Lillooet: Winding Roads, Mountains & Wine

We're on our way to Lillooet this morning and we're stopping over at the Blackbird Bakery in Pemberton for coffee and pastries. Yummy chocolate croissant. So the road between Pemberton and Lillooet is probably one of the top five drives in BC. At times it can be really challenging, there's tight switchbacks, and then you get great views of lakes, mountains, thick forests and often wildlife. So it's a lot of fun to drive, more fun perhaps if you're on a motorcycle, but a lot of fun even driving a van. About two years ago they made a very beautiful trail and it's steep, but very easy to get up. And now there's like five times the number of people that go there. So when Mickey and I have gone there before, we try and get there at about 8.30 in the morning. It's not very long, an hour and a half, and you're up at a glacier and the lake. And so if you're up there and spend an hour and come back down, you're down by around lunchtime and that's when there's just hordes of people going up. So it's a shame, but it's nice that people get access. There's three lakes that you work your way up. It's just so popular and so busy now that it takes away from that sense of wilderness, at least we value. This is where there was a slide about a month ago. See the remnants of the snow? Avalanche actually. A little sunnier day and the mountains were clear. So this is where we are right now, Duffy Lake Park. And this is Nairn Falls Park where we stayed last night. And we just passed through Joffrey Lakes Provincial Park. And we're heading up the 99 to Lillooet up here. And we'll be staying at the Seton Lake Dam Campground, the BC Hydro Campground. We're about 40 kilometers from Lillooet and one of the things you'll notice if you look at some of the scenery is just how much drier it's getting. So at Lillooet in the summer it can sometimes be in the low 40s, 40 degrees Celsius, which is probably a little over. Every surge is a little over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so quite warm. And when you look at the road and the surrounding hillside, it's starting to get very much more arid and dried out. Wow, it's just like a rock wall. I know, what an awesome canyon. Way up there. Very steep. Whoa, that's amazing. Guaranteed rugged. That's the welcome sign to Lillooet. Select a vacant campsite, register at information shelter, enjoy your stay. Oh, and you can just camp in a big area too. Registration is here. Pull in here and then walk around. We're at the BC Hydro site in Litton. It's free camping for up to 14 days. Some really nice sites. Some are small, some are larger, and we'll just do a quick tour around. Here's where we are. Ideally we would have actually liked to been able to park around the other way and have our sliding door on this side, but it's a one-way road and that was just going to be overly complicated. We're only here for one day, so we've pulled in. This way should work well though. Really nice, beautiful area. Nice trees. There's actually a creek through here. I'll show you that in a few minutes, but we can hear it, which is really nice. And then we're simply surrounded by mountains like that above us on both sides. So just a great spot. Part of BC Hydro is giving back to the community and everybody, as I said, you can camp here. No reservations. Just first come, first serve. And if there's a spot, and there's many, there's no cost. Here's a section for the big rigs. If you've got a big trailer or a big RV and you couldn't fit in some of the smaller sites like where we're at, it's open. But take a look at the view that you get from virtually any one of these sites. Until it's drier here, What are you doing over there, precious? What are you doing over there? Oh, that's coffee. Are you watching all the activity? Do you want to come over here? Come on out here. Oh, you want to go in there? So we're on the upper bench loop trail, and it's pretty steep here, so hopefully we'll get some nice views at the top. That was a steep climb, but you can see how far we've come up from the campground. It's like absolutely gorgeous views, as Mickey said. We're down almost directly below where we're at. You can't see us, we're in the trees, but we're down there. Gorgeous. Farther on you can see the Lillooet Valley, and I think this town itself it's down and then to the left, and you can see the waterway that comes from the hydro facility here. So there's a big lake back here, and hopefully we'll get a chance to see that as well. So these trails from the campground are really lovely. Very peaceful and gorgeous. Oh, and somebody's put a bird feeder here. Look what I found on a tree stump. I'm just loving these trees. They're beautiful. The bark is just so nice, different colors. I'm going to have to try to figure out what kind of trees they are. Steep trail. Watch out for those loose stones. They made some smashed potatoes with green onions, and some steamed vegetables, and some peas, and Gordon's got smoked salmon, I got vegetarian hot dogs, and it's all made in one pot. Smoked salmon for Gordon and hot dogs for me. Bon Appetit. Good morning. This is the view we have for breakfast. it's a little bit cloudy, but not bad. High cloud. And then we're going to go to Fort Barron's Winery. So I'm going to try a few whites and a few reds. The peanut brie for sure, because that's my favorite. I wouldn't mind trying the dry Riesling, and maybe this one. It's a blend. I'll probably try the camel's red and the Pinot Noir. She said we couldn't try that one. So I think that's it for the reds. This is one of my favorite wines, and it doesn't disappoint. It's really good. Thank you. It's pretty good. It's not sweet at all. Hello fella.