Surrey to Lac la Hache

Here we are, ready to hit the road. I loaded up a dry sack, undistrapped it to the back of my luggage, my new luggage rack. Got a backpack, filled the saddlebags. We'll see if anything falls off on the way to gassing up the Sumas. And if all goes well, we're gonna hit the road. We're gonna hit Hell's Gate. That'll be our starting point, or our leaving point. I'll explain. Anyways, against the wind. All right, we're in Abbotsford. We're gonna gas up at the Sumas border crossing, and obviously that's Mount Baker. Today is Wednesday morning, and I wrote a blog post Friday. I tried to head up Baker, but the Glacier Creek road was blocked off. So I was a little disappointed about missing out on that, but today we're going to take an alternate route. After we gas up, we're going to head out to Hell's Gate, which is a fitting, which is an appropriate beginning for this journey. Leaving the past behind. This time we're not entering Hell's Gate. We're leaving Binion's Inferno and exploring paradise. All right, I stopped off at Bridal Falls on the way up, just outside of Chilliwack. Actually it's called Bridal Veil Falls. It's supposed to look like a bridal veil. I don't know, I guess it does. I guess we'll swing by Shannon Falls on the way back down from Pemberton, in our loop. I'm just relaxed, taking the time. Kind of feel like that Boston song, Boston Long Time. I'm taking my time, I'm just rolling along. You'll forget about me after I've been gone. Yeah, now that's what I'm talking about. Living large, IRL, and real life. Oh, overlooking the Fraser River on our way to Hell's Gate. Hell's Gate is just a section of the Fraser River where it's narrow, and because it's narrow, it travels a lot faster, and it's kind of dangerous if you're going down in the canoe. When we went white water canoeing, voyager canoeing, we went just, we put in just after Hell's Gate at Yale. We didn't do Hell's Gate in a canoe, that's for sure. Anyway, so this is, just getting ready to leave the Fraser Valley. We're in a hoop on our way to Hell's Gate, overlooking the Fraser River. All right, we're just about at Hell's Gate to stop. This is, this trail is called, this road is called the Fraser Canyon. We're following the Fraser River upstream, and there's lots of these like little short tunnels through the rock, because there's lots of rocks in Fraser Canyon, as the river heads its way through the canyon. Here we are, Hell's Gate. This is a fitting spot for us to begin our journey, only this time we're not entering Hell, we're going to be staying here. Not to say this road is Hell, I'm just saying that for a while I wrote that off of Dante's prayer, and talking about my journey to Hell, and all the trauma I saw involved the drug trade. Well, now we're leaving that behind, a new chapter. We're leaving Hell and starting to visit Paradise, and seeing some other things that you don't see in Hell. Okay, this is, uh, it's on the outskirts of Lytton, and it's closed, because of the fire. It's, uh, there's lots of construction workers ready for a rebuild. It's a nice location here on the Fraser River. This is where, uh, Charles, Dr. Charles Hoff is from, the Patriot. But I'm gonna see if I can get another look down from above. But, uh, yeah, I had to come back around and get gas, because it's 84k to the next gas station, and Lytton gas station's closed, so I had to take the turn off towards Lillooet to get gas. Then I'm gonna head up towards, uh, Spencer Bridge and Cache Bridge. Okay, so this is the top side of Lytton. You can see there's lots of trees still standing, but there are no chars, and the town is closed. Very sad. Let's go for the rebuild. Let's move ahead. Like I say, the road, we're leaving the past behind us in the dust, and we're moving forward. Turning the page, starting a new chapter, moving forward. Okay, there's some signs about, uh, beware of, uh, crashing into bighorn sheep, and I guess this is why, because, uh, they're just kind of chilling on the side of the road there. That's pretty cool. This is, these are wild bighorn sheep. That's pretty cool. Yeah, okay, so this is coming out of Lytton towards, uh, just past Spencer's Bridge towards Cache Creek, and outside of Lytton, there's a tributary to the Fraser that the road, that the highway goes along. I call it the Kokamine, I think. One of the old signs for Lytton was talking about, uh, the land, the city of two rivers. I guess it's two tributaries to the, uh, Fraser come together, and I guess it used to be known for river rafting. So, uh, that would be something good for the rebuild. Okay, this is that river, the tributary to, uh, Lytton, the Fraser, and Lytton called, uh, Kokamine, I think, just outside of Spencer's Bridge here, just by the sheep. And you'll notice, as soon as we lose, lose, leave Lytton, there was a guy at Bridal Falls, he was, I told him where I was going, he was saying that, uh, that the geography changes quite quickly. You see the Ponderosa Pines, and it's a little bit more