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Author Archives: Teri J Pieper

Summit Lake

Summit Lake has a small provincial park with a campground. When we arrived it appeared to be full and we were considering going on up the road towards Nakusp, unsure if we’d find anything better and available. We enquired with the park host who said the young folks putting up the toadlet fence were leaving that afternoon and we ought to check with them. Sure enough, they’d mostly finished with the fence and had most of their gear packed so we moved in before they were all the way moved out. It was a double spot and we shared it with some nice folks from Castlegar. We also met some other nice folks from Kamloops and an unplanned party went well into the evening one night! We really liked their dog and they were pretty nice too. By this time we must have been missing our dog, back home at Rover’s Ranch.

Summit Lake is a lovely lake for paddling and fishing. I saw numerous canoes and kayaks – more than I’ve seen in one place in a long time. Common Loons must have nested there this year. I saw an adult with an almost grown youngster. Ken enjoyed the fishing – catching some very large rainbow trout that we enjoyed, cooked over the fire.

The toadlet fence is designed to keep the toads out of the campground and also to funnel them to a highway crossing. They are born in the lake and spend their life there as tadpoles til they metamorphose into western toads and then they need to go to the mountains. In order to get there they have to cross the highway and it’s a dangerous gamble for the tiny creatures. We were told that in the past, so many toads were squished on the highway that it needed to be sanded. That’s a lot of tiny toads. Unfortunately all the toadlets don’t understand that they are supposed to come out of the water on the other side of the fence. We saw numerous ones on the road to the boat launch who did find the fence and some were able to squeeze through the tiny holes. Western toads, like many amphibians, are having a hard time these days. Summit Lake is considered a stronghold for them.

That’s it. The last post from the vacation. It was a fun road trip and we will probably re-visit that area again someday.

Summit Lake
Summit Lake
Very healthy devil’s club. This is a wet climate to promote such growth.
Dinner cooking on the campfire
Ken demonstrates proper use of cooking utensils including a shovel and pliers
Hold it like that
Dinner is served!
Toadlet fence along the road to the boat launch
Toadlet fence
Tiny toadlet thinking I can do it, I can get over this thing.
How do they know where to go?
I told you they were tiny
The dark dots are toads
We were there at the start of their season
Learning to crawl before hopping
Last paddle, the last morning of the vacation.

Idaho Peak

From Sandon, we drove the long, narrow, bumpety bump road to the trailhead for Idaho Peak. This road system is a result of silver mining and logging in the region. I did not find the elevation at the trailhead; the peak itself is 7480 feet and the trail to it is about a mile. Much of it is a gentle grade with a steep section to get you to the mountaintop. The wildflowers were prolific and quite beautiful. The BC Rockies stretch out in all directions. They are incredibly tall and steep and the valleys below all seem to have long deep lakes, reminiscent of coastal fjords.

There were two trails and we took this one
Fireweed
Our destination in the distance
Ground squirrel. We heard quite a few these cuties.
Fireweed
There’s the steep part
Silver mining scars
Signs said to watch for silvery lakes
aster
sedum
Polemonium
lichens
Getting closer
Slocan Lake
Incredible mountains where ever you look
buckwheat
I don’t know this one’s name.
Castilleja sp; paintbrush
Campanula
anemone seedhead
paintbrush
I think this is a white penstemon
aster and bee
fireweed
Sedum
Pedicularis sp
Pedicularis sp, similar to elephant head which is found in the North Cascades

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New Denver and Sandon

Before we left for BC, I read about various things to see and do and one of the things that caught my eye was a visit to Sandon – a ghost town relic left over from the heyday of silver mining in the area. The region was once one of the largest producers of silver in the west and a busy town with 1000’s of people quickly sprang up along the shores of Carpenter Creek. The mountainsides raise steeply up out of the valley and they quickly ran out of buildable land for homes and businesses and roads. Innovative thinking led them to put the creek in a flume – a four-sided wooden tube – and that became a main street of the town rather than a barrier. They also used it to dispose of trash and sewage. Imagine what the folks in New Denver, at the mouth of the creek, thought of that. Eventually the wooden flume failed and washed out much of the old town. Fire was also hard on the town and when silver prices declined, it was abandoned. During WWII it was used as a camp for Japanese-Canadian internees who were relocated from other areas.

