Highway 99, Hiking, and a Park of Waterfalls
(written July 15)
(helmcken falls in wells grey provincial park)
The Sea to Sky Highway is breathtaking. That trip from Horseshoe Bay to Whistler and Pemberton area was great, and I was excited as I had never taken the highway all the way to Cache Creek area.
After spending a bit of time in Whistler village to show Annika one of our most famous ski towns, we decided to spend a couple nights in the Pemberton area. We were fortunate enough to find a place right on the Soo River, hidden away from the highway, with water right beside us and a beautiful fire pit with lots of wood floating around the area.
(shots of our hike to rohr lake)
We decided to do a bigger hike on the full day that we had in the area, and decided to go up to Rohr lake, close to Joffre lakes. 6 hours of hiking and a beautiful turquoise lake later, we felt quite accomplished with our day, and headed back, swimming in Lillooet lake on the way.
The next morning, we made a decision in the morning to go to Kamloops to visit my friend Stu, who I met at Camp Squeah about ten years ago.
Stu has always been a dear friend, though we haven’t been in close contact in a while, and I have very fond memories of spending a lot of time in nature with him. He offered for us to stay at his place and also offered to show us around, so we couldn’t really refuse.
(stu hartmann, our friend in kamloops)
We made the trek out, stopping in at Fort Berens Winery for a glass of wine, and when we arrived in Kamloops, we had a quick dinner at Paul Lake before heading over to Stu’s place.
The next morning, we spent most of the day exploring, going up through Barrier to Clearwater then heading up to Wells Grey Provincial Park, where we spent much of the day looking at waterfalls. It was such an incredible experience to see such power coming from the water, and going to the foot of one and feeling the mist hit your face was refreshing and exhilarating.
(spahats creek falls, wells grey provincial park)
We had a picnic and then headed up to Johnson lake, where we saw the clearest water we have seen so far at a lake. We swam around and cooled off, and enjoyed playing with Stu’s dog, Tucker.
Getting home later in the evening, we decided to cook some dinner and make the most out of the quick visit we had with Stu, so we made some grilled pork rice bowls with poached eggs, pickled cabbage and Kupe mayo mixed with soy and gochujang. We spent the evening talking and playing dice, and eating a treat that Stu’s grandma used to make, marshmallows dipped in Mackintosh’s creamy toffee and rice krispies.
Talking with Stu brought out some new light on my challenges with expectations, in that sometimes we have expectations that we didn't even know were there. The challenge is to identify those expectations, which I feel is where I am at now. It's impossible to readjust expectations if you don't know they exist.
We are so thankful to have friends like Stu along the way who have shown us around their area and opened up their homes to us!
