Day Trip to Farwell Canyon

Our friends Ken and Sue stopped by on their way home from Haida Gwai and we made a day trip out to Farwell Canyon together.

On our way in we got a great view of a cinnamon bear walking through the woods (but no good photos).

Leo and Ken hiked up to the sand dunes

But first they had to go down to cross a gully

And Sue and I drove down to the homestead on the Chilcotin River.

See those two black spots perched on the dune?

They made it!

Afterwards we drove back down to the bridge to check out the view.

The water was roiling.

Next we visited the nearby pictographs.

 What a beautiful spot!

As we drove up out of the canyon we spotted the cinnamon bear again and then this big mama bear

And her yearling cub (?).  

We took the Meldrum Creek road backand checked out the Till Lake recreation site for possible future low gas consumption camping. Maybe not (The road in was muddy and rutted due to active logging in rainy conditions).

We spotted a large red-legged frog hanging out near the shore.

We crossed the Fraser River on Rudy Johnson Bridge and drove home on the Soda Creek Road past the fire that forced the evacuation of Williams Lake in 2017.

What's going on?

 Had a big thunder/hailstorm last week:

Hail collected on the canopy of our trailer.  We'd put it out to dry off.  Oops!

And on our patio furniture.  

Our flowers and vegetables got shredded.  Streets were flooded with water gushing out of manholes.

Iwn between showers, we went for a walk one evening at Scout Island.

 

I like the effect of these photos taken as the sun was coming out of a cloud.

More Dugan Lake

 It turns out our regular walk on Mission Road is closer to Dugan Lake than it is to town so we drove out for a walk.  Luckily it was sunny though it was cool and windy.

Roses were blooming and we got good views of a male and female bobolink.

Leo also got a great shot of this savannah sparrow on the barb-wire fence.

On Wednesday Leo drove into town for a practice and the rest of us went in search of Borland Falls at 150 Mile House. It took us a while but we finally found the right trail.

2

Success

It's not the biggest falls but it's set within an impressive little canyon.

At the base of the falls

After all that hard work (very short hike) we had to reward ourselves with an icecream fom the 150 Mile House gas station.  It was actually kind of hot out! We decided this would make a great hike for the Wednesday walkers.  If we left a car below we could walk from the falls down to the bridge.

And on Thursday morning we had a leisurely pack up and headed home.

Sayonara mes amigos,

The end.

 

Camping at Dugan Lake

 

We'd been planning to camp at Horsefly Lake with our friends for weeks, but all of us kept having appointments in town, so we decided instead to camp at Dugan Lake (second annual).  It's only a 17 minute drive from town so we could each drive back into town as required.  In fact after my band practice on Monday night I switched the pickup for my car to save on gas for the next trip into town.

We arrived early in the day and managed to snag the best site in the campground.

The only site that's right on the lake

Most people like to camp right next to each other in the level sites in the meadow at the entrance to the campground which are more suitable to large rigs, but we like the sites that are in the trees.  Most of them are perched up above the lake but this site you drive down to the lake.  

Last year a fifth wheel was parked on this site and the occupees would show up mid-afternoon and hang around for a few hours and then take off at supper time.  They weren't even staying overnight!  Then when I got home I checked the website and they showed a photo of the exact same rig and setup to advertise the rec site! 

The culprits (note 2016 date - they'd been there for at least 5 years!)

 I figured they had some kind of deal with the camphost to occupy the site all summer and would be hogging the best site this year too.  

But there was a new host this year who was presumably enforcing the 2-week maximum and we snagged it!  In fact, we fantasized staying for the full 14 days and just driving into town to do our business as required. (In the end we went home after 3 nights.)

Leo just had carpet tunnel surgery so we didn't bring a boat, but we went out in Mark and Patty's boat a few times.  Last year the fishing was so good people were giving us fish, but this year they were not biting (or it may have had something to do with the ineptness of the fishermen).

Patty and Mark return empty-handed.

We did lots of short walks around the campsite and up the adjacent atv trail.

May and June (endless) showers bring flowers:

Clematis

Lots of Arnica in bloom

We also found calypso orchid but I neglected to photograph it.

Made some good camp meals over the fire.

Mom, cheesy jaffles

And we needed a good fire since much of the time it was cold and windy.

Leo tends the fire

Woke up to this view out our bedroom window:

A damsels landed on my wrist.

Not a bad life.

What's up?

Just hanging around town.

The crabapple flowers have come and gone

We've been walking in the creek valley.

Leo and I sold icecream sandwiches at the farmer's market for donations to the ALS Walk.  The weather was not favorable for icecream sales but we got lots of donations anyway.  Now we've got too many boxes of icecream in our freezer we have to get rid of.

The walk was on June 4th with the best turnout in its history.  Unfortunately, that means several more locals have been diagnosed with this disease.  

But Leo is happy to be done with the organizing for the year.

The turtles are out and basking in the sun at Scout Island. Can you count the turtles in this picture?

There's at least 8

Two posing for a closeup:

Here's a few birds Leo caught on film that day:

Yellow warbler

Pair of wood ducks

Willow flycatcher

Red-winged blackbird

TIMBER!!

 What have we done!

Before:

After:

Douglas fir and Austrian pine gone from the front and side yard

Before:

After:

Pine and Doug. fir gone

Before:

After:

We've decided to install solar panels on our house so 12 trees had to go.  Half of our forest still remains to the left of the above photo.

What's left (this is just some of the firewood stacked in our yard)

On the plus side, there's more light in the backyard and the rear bedroom.  On the negative side we've lost our privacy.  Folks walking up 11th Avenue can now see into our yard.

There'll be more light for my vegetable garden as well. But it will take some getting used to.

The solar panels won't be installed till this fall.