FRIDAY 22ND – HEADING EAST

Today was spent on the road travelling from Whistler to the Sandy Point Beach Campground, near Salmon Arm (if anybody wants to look at a map and work out where that is). The scenery was extraordinary. We spent most of the day sharing narrow valleys with rivers and the Rocky Mountaineer railway line while the mountains towered on both side of us.

The photo above is taken at Duffey Lake Park. The one below is taken at Seton near Lillooet. What is particularly significant in the photo below is the railway line on the edge of the lake on the right of the photo. It puts everything else into perspective. That’s the Rocky Mountaineer line we followed all day. It passes within 100 metres of our camp ground. We will be following it all the way to Banff.

The multi coloured lake is the lower Lake Joffre. There is a middle Lake Joffre and an upper Lake Joffre accessible by hikers who are prepared to camp out to get there. In the distance not quite visible in the photo is the melting snow which feeds the lake system.

The Sandy Point Beach campground is very different to the manicured setting we had in Whistler. As the name implies, it fronts a long sandy beach on both sides of a point jutting out into Anstey Arm Lake, a very large lake which we are at one end of. It is an extremely popular skiing and wakeboarding venue, not unlike Lake Moogerah in that part visible from the camp ground beach. Our site is perfectly comfortable and only 50 metres from the beach but the general environment is very different to Whistler.

Tomorrow, we go through the Monashee Mountains before getting to the Columbia Mountains after which we will get to the Rocky Mountains themselves. Where we are now and west from here is referred to as the Kootenay Rockies in the tourism brochures. I don’t see how the country ahead of us could be any more spectacular than that encountered so far but we will see.

I hope those trains passing by don't disturb us too much during the night.