RV Camping & Hiking BC: North of Pemberton to the Fraser Canyon

Hi everyone. So we're up here for a few days between the Pemberton and Lillooet area and we are hiking up here as you can tell. Yeah we're up actually in an area called Marriott Basin and it's just more of a reconnaissance trip. Like when we got here I don't want to go home. I just want to camp somewhere and then be able to climb up on some of the peaks around us. But it's beautiful. Nice trip in. We're just doing a couple hours in. Enjoy the hike. Head back and then we're going to try and find some place to stay for the evening. Yeah probably at one of the rec sites or at one of the BC Hydro free campgrounds. So anyway hope you enjoy the video. Turn the corner and here you are. Wow. Oh hello hello hello. You're a pretty dog. Yes you're a pretty dog. Lots of big rocks. Fish sticks for Gordon. Vegan fish strips for me. Some berries and some veggie dip. We had our lunch and we thought we might try to suit the route up to the Wendy Thompson Hut which is up here. Primarily for the alpine club. You can book it through them. It's probably mainly for climbers but also hikers and skiers as well. But it's closed now. Yeah so and it's getting a little late now. We had a late start so we're gonna head back but definitely we'll come back. This is our first time both of us. We'll definitely come back for maybe a few days just to explore the area. Be great place to backpack in. Yeah the route up isn't too too tough so and it's not that long. So anyway we're just enjoying this beautiful scenery my goodness. Just can't get over it. It's gorgeous. We went the wrong way. That's the right campground. I think there's four of them. Four recreation sites along the highway 99. Duffy Lake and Little Wet. And all full. And we could stay at the BC Hydro campground and they were closed due to COVID. We were kind of stuck and we didn't know what to do. And we ended up finding this driving by this campground and phoned them up and they said there was one spot left on the river. So here we are. Yeah they had a last minute cancellation actually because the campsite is full. So we actually ended up in a... Not bad. The river is very high. A big class C next to us. We're kind of jammed in all together but it's okay. We're only going to be here for one night. We arrived here now it's almost 7 30. We're tired. We're thirsty. We're hungry. We're going to make some dinner. Have some beer first and then make some dinner. Simple dinner and uh yeah just tidy up and and then tomorrow morning we'll see what other adventures will come. This is the winery that's just down the road from here actually. But we didn't buy it from there. We bought it from a liquor store in Whistler. Fort Behrens. A little bit for Gordon and a lot of it for me. So we toasted bagel on the frying pan. It's easier. It uses less power than the toaster. We could technically use the toaster here and plug in our van but we haven't bothered. So we ended up at the Skihist Provincial Park. It's one of our favorite parks. It's just outside of Lytton. We did actually head down towards the Gold Bridge area. We started that route this morning when we left our place in Lillooet but we only went a short distance. Got on some of the fairly gravelly bumpy road and narrow twisting turns on the road and big steep drop-offs and I got really nervous. Mickey was uh was really nervous. I mean there are hundreds of feet of just you know chasm down to the river kind of drop off so she got kind of nervous so we ended up turning around. The road was pretty bumpy too. If we'd done it before I think we may have continued on but it was first time for us and just a pretty bumpy with some real significant exposure so we turned around. I think it'll be a great place to visit and we'll probably do it again or maybe try it in our other vehicle first and then come back with our van. Then we drove again back from Lillooet to here in Lytton and that was a really nice drive looking down at the river. Weather was sunny, very pleasant. We had lunch at the day use area trying to decide what to do. We were both feeling pretty tired. It was really hot about 32 degrees and we're not used to it. We're not acclimatized to the heat yet I think so we were both feeling tired so we decided to just stay here for the night. Just relax this afternoon and rest up and Gordon's hurt his heel. So yeah yesterday on our hike which also was really it was really humid on our hike so we were both I think a bit tired from that and then somehow I hurt my heel so I've been limping around today fairly heavily so that kind of limited what we could do. We got here and we've set up camp. I had a couple hour nap I think it was and Mickey sat outside and and I'm not sure what you did. I just read. Just relaxed you know had a glass of wine and it was it was great very relaxing. Yeah it's a nice spot so we're gonna have dinner and then we'll probably head home early tomorrow morning. No big adventure but we always enjoy the drive down the Fraser Canyon. In this video we want to also chat a little bit about some of the COVID issues when we're traveling and