tall trees, nothing but mountains and trees for miles, laden with snow, with snowy pillow drifts on the sides of the road, and massive cliffs all around, only occasionally visible through the cloud. It was quite magical. I don’t think anyone lives in that area, we only saw a couple of other cars, and most of the ones we saw were parked, and I assume the owners were snowshoeing/snowboarding in the foofy white wilderness.
The land changed a bit as we went on, we came to a dryer area, that didn’t have much snow, but lots of yellow grasses and scrubby bush. Then we moved through farmland area, no trees, but snow as far as the eye could see, laying smooth and white over flat fields. The occasional lot of cows, or group of shaggy ponies. Lots of signs alerting of leaping deer, but we didn’t see any ourselves.
My favourite part was the rivers and lakes. At the base of the mountain would be a massive flat white stretch, where a lake had frozen over, and then been covered in a uniform layer of white. Most were smooth and untouched, but one had lines and footprints, where dog sledding teams had been running.
The rivers that were still running were pretty, snow covering the rocks around it, and snow lining the banks, if it was a slower moving river, often there would be ice at the edges, and would sometimes grow outwards onto the river; the odd opaque patch, and if it was big enough, would also have snow on top of it.
We went past a really wide slow moving river, that had ice flows, slowly moving and jostling down.
We stopped at the eastern end of Seton Lake, it was very pretty, with blue-green waters, and (more) mountains in the background.
We then went to Lillooet for lunch. Set off towards Kamloops after that, and heading through the valleys, we could see lots of cloud. It was lightly snowing when we left Lillooet, and we passed an area full of limestone (but called Marble Canyon Park) which apparently has a large stickyup cliff and some lakes, but it was snowy, so we didn’t get to see. At one point we passed a mine, with steps cut out of the hillside. We saw sun for a few moments, but it was snowing quite a fair bit by the time we passed Kamloops, and Chase.
Luckily I got behind a group of cars, and just followed them. It was getting dark by this time, so I got to drive in the dark and snow, and am very glad we have our car instead of a 2wd :). The headlights lit up the flurries of snow, and snow was blowing all over the road from the passing cars. You don’t need to use the windscreen wipers much when its snowing, even if it is snowing hard. Just the occasional brush is fine.
I think it is still falling now, but we made it to Chase by 5.30pm, and now are snuggled up in a little motel room. We shall see how much snow there is tomorrow, and probably won’t have an early start, will wait until they have cleared the roads (if they need it). We have another pass to go over tomorrow, between Revelstoke and Golden, which I hear is quite interesting.
Dale and Becca 