Now the place is more of a junkyard with few intact buildings. Someone decided to store historic trolley buses from Calgary and Vancouver there. They presented an incongruous sight when we first arrived. We were puzzled til be found some interpretive signage. There is a nice museum in one of the old buildings and we enjoyed it, learning quite a bit about the place and silver mining in 1800’s and early 1900’s.

On the way to Sandon we stopped in New Denver and enjoyed their Saturday market with beautiful produce and lots of talented artisans.

 

In New Denver
Lovely market in New Denver
It is hard to picture this pretty big creek restricted to a flume
This looks like something from the ocean rather than the mountains
In the museum
Old building
Old train locomotive, partially restored
bolts
Fireweed and rust
This cat patrolled the main street through Sandon
Trolley in Sandon
More trolleys
Canadian Brill Car logo on the trolleys
An old train car
Sweet
An old neighborhood of Sandon where folks still live
Interesting, perhaps homemade, vehicle in Sandon

 

A Short Visit to Nelson, BC

For years, I have wanted to go to Nelson, British Columbia and on this road trip, I finally had the chance to see it. Boy, was I disappointed. Not because it lacks things to do or see or eat, but because the weather was hot and it was a tourist destination. It reminded me that I do not enjoy Winthrop, the town closest to where I live, in the summertime. Is that a bad thing for me to admit? I hope not. I like Winthrop during the fall, winter and spring seasons but between Labor Day and Memorial Day, it’s just too busy and often it is very hot. That’s how Nelson was the day we visited. Busy and hot. The people watching was interesting. We had a decent lunch. We found a good place for a beer. We probably could have found ice cream too. That’s all just the same as Winthrop. Being that it was so warm, we did not feel like searching for the interesting neighborhoods or finding the cool trails or even exploring the waterfront. I think I’d like to visit again – maybe in June or September or maybe even in winter. Many people were enthusiastic about the skiing in the region.

Here are a few images from the day.

Accordions seem popular in BC
There’s no place like Hume. Or so they said.
Nice flowers in the pub at the Hume Hotel.
Ken made a new friend outside a hair salon.
And more art, this time at the coffee shop, Oso Negro, I think was its name.
Nice water feature at the coffee shop
On the patio at the coffee shop
Nice art in Nelson
Later I saw her at the coffee shop where we had lunch
I’d like a yellow one, please

Gibson Lake

Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park is straight up in the mountains from Kokanee Creek Provincial Park. It is a long bumpety bump drive to get there through many kilometers of industrial demonstration forest. There was a warning that the road was not for low-clearance vehicles nor for the faint of heart. We took it slow since the boats were still on the roof of the truck and we did not want them to get jostled around too much. It was fortuitous that the boats were with us as the road ended rather abruptly at a beautiful high mountain lake – the kind that we generally think we have to hike many miles to see. We had intended to go for a hike to another lake but with spectacular Gibson Lake before us it seemed like the only thing to do was get the boats down and go for a paddle. And you know, Ken had his fishing tackle with him so he was sure to wet a line. He enjoyed catching cutthroat trout that he promptly released. I poked around the edges of the lake and found a Solitary Sandpiper in addition to the more common Spotted Sandpipers and I was surprised to find a Great Blue Heron. I just don’t expect to find them at an elevation of 6000′. I imagine it was migrating and maybe it was young too. I watched it hunt – poking its long bill into nooks and crannies – and it often came up with a bite to eat but I could not see what it was catching.

Finally we had enough of the water and thought we ought to check out the trail. It was 4.5 kilometers to the next lake so we put on our packs and started up. The mosquitoes were horrific. And it was late in the afternoon – already 4:00 – and we did not have more food so after a couple k of enjoying the views and the wildflowers, we turned back and returned to camp.

But the most interesting part of the visit may have been seeing cars surrounded by chicken wire! We both have lots of experience at trailheads and had never seen such a sight.

What on earth?
That explains it
How many beautiful places has my boat seen
GBH profile
Great Blue Heron preening
This butterfly was hungry for salt
Such an interesting stride
Heron hunting
Heron in the woods
Cutthroat
Do you think he enjoys this?
Fishin fool
View from my boat
Monkeyflower next to the lake
Pointed at a snow field
Fireweed along the trail
Fireweed
That’s as far as we got.
A long-stemmed buttercup
So pretty and dramatic
View from the trail