Marble Canyon ~ Autumn Colors ~ Lakes

Our day began early as we wanted to cover a lot of ground today.  We start from Kamloops with a very cloudy sky and fine mist covering our window!  This just isn’t right, we wanted blue sky and sunshine.  The trees are changing colors and soon those leaves will have fallen to the ground.  If I am looking for those colors, we’d better hit the road.  Keith has suggested we drive into Gold Bridge so away we go. We can only hope things will be different when we reach our destination.

Crown Lake

We arrived in Cache Creek and still had overcast skies but we think we see a bit of blue sky in the distance, the direction we are headed.  Just north of Cache Creek, we turned off onto Hwy 99 to drive through Marble Canyon and we found lakes and a little bit of sunshine, and did it ever impress!

Reflections on Crown Lake

We stopped at the camping and picnic area on the Crown Lake which sits right on the side of the road, to enjoy some photo time.  The clouds are still there and when we are down in the canyon and with the high mountain peaks, the small windows of sunshine do not allow for a lot but it can choose a perfect location to shine on.

Amazing sunny spot

Marble Canyon is in the Pavilion Mountain Range and the Marble Canyon Provincial Park covers 335 hectares of land.  There are three lakes, Turquoise, Crown and Pavilion Lake which are all near the road but not all accessible like Crown Lake is.  I couldn’t resist a close-up to show, the sun is shining exactly where it needs to be!

Marble Canyon Provincial Park

The Park is very quiet now but it looks like it would be a great spot to visit during the summer season.  It can accommodate camping and is well cared for, typical of provincial parks in BC.

Pavilion Benchland

We see the agricultural benchland high above the Fraser River that weaves its way through this canyon.  Some areas look nice enough to be a golf course!

Fraser River Benchland

We are now following the Fraser River and see some incredible views of the ranches of Pavilion, if I’m understanding my geography properly. There is no end to the incredible scenery all through this area and there is so much more!

Fraser River

The road now follows the curve of the river and we can see how high above the river we are.  The elevation of Pavilion is 728 m (2388 ft) and the river is very low at this time of year, so we are seeing some big height here, which we see a lot more of during our drive today.

Slide Construction

We had seen a sign to tell of construction being done in a slide area and we are now approaching.  We see the sight and understand the dilemma, it covers a large area and is definitely not something to be ignored.  This shows the huge screws that are used to reinforce the bank.  The large equipment is drilling so I assume they will continue these reinforcements down the bank.  A very impressive sight.

 Lillooet, BC

The Fraser River separates Lillooet from the main highway route, Hwy 1.  There have been several bridges built over the years to connect them and the one we see is the Lillooet Suspension Bridge, called the Old Bridge by the locals.  It replaced a truss bridge in 1913 that had been built in 1889; previous to then, a reaction-cable ferry had been used between 1860 -1888.  The ‘Old Bridge’ became a pedestrian only bridge in 1981 when they built the Bridge of the Twenty-Three Camels.  To learn more of Lillooet, visit this page.

I began our day by hoping the weather would change by the time we reached our destination.  We saw so many incredible scenic places during our day that the destination was not the highlight, but the 600 km drive of the day was.