Trip into the Mountains

 A loan camper enjoys the solitude of the northern end of Harrison Lake

  Just got back from a cool trip this weekend. My friend Sev and I decided to pack up his truck and set out on a bit of an adventure to do a little camping and see what kind of photos we could come back with. I knew that the forest service road that heads up the side of Harrison Lake goes all the way to Pemberton if you follow it the whole way and had always wanted to check it out. The map showed a few hot springs up north of the lake so we thought those would be cool the check out as well.

Despite almost having to turn back about 2 hours into our trek as we came across a huge washout in the road, we managed to persevere and I'm glad we did as it was an amazing drive through the heart of the wilderness. The funny thing was, once we got past the washout and past the end of Harrison Lake we came across a forestry campground that was full. This was despite not seeing a single human in hours. Everyone had driven down the road for hours from the Pemberton end, it was fittingly ironic. We weren't the only ones in search of the out in the wild experience. We found a nice isolated spot to camp for the night high up an old, deactivated logging road and with plenty of signs of bear activity around us we figured it was probably safest to camp in the bed of Sev's truck. Good thing he's got a canopy!

The next morning we got up nice and early and completed the rest of the journey to Pemberton. After a stop off at the Mount Currie Coffee Company to grab a good coffee(if you're ever in Pemberton, make sure to stop in - lots of cool art and photography on the walls) we capped off the rest of our trip with a drive across the Duffey Lake Road to Lillooet, one of my personal favorite drives. It was a great trip and I've already got a map book open, planning the next adventure. Here's a few shots

I got a new lens before this trip, a 10-24mm so as you can imagine there's a lot of superwide shots that I took with the new purchase. I love that perspective.
James

I had never been past Harrison's 20 mile bay so this was my first view of the scenic north end of the lake.

It's been extremely dry lately and a lot of forest fires are burning so there's a province wide fire ban.

An all too common sight up in the bush.

A lot of nice waterfalls like these can be found along the drive.

The other thing about being off in the backwoods - every sign is riddled with bullet holes.

Well, this almost stopped us in our tracks. The road is almost entirely washed out up close to the north end of the lake.

We didn't want to turn back after hours of driving and people had piled a lot of lumber in the hole so we figured we might as well take the chance of trying to go through. I'm smart enough to be outside of the vehicle so I can get shots of Sev tumbling for a hundred feet if it doesn't work out.

Once we were past the end of the lake we came across our first hot springs, and first sign of civilization at the Sloquet Hot Springs. We made the short hike down to the water.

This kid was enjoying a leisurely float in the warm waters of the spring.

We made camp high up an old logging road. I decided to a do a little light painting while we were there. I painted Sev in two different spots to make it appear like a double exposure.

After a refreshing sleep in the box of the truck, I woke up and walked 10ft to get a shot of this flower framed against the evergreen behind it.

We stopped on the side of the road to take some pictures of a natural hotspring that was steaming when I noticed to black ears pop up about 30 ft away. We had disturbed this black bear's breakfast of blackberries but he decided it was time to move along and took off down the hill.

Just past the bear we came to the Skookumchuck Hot Springs.

The skookumchuck springs feature several different tubs to soak in and enjoy the hot waters.

The bear that stands guard over the springs wasn't nearly as active as our friend we'd just run into.

Along the drive were several of these family graveyards. This one dated back to the turn of the century.

Finally, we made it to Lillooet Lake. The normally blue lake is currently dark brown due to the massive landslide that occured upstream at Meager Creek last month.

After a quick pit stop in Pemberton, we hit the Duffey Lake Rd from Pemberton to Lillooet. Our first stop was a short hike to the always scenic Lower Joffre lake.

While waiting for the clouds to (hopefully) clear on the mountains above the lake I observed this goose enjoying a lazy float around the lake.

As you aproach the east side of the mountains on your way to Lillooet, the climate changes from wet, west coast rainforest to dry interior desert.

One last stop was the historic Alexandria bridge in the Fraser Canyon, north of Yale on the Trans Canada Highway.