Destination: Kelowna, B.C, Canada
From: Seattle
Date: September 28-29, 2002

I departed Seattle at 8:30AM, heading towards the North Cascades National Park. Along the way, I stopped to fill up gas at the Costco in Burlington and picked up a cup of coffee at the local Starbucks and a sandwich at a Subway. Next stop at the Marblemount ranger station to get latest information about the road conditions leading up to Hart's pass. The weather is turning out to be very good with sunny skies and scattered puffy white clouds.

Around 12:30PM, on US 20, I passed the Easy pass and Rainy pass trailheads. 0.5 mi before the Blue lake trailhead near MP 161, I saw the most incredible view of fall colors on Whistler mountain (not to be confused with a similarly named mountain north of Vancouver, BC). Conveniently there is a rather large pullout beside the road. I was at this very same spot in spring and remember seeing lush greenry, large patches of melting snow and hikers walking past them. Today most of the underbrush has turned yellow, maroon and rust color. Evergreens dominate the foreground but now the sky is covered with large banks of clouds. I wait for a brief clearing to expose a blue sky and after 10 minutes, the clouds relented.

2:28PM - Turned off at mazama store towards harts pass which is 19.5 miles away. Pavement ends about 7 mi from mazama store, then becomes a single lane road. On this Harts pass road, for the first 2 miles, washboarding effect is really bad. It gets better after the turnoff near campground but the road narrows and since visibility is poor around bends, one has to be very careful. The last few miles of the road is fairly smooth. I was able to clock 20-25mph but then the road again becomes rocky. At this point, you can see larches on the mountain across the valley on the left side of the road. At hart's pass, I saw 10 hikers/backpackers next to the ranger station, perhaps taking a short break from their hike on the nearby pacific crest trail. You can see larches near the ranger station, looking towards the pacific crest trail and the meadow campground. There is a unisex primitive restroom at hart's pass.

I took some time to photograph close-up of larch needles. Sun backlit the foliage from my vantage point and I made an image of an evergreen right beside a larch. While shooting the picture, there was a breeze and I caught a whiff of an animal. When I looked around, I didn't see anything but I could still smell the odor of an animal. So I wound up and headed back to my van. Slate's peak is another 3 miles and visible from near the ranger station. Quite a few larches were seen near the top of slate's peak.

4:24PM - Leaving hart's pass. Stopped along the way to photograph the Handcock ridge. Puffy white clouds in the sky added a nice touch.

4:48PM - Heading down, the sun is still up and the sky is partly cloudy. Sun is still way up the Chancellor mountain, the one on which I saw a lot of larches. I dont see any larches below hart's pass. Saw quite a few sumacs and aspen, perhaps even hawthorne.

5:42PM - Just crossed the unpaved section. It took an hour to get to the top of hart's pass and only 50 minutes to come down. Fortunately on both directions, I didn't encounter traffic in the opposite direction in the 1/2 mile section along the cliff. There are pullouts but one wrong move and you are history.

In the 14mi section of the highway between Mazama and Winthrop, I saw 5 dead deer by the roadside. This is a deer migration season and that probably explains the high fatality rate. You can tell it is off season by the lack of crowds in downtown Winthrop. Between Winthrop and Okanagan, saw the most beautiful sky at sunset, looking eastwards, with shades of pink, lavendar and blue. Stayed in Okanagan for the night at the Ponderosa Inn.

Saturday morning - 7:30AM, heading north on US97. Okanagan/Omak area is sagebrush country. Proceeding north from Omak, one can see a mixture of short rocky hills, sagebrush landscape, scattered sections of pine trees and the number of orchards increasing as you head further north. 12 mi north of Tonasket, I hardly see anybody on the road. Sumacs beside the road have turned a maroon red, a nice contrast beside dried grass.

9AM - Past canadian border.

9:25AM - Oliver is a fairly big town. I encounter vegetable and fruit growers, particularly pumpkin patches, tomatoes, melons, vegetables and vineries. This area is very dry, unlike the stereotypical images of a Canadian landscape. 97 goes along the eastern shore of the Vaseux lake provincial park. Just before Penticton, there is a pullout overlooking the Okanogan lake. Crosswinds really strong coming through penticton, especially as you pass the airport. Penticton is a really big city and the speed limit goes up to 100 kmph once you cross this city. Now the highway winds along the western edge of Okanogan lake.

At Summerland, across from Sunoka lake, I turned off towards the experimental ornamental gardens maintained by the Canadian Department of Agriculture. From there, drove a couple of kms up a hill to the garden. Flowers are slightly past prime. The patch of daylillies next to a picnic table under a tree will make for a great image at the peak of their bloom. I estimate the bloomtime to coincide with that in Seattle. Summer will be a great time to revisit this garden since many of the flowers are summer blooming perennials and annuals. Ever since passing Winthrop, I haven't seen fall colors.

Peachland is the next town, then Westbank which is fairly big and finally, Kelowna. I stopped at the visitor center, got a map of the city, particularly a walking map of the downtown area with fresh produce markets marked out in addition to major attractions. Visited the Kasugai japanese garden near the city center. Maples are still nice and green, obviously too early for fall colors. I walked around the downtown area, stopped at the visitor center and photographed the clock tower.

1:15PM - finished at the Japanese garden and started heading back towards Seattle. Took 97 south, passed Westbank and took highway 97C towards Meritt/Kamloops. This part of the road is really scenic. Fall colors on both sides, quite a few deciduous trees among evergreens, especially in the clearcut areas. The road heads up through a pass near Pennask summit. Finally, highway 5 heading south towards Hope and then Trans Canada Hwy 1 West.

4:50PM - At the Sumas, USA border.

5:10PM - US9 towards Bellingham. Took Hwy 539 and detoured towards Lynden. Heading south on 539, you can see Mt.Shuksan on the left side of the road. Just past the turn off towards Nooksack, the view of Mt.Shuksan is incredible.