In April 2012 my brother and I went to visit relatives in BC, the first time I had been to that area. Smithers and Houston lie on the plateau between the Rocky Mountain and Coast Mountain Ranges.
Flying from Vancouver to Prince George Provided many views of the mountain tops from the plane.
After the 3 hour drive from Prince George we arrived at my relatives. They have a small lake and mountain behind their house, and my brother and I climbed it several times to see what we could find. There were lots of moose tracks!
Smithers has a set of mountains immediately behind it as well, with a ski hill.
The top of the skiing area goes above the tree line, but that is for very experienced skiers and snowboarders. This is Crater Lake pictured here.
The next evening we went for a drive to spot Moose as they came out to feed. We did end up spotting several (I decided to not include the pictures however, as they were poor quality-I still had my little Olympus camera at this point). The sunset against the mountains was breath taking.
2 days later we went for a hike up into the mountains. We were headed up to the Silver King Basin, up in the Babine Range. The snow was still think on the ground and we couldn't drive to the actual trail head, so this added a couple extra kilometers to the hike.
Despite being a vigorous hike, it offered many spectacular views.
Once we reached the actual basin we needed to be relatively quiet, as avalanches are a possibility.
We started our hike at 7 am and reached our destination at around 3 pm. A hike of only 13 kms, but up hill the whole way and through sometimes fairly deep snow, and with roughly 50 lb packs on our backs. In the dead quiet we could often hear Mountain Goats butting heads and calling.
A view of the other side of the basin. The trees are small because it is so high up, and it can get fairly cold.
We stayed in Joe L'Orsa cabin overnight, and headed out first thing in the morning after a light breakfast. The trip downhill only took 3 hours! When we got home it was nice to sit in the hot tub and relax our sore muscles. Despite being very strenuous, definitely something I would do again.
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