Spring has been a cool wet one this year, more so than usual
and we are all impatiently waiting for our warm days of semi-arid weather to
arrive. We planned to take a drive out
to see some of our countryside sights when our next nice sunny day arrived, and
it did. We headed south on the Princeton-Kamloops Highway, more often called the old
Merritt highway.
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| The green hills of Kamloops |
We were commenting on the nice green hills we still have,
which is usually turning brown by the time May rolls around, and we can be
thankful to the rain for that. As well,
we can hope that the rain might make a difference in our usual summer forest
fire season and prevent it from being a bad one.
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Old ranch buildings |
We can often see the remnants of old buildings on many of
the fields in this ranching country. Kamloops
has been cattle ranching country forever and the signs can remind us of that on
these country road travels. I seem to
have a penchant for these derelict old buildings for their history and stories so have quite a collection of
photos.
Runaway creeks
Following Hwy 5A there are several lakes along this stretch
of highway between Kamloops and our planned turnoff at Peter Hope Rd. We pass Shumway Lake, Trapp Lake, Ritchie,
Napier and Stump Lakes. With all the
rain we’ve been having, these lakes have all grown in size and we are seeing a
lot of very wet fields as we go, too.
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| Stump Lake |
There is a small area beside Stump Lake with picnic tables to
sit at and enjoy the view……… usually.
Today they are under water with just the tops of those tables showing. Spring is runoff time but I think this may be
more than the normal water level expected on Stump Lake.
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| Longhorn cattle |
My limited knowledge of cattle may be a problem at times, so
please correct me if I am wrong, but I think this might be a Texas
Longhorn. These are not commonly seen in
our area, but they do fit the description I found on my usual trusty computer
for longhorn cattle.
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| Roadside creek |
We drove up Peter Hope Rd to see the lake, and this was one
of the sights of a creek rushing down the side of the roads. Markers were there to show the minor roadside
washout, which was nothing to worry about yet but that turned out to be one of
the mildest creeks we saw.
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| Rushing creek |
This was taken further down the road from the previous
photo. The creek is a bit larger but no
damage to speak of. More interesting was
the tiny log opening that was built into the banks of this creek. I didn’t get any closer so could not see how
deep it went but it was small so I believe it was not meant to be a home, perhaps a temporary
shelter for trappers of the old days. I
am very curious so if anyone has the answer, I’d appreciate hearing it.
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| Springtime water |
We turned onto Campbell Creek Rd from the highway to follow
that route over to Barnhartvale. These
fields showed how the creek overflows and creates several small ponds and more
routes to carry the water, and had washed out a private bridge on its way.
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| Water damage to road |
This was as far as we got.
The road was not closed but it sure did not look safe enough to drive
over. We turned around, as this car was
doing on the other side, and headed back out the way we had come.
This has been a very wet year for Kamloops area and the
flooding has caused problems. We enjoyed
our drive but can only hope that the rainy season has passed and Mother Nature
prevents the normal runoff from our snowy mountains that could cause more
flooding.
