CRYSTAL LAKE TO JUNIPER CREEK PROVINCIAL PARK

July 17, 2014

We hated to leave Crystal Lake, but it’s time to head out onto the road again!

We went back to Highway #24 heading towards Big Butte (ha ha) I mean Lone Butte and headed south on the road past Green Lake. It sort of goes diagonally down and hits Highway #97 at 70 Mile House. What a pretty drive! I love the country here. It’s getting increasingly like the southwest … maybe Colorado … and we’re getting into much drier and sparser land. Lots of Ponderosa Pines and what looks like sagebrush.

Once again it is very smokey due to local forest fires. We made a few stops along Green Lake for some photo ops, lots of beautiful flowers along the road and cattle too!

Heavy smoke over Green Lake

Cattle grazing along Green Lake

Asters along Hwy 27 – Green Lake

Through 70 Mile House, then Clinton where we stopped for coffee and internet time. We began looking at maps to see where we should head for and realized we’d left a crucial book at home – our Backroads Mapbook of the Thompson/Okanagan. Our current maps stop at Clinton! So we scoured the stores here (which aren’t many) and I finally found on in a Petro Canada station! It felt like finding a gold nugget!!

We think we’ll head east and stay at Juniper Beach Provincial Park, which is about the only place we can find that’s not a commercial site in a field somewhere! It’s pretty hot so we’re hoping the ‘beach’ part will help.

Along the way we found a pretty awesome place called ‘The Chasm‘ … which was formed at the close of the ice age by a stream fed by melting ice over a falls and finally cutting this chasm. It felt like you could have been standing in Colorado for sure at this point. Very interesting and a beautiful stop!

The Chasm

Chasm Provincial Park

Butterfly at Chasm Provincial Park

We arrived at Juniper Beach which is pretty nice … sort of an oasis in the desert actually. Interestingly enough, this area, and around to Kamloops, is the top end of the Sonoran Desert and it really looks it. Not many trees and mostly low shrubs and sagebrush … VERY dry. But this provincial park is right on the Thompson River with a bunch of (surprise!) Junipers which give us a bit of shade.

Juniper Creek Provincial Park

Bruce had to grab his boat and head out on the river as soon as we pulled in. He was hoping for a bit of play in the waves, but it wasn’t that great. He fooled around for a while anyway and was able to cool off with a couple of rolls as I took some photos. Back to camp, Corona’s and then appie nite.

Bruce out for a paddle

The sleep that night was a nightmare! It was so hot we left the air conditioner on which is LOUD … so about ½ way thru the night I finally turned it off hoping to get some sleep. Unfortunately, the smoke from the forest fires rolled in and it got so smokey we had a bit of trouble breathing!! It was so thick and smokey Bruce got up to take a look to make sure the fires weren’t getting close and found that even the cars headlights he could see on the highway looked like they were driving through a thick fog – the smoke was that thick! And also we’re at the bottom of a valley of sorts with train tracks on either side of us and VERY close. All night long we had trains going by first on one side then another and they were extremely loud. So all in all … not a great nite!