Friday saw us up early, breakfasted & picnic packed before heading out of the house by 7am for a long drive up to Lillooet to catch the 1030am Kaoham Shuttle along the track to Seton Portage [hellobc].
Tessa drove us up through spectacular mountainous country just as the sun was beginning to peak over the peaks! Quite beautiful. The valleys were forested usually with a creek or stream at the bottom burbling over boulders to feed into the vast Daisy Lake or into the Chekamus or Lillooet rivers. The latter feeds into Lillooet Lake which feeds into Harrison Lake which eventually flows into the mighty Fraser River. Interestingly, the Lillooet River is not close to Lillooet. At the higher altutudes there was still snow on the side of the road left over from the snow-fall of 10 days prior. At Lillooet village we sat, eating our lunch, over-looking the swift-flowing Fraser River - the outfall of Lake Seton is into the Fraser River alongside which runs Highway 99 & eventually the Trans-Canada Highway. Everything is connected.
Highway 99 is a divided 4-lane affair to just beyond Whistler becoming mainly two-laned with paved shoulders to Pemberton. That town is known for its potato growing - we've tasted a few varieties during our travels in BC - all with different names to the ones with which we are familiar. Beyond that lovely wide valley the Hwy 99 shoulder becomes gravel or non-existent, with deep drop-offs on occasions as it winds its way up, over & down mountain passes. Stopped to take a photo over Duffey Lake - brrrr!! Very cold still at 9am up there.
The descent to Lillooet was quite something - a 15% gradient with a couple of hairpin bends taking us into the sunlit valley out of the shadowed mountainous gorge.
At the village we quickly found the train station (it wasn't a big village!!) but the place was shut up despite the shuttle supposedly arriving only 30 minutes later. A group of fellow tourists arrived around 10.15 so we felt somewhat reassured that it would arrive....... and it did! But it was a little late so departure was delayed by 20 minutes - enough time to pop up to pub to use the loo & buy cake. We had our names ticked off the passenger list, each paid over our $10 fare then boarded the shuttle with the aim of getting a window seat on the left side.
We had a driver (relatively new to the job), an old hand (47 years on the Koaham route) and the woman who checked us on (seemed a bit bored) - the first was a bit grumpy, the second enthusiastically chatty and the latter pleasantly vague. The shuttle ambled along stopping often to get clearance on the line or for the driver to point out mountain goats near the tracks. The view over Lake Seton was wonderful but I especially loved the sheer cliffs and the shingle fans held back by gabion baskets or rock netting. Geology & seismic geek!! The line really is a feat of engineering! Apparently it is used by the Rocky Mountaineer tourist train on one of its routes to Prince George & Jasper but it doesn't run at this time of year so not sure what other train we had to wait for at we travelled up to Seton Portage.
We had hoped to have 30 minutes in Seton Portage to get out & have a quick walk around but as we left late & had a number of stops, we had no time to stretch our legs. Quite a few people got on at Portage & at Shalalth for the trip back. On the journey we saw mountain goats & deer.... and I was sure I spotted a bear sitting on a stump loooking down on us but maybe not.
Back at Lillooet we tried to find a cafe we wanted to spend time in but no luck so after calling in at the Abundance Artisan Bakery we found a picnic table on the bank above the Fraser River where we enjoyed our picnic of croissants, avocado & huumus.
On the drive back stopped at Joffre Lakes Provincial Park for a quick stretch of the legs & a break for our driver, Tessa. Walked to the closest lake - beautiful - with still quite a bit of snow on the ground. On the return journey we watched the sunset over the mountains - a full-circle day.
A lovely meal of left-overs completed a long but fascinating day.
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