Monday, May 29, 2006

Along the BC/Washington Border


We’ve spent the last two days on Hwy 3 winding through the Kootenay boundary and then the northern Cascades, anywhere from 1 to 30 km north of the US border. It’s getting repetitive using the words great and beautiful but there you go. We stayed in Osoyoos last night. The home to Canada’s only pocket desert. The claim is it’s a misplaced piece of the Sonora desert in California, and while it doesn’t look as dry as that did. (we drove in to town in a heavy shower, May being the wettest month) it does have a similar, if a little less barren, feel and look. Except that the Okanogan runs through the middle of it, forming Osoyoos lake at this point, and irrigation has made the desert bloom with orchards and vineyards.




Today we drove up the Similkameen valley and then down the Skagit to Chilliwack. It was a marvel and a surprise.


As we got father from the rockies and closer to the populated section of BC we expected the scenery to calm down but it didn’t. The similkameen valley is amazing. We stumbled upon this empty campground while loking for a place to let Elly run. Just above it was a broad sandy glacial terrace with an amazing variety of wildflowers, views all around of open forest and talus slopes, and a wide open place to chase sticks.



By the time we were heading down the Skagit valley we were back in the thick BC forest and stopped for another walk in the forest and over the bridge in the Cascade recreation area.


Tomorrow we’re on to Vancouver Island.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fabulous! Mary and I showed Katie some of the photos on my blackberry on the weekend and she is looking forward to hearing about it first hand and seeing Ellie again. See you soon. Tom

3:49 AM  

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