Everything was going tickety-boo. We were traveling in separate vehicles because Steve was planning to carry on longer than I. We landed on mainland Canada early afternoon (from Vancouver Island) and when we reached Squamish, we had a bit of a hiccup. Steve realized that his e-mail account had been hacked. Although it appeared to be mostly a nuisance hack, whereby he was flooded with hundreds of items flowing into his in-box, the perpetrator also initiated a purchase on his credit card. We spent a couple of hours in the Squamish Nester's parking lot until his card had been cancelled and nothing further needed to be done.

We pushed on past Pemberton, along Duffy Lake Road to the (free) BC Hydro campground at Seton Dam, just before Lillooet and halted for the night.

We got off to a 7:30-ish start to the day. The autumn days were getting shorter and first light was just after 6:00am. We drove through Lillooet and turned off the Bridge River Road onto the West Pavilion Road. The gravel road surface was excellent and there were some impressive steep drop-offs as we made our way north on the west side of the Fraser River. We drove for an hour or so through the McKay Creek forest fire area that had burned uncontrolled July & August 2021 (total 450 square km's). We had a vague plan to ride somewhere but the charred landscape encouraged us to keep driving. We dropped down Watson Bar Road to the Fraser River, parked the vehicles and rode the sagebrush.

We followed an old road south above the Fraser River. Subsequent research determined that it was the old cart track built in 1862/1863 to connect Lillooet with the mainline Cariboo Wagon Road (Yale to Barkerville) with a Fraser ferry crossing at Watson Bar. It was slow going mainly because we kept stopping to admire the scenery. It undulated between about 400m and 600m. Just over 12km along, Steve's front tire deflated; his tire was slashed by a sharp rock. He put a tire "boot" in and an inner tube (his tires were running tubeless). It was a 3 or 4cm gash in the tire, so we decided to turn around and return to the vehicles. Even so, we ascended 500m over the 25km and really enjoyed the ride. Confidence in the interim repair increased with time.

It was a windy evening at camp. There was a ranch across Watson Creek but we didn't encounter any vehicles or people during our stay.

First thing, after coffee and breakfast, we rode up the Watson Bar Road to a view point. It was a quick ride down and we packed up the bikes and continued the drive up the West Pavilion Road. The descent down to Big Bar was quite steep; I drove in first gear and still had to brake most of the way down. We had a notion to ride up to French Bar from Big Bar to see a narrowing of the Fraser. However, the road was closed because of on-going work at French Bar to ensure safe passage for salmon (a rock fall had blocked the river in 2020).

We waited on the west side for the two vehicle (free) ferry to collect us. It is a cable set-up supplemented by a small outboard motor. The scenery is so different from where we live, that we kept wondering what country we were in.

Once we were on the east side of the Fraser, we looked for possible routes to the east side of the river, but our one hope turned out to be an old private road, so we continued along Big Bar Road to Riley Lake and took a campsite by the lake.

After lunch, we road towards Big Bar Mountain on Crows Bar FSR through free range ranch land. As got closer to the Fraser River, the road undulated through forest and after reaching a couple of high points at about 1400m, we were on the descent back to camp. However, we reached a locked gate and an unwelcoming sign ("This is Turnaround Point, so turnaround and F**k off"). We were both disappointed and then tried riding along a slightly overgrown old track to the west, only to reach fencing and more no trespassing signs. So, our circle route became and out-and-back ride. I for one was somewhat deflated by that and found the return ride tiring. It was 50km with almost 1,000m of ascent by the time we reached camp. We had camp showers, dinner and called it a day.

Riley Lake is at about 1,000m and it was -2C at dawn that morning. The plan was for Steve to drive to Kamloops in search of a replacement tire. We agreed to meet in Lillooet later in the day. Steve headed off to Clinton and Hwy 97. I drove the Jesmond Road, west of the Marble Mountains to Kelly Lake and then I picked up the Clinton-Pavilion Road up and over steep terrain to the hamlet of Pavilion and Hwy 99.

The top of the public Clinton-Pavilion road is a sloping plateau that passes through the Diamond S Ranch. It is beautiful ranch country, so I parked the car just before the switchbacks down to Pavilion and rode back up the road for about 10kms (20kms return). As I approached the car on my return, Harry, Steve's brother-in-law, popped up out of nowhere. We knew that he was in the area; he was driving towards Pemberton from the Jesmond Road. We had a chat and he helped me load my bike into the car.

I drove into Lillooet, checked the weather forecast (good!), bought a few things at the main supermarket (Buy-Low foods, quite a good store) and then visited the May Wong Restaurant on Main Street. An older Chinese woman served me a Cantonese style beef & broccoli lunch. The decor may have been simple but the food was delicious. I had exchanged text messages with Steve through the day. He had found a replacement tire and would be along in a couple of hours. I pressed on to Carpenter Lake and the BC Hydro campground at Gun Creek. It was a warm sunny afternoon and I took the opportunity to clean up my bike and have a simple bucket shower. Steve arrived before 6:00pm.

We packed up and drove north on Tyaughton Lake Road and then on a small spur road to the Taylor Creek trailhead. We organized our overnight gear and we hit the trail at 10:00am. The Taylor Creek trail is on an old mining road bed, so the 9km (600m elevation gain) was mostly ride-able with full loaded bikes. We had positioned ourselves to visit the South Chilcotin during warmer weather; it had snowed down to about 1800m a week earlier. However on that day, it was warm and most of the snow had melted. We passed some snow in the shade before we reached the Taylor Meadows where we set up camp. We both had brought extra sleeping bags, but we needn't have as the overnight temperature was around 5C that night.

