I just got back from my B.C. Day trip to visit family in the Cariboo, and to do something different I opted to drive out to Prince Rupert and come back via the Inside Passage, courtesy B.C. Ferries and MV
Northern Expedition.
Getting to the Cariboo was an adventure in itself this time. This was during the heat wave, so it was 41 in Lytton. Fortunately, Gumdrop's air conditioning works just fine. There had been a really bad accident on Highway 97 just south of 150 Mile, so a detour was called for. If you have a map of the region handy, we went along Enterprise Road, Chimney Lake FSR, Felker Lake FSR, Chimney Lake Road, Dog Creek Road, then in to Williams Lake on Highway 20. See the Cariboo Chilcotin
Backroad Mapbook, maps 15 and 25 in the 2nd edition.
- Chimney Lake, detour around an accident at 150 Mile.
- Chimney Lake.jpg (36 KiB) Viewed 2599 times
Getting from Quesnel to Prince Rupert was the usual exercise in tedium. Highway 16 just isn't that interesting until you get to Smithers and start to see some mountains.
- Mountains at Smithers
- Smithers.jpg (50.05 KiB) Viewed 2598 times
En route we saw lots of rocks and trees. Just like the Arrogant Worms said.
- 15 hours of rocks and trees!
- Rocks and trees.jpg (38.72 KiB) Viewed 2597 times
I was reminded of how enormous British Columbia is, and how small we are. This was half way between Hartley Bay and Klemtu.
- B.C. is big. We are small.
- Tiny.jpg (35.31 KiB) Viewed 2598 times
Arrival!
- Arrival.
- Port Hardy.jpg (44.87 KiB) Viewed 2596 times
I took a GPS fix every two hours throughout the trip.
Gumdrop performed just fine. I made liberal use of air conditioning, and gave her a bit of a caning (110-115 klicks) from Campbell River to Nanaimo. If I could find a missing gas station receipt I could tell you what her fuel consumption was. It seemed the usual, 10 to 11 litres per 100 km. She kept her cool at all times.
...laura
