Smithers, BC

The view from the back porch of our self-catering cottage on Lake Kathlyn. Can see the glacier on Hudson Bay Peak. Not sure how it got the name, since Hudson's Bay is about 2000 miles away, but there it is.

We really enjoyed our 3 night stopover in Smithers. The town sits in a pretty little valley in the middle of north-central BC with typically gorgeous Provincial Parks all around, plus glacial lakes dotting the landscape - too many to count or keep track of.

Decided to go on one serious hike up into the hills our second day. Not too steep going uphill by Columbia River Gorge standards, and when it leveled off in a pretty little mountain pass we felt as if we were back in the highlands of Scotland. Hiked down the other side of the pass until we came to a couple of alpine lakes where we had lunch.



Looking back down the trail towards Hudson Bay Peak.


Stopped along the trail to figure out what was whistling at us. Turned out to be a colony of rock marmots who were alerting each other of our passing. Couldn't get too close - they were pretty skittish.









Heading down to our lunch spot. We were a little worried about bears - there were both Black Bears & Grizzlies in the area - but never saw any on the trip up or back...much to our relief. I had picked up some bear spray a couple of years ago before a trip to Glacier & Yellowstone, and carry it with me whenever we head out. It's nasty stuff - industrial strength pepper spray basically. Had some blow back on me once while doing a test firing in Yellowstone and it felt like someone had thrown acid on my arm.



The place we stopped for lunch. As you can see from some of the previous photos it was bundle-up weather for part of the hike. The wind was whipping thru the pass we had to traverse and it was plenty cold at our altitude of around 3500 ft....and it was the middle of August.

As you can probably tell we've been having a great trip so far. The scenery is everything we imagined it would be. BC reminds us of the best aspects of Scotland, Ireland and New Zealand. If anything there are fewer people here than we encountered on our NZ trip. Even driving on the highway brings back memories of our trip there, when we'd go for 15 or 20 minutes before seeing another vehicle. This part of Canada really has a "back of beyond" feel to it, which makes the experience that much more enjoyable.

Heading for Prince George today, which is just a stopover on the way to Jasper National Park. Hard to believe that the "real" beautiful scenery is still supposed to be ahead of us.