...J&J's Excellent Adventure: Driving through British Columbia

Smithers, BC

I've been so busy, the blog doesn't win over all the other stuff I've got going on which includes my awesome full time job working as a shellfish biologist, a side job teaching environmental science online for Northeastern University, visiting parents (love that!!), exercise, hiking, mushrooming, cooking gourmet dinners with Jay, and trying to think about our upcoming trip to Panama. Jeez. I'm leaving out all the little things I want to concentrate on, but oh well. I must finish getting through my fall photographs before I take more images in Panama. Remember film? Life was easier when you were stuck with the photograph you took - now I can crop, straighten, darken or lighten my photos.... and since I'm not a professional photographer, I've got no problem fixing up simple mistakes like that. But man, it takes time. And since I'm too busy having fun, I tend to not have the time it takes to play with images. Oh well! Here is my last blog about our vacation in British Columbia back in August. Jeez. How slow could one be?

Once we left Prince Rupert we had three days to drive east and then south to get back to Anacortes. This actually gave us enough time to take a nice hike each day and enjoy our surroundings.

Our first stop was at Ross Lake Provincial Park for a tasty lunch that we shared with some curious Steller's jays.

Our second and longer stop of the day was in the town of Smithers. There were rain clouds in the distance that threatened to soak us, but up a nice hill we went anyway!

Glaciers abound around Smithers. It would have been awesome to have a few days here - the hiking opportunities looked fantastic!

We camped near the town of Burns Lake, B.C. and were treated to a lovely sunset.

We did the most driving the second day - traveling through the flat lake country of central BC along the old gold rush trail that is now a highway. We stopped the check out Pinnacles Provincial Park along the way.

Our last night in the tent (Jay rejoiced, I was sad) was spent at Marble Canyon Provincial Park. We threw on our trusty Xtra Tuffs and slogged around Turquoise Lake to stretch out our legs after hours of driving south. This hike proved to be quite challenging since the water levels were so high - but it was fun!

On our third and final day of driving we happened to come upon a bighorn sheep right along the side of the road.

Stein Valley Nlaka'pamux Heritage Park was a total surprise to us and a massive treat! This park was WILD and we only hiked a short distance into it because we still had to drive back to WA that evening. But now we know and plan to return to backpack along this river into mountains with wolverines, brown bears, and cougars. That is wild coutnry my friends and we are going to be all over it next year.