even though our infection rates are pretty low in BC we're still very cognizant of trying to keep a social distance and making sure we we have hand hygiene and using masks if necessary if we're in a store or something like that just to protect other people. We stopped on the way to Whistler. They had protocols in place at a sanitizing station with the grocery store we went to where they were hosing down all the baskets, signage, people in the store were wearing masks. It was all very positive. Even in Lillooet too people they I went into a local grocery store and they sanitized my hands as I went in sprayed them for me and people were just cautious that you know we kind of follow we have a medical health officer here in BC Dr. Bonnie Henry and she's been great throughout this whole process and and really her instructions are just those simple instructions physical distancing wash your hands regularly and just be kind yeah be kind stay you know keep try wear a mask if you have to be in a case where there you are going to be closer to people other than for a very short period of time and you know that seems to be working reasonably well so far here in British Columbia crossing fingers. I think that it's a fine balance because a lot of the smaller communities need the tourist dollars for people to travel but on the other hand they're very worried about infections coming in so it's really a fine balance and I think as visitors we really have to be respectful to them and to make sure that we're being careful and not spreading any infections and we make sure that we're always using antibacterial wipes or in washing our hands frequently and using alcohol sprays on our hands every time we go to a store to the gas station or anything like that just to just to be cautious. Yeah Dr. Henry has this term she said she asked people to have their travel manners when they're when they're moving about the province so you know that's just really all those things being physically distant, washing your hands, being respectful of the community you're in so that's something that we follow. I think we're fairly diligent we forget on occasion we grab something a water tap or something but we're always very careful as Mickey said about either washing our hands or sanitizing our hands after and and when needed we will wear a mask. And it's interesting too because when we're camping we tend to sort of forget that we're in the situation in the world because we're in in the wilderness we're enjoying the outdoors it's really important for us to keep keep that in mind as we travel around BC. Just be respectful be diligent. It's dinner time. It was very hot out. Yeah it was hot to cook on the stove. We're not going to start the fire we actually wanted to do a fish and veggie packet and aluminum foil in the fire but we don't really want to start a fire because it's too hot. We just cooked on the stove but even then it was too hot. So Gordon has salmon and mashed potatoes and green beans and I have tofu. Yeah simple dinner. Good morning. Good morning everyone. Boy we had a great night's sleep here. We really enjoy camping here it's such a great spot. Even at the washrooms they're flush toilets but you know the park operators have actually installed a little sun shower outside so not intended for somebody to have a full shower but if you were here in a tent and you just wanted to rinse off it's going to be cold water but if you wanted to rinse off on a sunny day very nice. Place is just so well managed we really like it and it's very quiet with the odd exception of a train you can just sort of hear in the distance at least where we're camped. You can hear a little bit of the traffic but it's very subtle. Otherwise it's just gorgeous here and there's lots of space between sites and it's so private and yeah we just love this spot. We're just gonna come back more often. Yeah this campsite so it's nice. And the great thing about this place is that it's all first come first serve sites so you don't have to worry about rushing to make a reservation and if you arrive at a reasonable time in the afternoon then you can get a site and most of the sites are really nice but the ones particularly on the hillside here are the best. We're going to have our breakfast now and leave relatively early to go home. From sort of from coast to canyon we went up to a beautiful hike about 30 kilometers past Pemberton and off to the Fraser River and an impromptu stay at Fraser Cove which was actually very nice. Last minute gem of a find actually. I think sometimes you get the best sites when you when you phone at the last minute because they have cancellations and it's some of the nicer sites. And then from there we're at Ski Hist which is near Lytton and as Mickey was saying one of our favorite places to be and it's just after seven in the morning it's already going to get hot. I think today it's supposed to be about 35 or 36 here and we'll be heading home. So we hope you enjoyed this video and if you did please be sure to give us a thumbs up and be sure to subscribe if you haven't done so already and we'll see you next time. Till next time.