Castle Butte is a promontory/ridge that juts out from the Red Plateau Escarpment. To get to the top of the hill at the end of the ridge, a ledge is followed to the east side then a short scramble is required to go the south end of the butte. Most hikers who choose to go to Castle Butte follow the …Continue reading…
One of our favorite hikes in any season is a route through the middle grasslands on the west side of Long Lake in Lac du Bois Grasslands Provincial Park. There is a user-trail at the start by the small pullout/trailhead which we start on, but we usually pick our own route to pass kettle ponds, glacial features like erratics, kames, …Continue reading…
A favorite route which has no trail is a loop over Raptor Ridge and back past the ponds on either side. Almost no one hikes through these hills so its a good place to observe waterfowl, raptors, songbirds, insects, wildflowers, and the middle grasslands environment. I call it Raptor Ridge becuase much of the area is treeless and there are …Continue reading…
In spring each year we hike around Long Lake in the Lac du Bois Grasslands. The route involves little in the way of elevation gain, but is about 9 km return to do the hike, with no established trails. The route follows the fenceline (single tracks) into the deep trench which has a series of lakes and ponds (the …Continue reading…
In late winter when the snow still lingered in the hills, we stomped across the ice and through the snow to explore the three hills that make up Batchelor Hill in the Lac du Bois Grasslands Protected Area. The trailhead we chose is the “Upper Barren Hills trailhead”, off a short side road just past Batchelor Hill itself. The double …Continue reading…
some content our route more content the lower hills more content the flank of Mount Mara conetnt Jag Hill to the west more thin clouds over Mount Dufferin conte coming down the hill towards Kamloops Lake content Tranquille cont my … Continue reading →
content the GPS track of our route more contet content ontnet The Grasslands Esker content A sunny day in the grasslands. content Hiking up to the top of the ridge. contnt Long Lake content The south end of the Long … Continue reading →
Any hike from the Dewdrop Range to the rim of the Dewdrop Escarpment will be long climb. The loop route which goes up the Dead Coyote Trail, along the Dewdrop Traverse Trail, and then down the Three Amigos Trail climbs 734 m (2408 ft) steeply to the rim. The whole route is 13 km and a hard hike at any …Continue reading…
When freshet brings the North Thompson and South Thompson Rivers to a high water point , the area at the head of Kamloops Lake floods. The flat floodplains near Tranquille get covered in several feet of floodwaters. In addition, Cooney Bay floods, the beach disappears, and the shoreline recedes. We paddled out of Tranquille Bay then followed the river downstream …Continue reading…
The Batchelor Range spans the distance from McQueen Creek on the north and the lower Batchelor Hills on the south. There are a series in the range with the highest ones at the north end. The North Batchelor Range is not accessed by hikers very much since the routes are all longer and involve longer climbs with only a few …Continue reading…
We hiked the 13 km Three Amigos Loop and a lot of jagged volcanic rock, but also a few wildflowers (featured here). Hover your cursor for a caption and/or double click for a full-sized image.
A wildflower walk in the upper grasslands. A gallery of images follows. Captions can be seen by hovering your cursor over the image. Click an image for a full-sized photo.