Glorious Fall Colors at Illal - September 13

 Wonderful fall colors at Illal Meadows this weekend. The meadows had been on my list of places to explore and a couple of weeks ago a paragliding friend confirmed that it was well worth a visit. Its a relatively quick hike in so carrying over-night gear was not much of a pain. The trail is about 4 or 5 km long and elevation gain around 500 m. There are very nice camp spots in the meadows, but care should be taken to pick a sheltered spot as it gets windy here - a look at the trees tells the story ... they have no branches on the windward side.

We wandered up some ridges to Illal Peak and enjoyed views of Needle, Yak and other peaks in the Coquihalla area (even saw Robbie Reid and the Judge on the horizon). On the second day we circumnavigated Jim Kelly. Although the scramble to the top is reportedly not too bad we skipped the summit as winds were still very strong and we didn't want to get blown off the ridge.

Glorious yellow mountain ash and red blueberries leaves but the berries were almost done; the ones left had started to dry out and ferment. I had much better luck with berries at Elfin Lakes 3 weeks ago. We didn't see any wildlife such as goats or grizzlies, but some disturbed spots could have been grizz digs. Up on windy (white-capping) Illal Lake we met hunters who said they were looking for deer - not exactly deer country ?

Some more notes: Trailhead is off a branch road of Tulameen FSR (from Coquihalla highway, around 19km mark), the last 3km on the branch requiring 4WD and reasonably high clearance (the Tracker had no problem).

Glorious colors with the Old Settler, Robbie Reid and the Judge

Pete hiking on Illal Peak, Coquihalla Mt in the back

Looks like a painter had an accident and spilled his/her colors

The Milky Way from the sleeping bag. Without realizing I also captured 2 shooting stars in this exposure. Quite different from the outing on Mt Seymour to watch the Perseids when we spotted only a few meteorites and I captured just a single one.

Downton and Marble Range - September 15

Was this the last long weekend of summer or first long weekend of winter?

We convinced friends to join us to explore the Downton area some more but were stopped from getting onto the high and lofty ridges by snow. Still we did one hike/scramble into the ‘Valley of many lakes’ but I found the amount of boulder-hopping rather annoying.

In search of snow-free summits we drove on to Lillooet and north on West Pavillion Rd where we spent the night with Fraser River views on a bench above the canyon.

The next morning we took Big Bar Ferry, had a nice chat with the ferry man and went on to bag Mt Bowman in Marble Range Provincial Park.

Interesting to see on West Pavilion FSR over hundred deer grazing in the irrigated fields above the Fraser just beyond ‘no hunting’ signs – apparently these deer are educated and can read!


 

  

  

  

  

 

 

Drought and Rain - August 29

Summer 2015 was very dry and hot, with just 35 mm rain during May, June and July combined (normal would be 155 mm for the three months). Fierce wildfires started (Boulder Creek, Elaho and later in Rock Creek, where several houses were lost). The BC wildfire budget was blown early on in the summer.

But at the end of August we got drenched: 65 mm rain in 6 days (19 and 22 mm on August 29 and 31) - and this was at the airport where its usually a lot drier. This rain came with a 'late fall-like' storm that left 50% of the population in the lower mainland without power, some for days.