Sun, Sept 23 - Merritt to Lillooet

As we say in Germany: a lot of roads lead to Rome, and there are a certainly a couple of them leading to Lillooet, especially when you plan to include Chasm Provincial Park. We weren’t too sure in terms of road and timing so we asked our host at Claybanks and followed his suggestion to take Hwy 97c via Logan Lake and Cash Creek on to Hwy 97 to Chasm. Great suggestion! Again we saw diverse terrain and Hwy 97 lead thru the largest mining area of Canada (Highland Valley Copper Mine, 17 km west of Logan Lake). What looked like huge cascade shaped mountaineous terrain at first, resulted in the cascades being roads for humangeous machines. A resting area provides a good overview of the mine as well as the wildlife (they even get winter ticks up here).
In Clinton, an old Western town established during the Gold Rush days of the 1860 serving as a roadhouse, Hwy 97 c turns into Hwy 97 which we followed up north for about 30 minutes. GyPSy was d’accord with us to pay Chasm Provincial Park a visit. It is a huge canyon displaying layers of red, brown, yellow and purple produced by lava flows and revealed through erosion over the past 10 million years. Our camera (and the weather conditions) couldn’t quite catch the impressive views. Talking about views: We saw a lot of ground squirrels here in BC, and they love to pose for a photo.
We took the same route back via Clinton and prior to reaching Cache Creek turned right onto Highway 99 direction Lilloet. But immediately after the turnoff we stopped at Historic Hat Creek Ranch (chances were they sold cowboy boots – but they didn’t) which seemed rather abandoned until we ran into a tour guide and 5 other guests. HCR was also established as a roadhouse in the 1860ies and catered to miners, wagon tracks and other travellers up to 1916. They also have a display on the Shuswap First Nations who first settled in this area and keep playing an important role in nowadays community life. And it was at HCR where we ran into Esther and Jim, a Scottish couple on their way to Lillooet. They toured HCR the Scottish way, in a carriage.
Back on Hwy 99 and on to Lillooet the road started to be winding again. We briefly stopped at Marble Canyon RV and picnic area. Although it is right off the highway, this non-serviced area boasts spectacular views of the mountains as well as a quaint lake. So if one doesn’t need power, water and/or a sani-dump, well worth an overnight stay. Soon after we saw parts of the mighty Fraser river winding its way through deep canyons before entering Lillooet. Stayed at Cayoosh Campground which was really nice (but always keep in mind that you are directly off the highway and there is traffic). We went for a stroll down to the creek at the campsite where we saw salmon (dead and alive) and the fishy smell in the air reminded us that we are still in bear country. So we headed for a (psychologically spoken) more secure viewing point before setting in for the night (as were Esther and Jim).