2007/06 BC trip - Monashee mountains |
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Thursday June 28th
We had nearly 300 miles of twiddly mountain roads to cover to get to Vernon, where we were to go mining for opals on the next day, so we made an early start. We had a brief stop in Creston to buy food, and then a drive up the east side of 70-mile-long Kootenay Lake to the Kootenay Bay ferry. This took us over to the west side of the lake near Nelson, and we followed the lake up to the old mining centre of Kaslo, a really pretty little town on the lake and surrounded by mountains. Its silver mines are now closed, but Kaslo survives on logging and tourism. It is home to the preserved sternwheeler Moyie, which used to be the only connection between the towns on the lake.
We called the opal mining company and found that our Friday session had been cancelled as the other parties had backed out. We rescheduled for Saturday, somewhat relieved that we could now could take it a bit easier and enjoy the scenery, though we’d have to call ahead and warn everyone that we’d be a bit late.
We drove over the Selkirk Mountains, past Summit Lake where we camped and kayaked in ’03. Back then we’d been in the smoke of the fires around the Arrow Lakes, so I’d hoped to get some clear pictures this time, but a big warning sign on the trail said “Grizzly with cubs” so I retreated without any pictures.
The town of Nakusp down on the Upper Arrow Lake had been surrounded by fires in ’03 but this time we had a crisp, clear view of the mountains across the lake. The whole town of Nakusp was moved uphill in the
1960s, when the Columbia River was dammed to create the lake. The townspeople took the opportunity to build a lakeside garden walk, including the Spicer Garden, named after local farmers. We met this young lady in the garden, taking her garter snakes for an outing.
We took another ferry across the Arrow Lakes to Needle. This use of ferries may sound expensive, but all these inland ferries are free, part of the highway system. In this part of the world, the few roads around the lakes are generally perched on the edges of mountains and very expensive to build, and bridges would have to be enormous to cross the lakes, so ferries are still the cheapest way to provide access.
From Needle we climbed up through the Monashee Mountains, one of southern BC’s remoter areas, with no towns. There were a couple of campgrounds at Monashee Pass. The first looked to be soggy and occupied. The second was a lot further along the track at Holmes Lake, supposedly on the other side of Keefer Lake, but somehow we missed it in the maze of old logging roads, and we found ourselves climbing higher up into the mountains. We caught up with a grizzly who took off along the road ahead of us, and then we upset a black bear who was snacking on berries. He took off straight up the mountainside and was even more upset to meet us again on the next switchback.
Eventually we found a rare flat spot on a decommissioned logging track with a great view across the valley to the mountains and we declared it to be a campsite. It had been cloudy all day, and now we had sunshine and showers, and the bugs were loving it. They didn’t bother me too much on a fast walk, but we had to sit and enjoy the scenery from indoors.
Friday June 29th
We woke to steady rain that blanked out all those mountain peaks, so we had a slow descent on greasy roads trying to remember which of the bomb craters had been deepest before they filled with water. We still didn’t see the turnoff for Holmes Lake.