After lunch, we jumped into the South Chilcotins routine of pushing our bikes up passes and riding down as much as we could. After Eldorado Pass, the trail overlooks beautiful meadows. We saw some older grizzly bear diggings, some fresh prints but didn't see any bears. Windy Pass is a bit of a grunt to 2200m. Once we reached the highest point and snow, Steve wisely stopped and I pressed on for a view to the west. For some reason, I dragged my bike across snow patches, so that I could drag it right back across the very same snow patches.

The ride/push back over Eldorado Pass back to camp was easier as the west side of Eldorado is less steep and we could ride more. After dinner, I took a stroll up to the base of Camel Pass. With nightfall approaching, I beat a retreat back to camp where Steve had a small fire going. We encountered no one else that day.

We started the day with mostly hiking our bikes up Camel Pass. There were a few snow patches at the pass area. We rode down to Pearson Meadows and then hiked our bikes up Pearson Pass. It looked like BC Parks has put in a new trail up the pass, but we still found it too steep to ride up. However, from the Pearson Pass west, the trail was mostly "flowy" and quite a nice ride down into the meadows that we had seen yesterday. Thereafter, we climbed up to Eldorado Pass and back down to our camp. It was early afternoon. We had another day's worth of food, but decided it was time to pack up and leave; we rode out along Taylor Creek back to the vehicles. We had run into a handful of day hikers/riders earlier that day and then on the way out a group of motorbike riders (outside of the Provincial Park boundary). I have now ridden the Chilcotins twice and Steve thrice. We have more or less reached the conclusion that it is sort of a fad (too much hike-a-bike). I'd rather hike the Chilcotins that ride them.

We camped at the BC Hydro campground at Gun Creek. We were the only campers there on a Saturday night. In the early part of the night, the winds kicked up and my tent poles were fully flexed so I moved the tent behind the shelter of Steve's truck.

The weather forecast was for rain later in the day, so we planned to head for the dry country south of Cache Creek. We had a small rain shower to start the day, and we figured that we should clear out of the Carpenter Lake area pronto. We had some driving to do but it allowed us time to fit in a ride along the way. We drove straight to Lillooet and then onto the Texas Creek Road. We parked the cars at the end of the bitumen and jumped onto our bikes and rode gravel through mixed ranching country. After 4 or 5km, we came onto the canyon opening of Texas Creek. There was sign warning of the road closure to motorized traffic.

We headed up Texas Creek FSR, promising not to do much hike-a-bike. After under 3 km's we reached and passed by a closed gate. The mountain walls and forest did not allow for huge views but it looked interesting as we rode close to Texas Creek. We reached the junction of Molybdenite Creek FSR that shot up steeply. Molybdenite has jeep and ATV following; it goes up steeply to 2100m. We pressed on along Texas Creek a little further. There was a nice campsite, that would make a fine base for riding up the various valleys. We screamed back down Texas Creek and back to the vehicles. It was short ride of just over 30 km with 1,000m of ascent.

We returned back to Lillooet where Steve purchased a bear spray at the sports store (his had shaken lose in the Chilcotins). Then, it was out for Chinese food. Alas, the May Wong Restaurant was closed late afternoon. The small town of Lillooet boasts two Chinese restaurants, so we went over to the Totem Chinese Restaurant. We were greeted by the colourful and charismatic proprietor and sat down in better decor than that of the May Wong. However the food did not measure up; it was mediocre Canadian-Chinese food that took about an hour to get over on our drive to Cache Creek. Life is too short for bad Chinese food. We passed through historic Ashcroft and then over to Barnes Lake to camp at the Barnes Lake rec site. The signs indicated that it was closed due to extreme fire danger (earlier in the summer). We found spots behind bushes that protected us from the wind. We had some light rain that evening but nothing of significance.

We packed up again. We had hoped to camp in one place for two nights at least once, but never did. Steve had read that the Kirkland Ranch Road along the east side of the Thompson River was good gravel riding, so we drove down the hill to an overlook just above the tiny settlement of Basque and got ready to ride.

The Kirkland Ranch Road was fine riding. It follows the Thompson, two train lines and the Trans Canada highway across the river. We did an out and back ride to Kumcheen for a 60km ride with 600+metres of elevation gain. We rode through Pukaist, an abandoned First Nations village. We also encountered a working grader and that was it for traffic.

We opted for the comforts of urban life and camped in the Ashcroft municipal campground that night. It was our only paid camping ($20 for the site, including hot showers and wifi). The trains were noisy through the night.

We knew that there was rain all around us and scoured the maps for a ride of interest within the dry zone. We selected Blue Earth Lake Provincial Park as a destination. It was a good choice. We parked the vehicles at a parking area alongside the Trans Canada highway and rode up Venables Valley Road and then Blue Earth Lake FSR up to the lake and slightly beyond. It was 50+km with 1200m of ascent from grassland to the lake return. It was nice descent and we routed through Venables Valley. It turns out that the valley is largely owned by a Krishna group and we stuck to the public (gravel) road, avoiding the private, no trespassing roads.

On the way down, we spotted a couple of nice possible campsites. We drove back up South Venables Valley Road and made camp at a Thompson River overlook.

It was time to return home for me. Steve had a couple of days before his scheduled rendez-vous with Ben to do some riding north of Kamloops. I was on the Trans Canada Highway by 7:20am and the traffic was light until reaching Hope. By Chilliwack, the highway was busy and wet. I hit a tailback at the 2nd Narrows Bridge of Vancouver but still reached Horseshoe Bay in 4 hours. I had a reservation, so I was able to get on the early afternoon ferry sailing and was home for dinner that night.

It was a good trip and the gravel bikes were a nice way to see that part of the province.