sporadic, and it's a little bit drier. It's not quite the same as the, uh, coastal rainforests that we're, that we're used to, all the cedar, and the fir, and the, yeah, so, uh, I guess this is kind of like, we're coming up the other side of Merritt and, uh, Kamloops, so I guess we're kind of getting into, like, Okanogan type of climate, or geography, so to speak. Anyways, but this, uh, this river, I mean, it looks like a fun river to paddle down, you know, it's not, uh, it's a little bit fast, it's a little bit, it's got a little bit of motion, but it doesn't seem to be crazy, and it looks like it would be really fun, fun, uh, river to paddle down. So I guess, uh, that's something to look forward for the Lytton Rebuild. Onward and upward. Keep my eye open for sheep. Also keep my eye open for freaking rattlesnake in, uh, in Merritt. You know, we were, parked the car one time, and it's very dry, deserty, and, uh, we heard a freaking rattlesnake. It's like, what the hell? You don't have, we got garter snakes on the coast. Anyways, different geography, different, uh, things to see. Here we are. Lacklehash Provincial Campgrounds, right across from the lake. All right. Started raining, uh, at Clinton, and I forgot to bring my face shield for my motorcycle, because the Vancouver's weather said sunny all week, but I forgot to check the weather here, and it's raining slightly, but that's okay. Let's set up and, uh, get on with it. Okay. Provincial Campsite. Cash only. I got to grab my machine. Like I said, it's a good location. It's close to the lake, and, uh, it's nice. And, uh, it's interesting. I just got these saddlebags. Obviously the hard saddlebags are a lot better, because, uh, they hold more, they look better, and they're better for, like, for the rain and stuff. But these are kind of cool. I just bought them on Amazon really cheap, because you take the seat off, and you just throw them over like saddlebags, like a horse, like a horse saddlebags. Kind of cool. Then one of the other guys on YouTube said you got to be careful that it doesn't touch the exhaust, and it wasn't touching the exhaust, but when I loaded it up, and I, it was fine, but then by the time I got, uh, I don't know, halfway along the way, I noticed that it was touching the muffler, which is not a good thing. It can catch on fire, and that's not a good thing. So, uh, instead, I brought the Allen pins to take the seat off, but I haven't done that yet. What I did is I just, uh, I just threw a thing of clean socks underneath there to lift it up slightly, and that was good enough. So I'll fix that, but, uh, kind of like, uh, a temporary fix. And, uh, speaking of temporary fixes, I broke the return spring on my, uh, on my, uh, on my brake pedal for my rear brake, and, uh, they're on back order, so, uh, I got a couple of hard, uh, sturdy, three sturdy, uh, elastic bands, hooped it around and hooked it up, and three of them, it's, it works, and, uh, it broke when I went up to, uh, a baker, but, uh, I got some new ones, a whole bag of elastic bands, and it's on back order, so I just have to make it work until, until the part comes in. It's not a big deal, but, uh, I don't know, it's kind of like, uh, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, you know, he, I don't know, he, some of the, the Zen cones were one thing, but also, you know, maintaining a motorcycle, allegorical things, I don't do much, I mean, I don't do my own brakes, I do my own oil and filter and stuff, that's pretty, pretty simple, but, uh, I don't know, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, you know, kind of, uh, making do, and, uh, another theory, or another philosophy of that book was taking the, the off the beaten track, and that's kind of what we're doing this time. Normally, I always go up to, uh, I always go up to, uh, Kelowna, take the Coquihalla, and we used to take the whole Princeton Highway all the time when I was a kid, and then when they opened up the Coquihalla, we'd take the Coquihalla up to, uh, to Kelowna and, and Mernon. I, I never go past Hell's Gate, so this is my first time to Lake Lackalash, and, uh, and it's nice, we'll go down into the waterfront, and, uh, it's big, it's nice, it's nice, a lot of private, um, cabins on the lake, uh, co-worker's father has one, and, uh, it's good. This is, uh, another step on our journey off the beaten track. Well, the rain has stopped. A little bit of a rainbow. Nice. We're at Lack, Lackalash. This is the provincial day area of Lackalash. Nice. Cleared up. Forecast, local forecast is sun for the rest of the weekend, hopefully. I should always check the local forecast before I leave on a trip. Well, an early morning breakfast before we get an early start on the road. I heard an owl last night, and something else, like a loon? Kind of like a coyote? I don't know what that was. It was on the other side. It was in the, in the campgrounds, but on the other side of the campground. Anyways, it was a clear night, so hopefully we'll get some better weather.