Cache Creek, Chasm & Canyon

Hi Blog!

Today is Friday, May 6, 2016. We decided to take our coffee walk down to Cache Creek and treat ourselves to breakfast out. As we left the campground and headed down hill into town, we passed the Cache Creek Cemetery. It sits high on a bluff overlooking the town.  Here you see town in the distance below an old cemetery in the foreground:

Cache Creek is a historic transportation junction. It is located on the Trans-Canada Highway at a junction with Highway 97. The same intersection (and the town that grew around it) was at the point on the Cariboo Wagon Road where a branch road led east to Savona's Ferry on Kamloops Lake. The name Cache Creek is derived from a cache (buried and hidden) supply and trade goods depot used by the fur traders of either the Hudson's Bay Company or its rival the North West Company. This happy miner greeted us as we entered town.

After a hearty miners breakfast at Chum's, we walked over to the Jade Store. As much as Kathy wanted to take this little beauty back to the RV, Dave objected and thus this photo was all Kathy got to keep.

On the way back to camp, we stopped at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Shrine. This Catholic Church is also a retreat house. The church itself is rather small, but it completely opens up to an outdoor seating area so when the weather gets hot, folks can sit outside in the shade. Kathy is taking a moment to admire the brilliant stone work of the shrine.

To get back to camp, we followed the old Stage Road which was the branch road going east to Savona's Ferry on Kamloops Lake. If we just kept walking for a day or so, we'd end up back in Kamloops! If you look real hard, you can almost see the old stage coach heading east.

There are a couple Canadian Provincial Parks nearby, so we decided to pay them a visit.  First stop was Chasm Provincial Park located near the town of Clinton. The park was originally created in 1940 to preserve and promote a feature known as the Painted Chasm, or simply The Chasm, a gorge created from melting glacial waters eroding a lava plateau over a 10 million year span. It was impossible to get the whole chasm in a single photo.

The walls of the Chasm contain tones of red, brown yellow, and purple and are an average of almost 1,000 feet in height. The Chasm is approximately 2,000 feet wide and 5 miles long. We walked along the rim stopping at various lookout points to take in the view.

The once might Chasm Creek which helped form The Chasm, is just a small babbling brook. From the point where the stream tumbles over the cliff side, we can peer down the entire valley.

Our final stop today, was Marble Canyon Provincial Park nestled in the rugged Pavilion Mountain Range. Here is our first look at the limestone cliffs towering over the park.

This canyon was once part of a Pacific island chain, another section of which lies in the northwest corner of the province. The limestone was under so much stress from its journey from the Pacific Ocean that it began to change and marble.

After rooting around the base of the cliff for a few souvenirs, we walked back over to the campground and started exploring the two small lakes. Here is a look at Turquoise Lake.

We walked around the far side of the lake to get a better look at the Marble cliffs.

We thought we had the whole lake to ourselves until we ran into this couple.

Right next to Turquoise Lake is Crown Lake. Again we walked around the far side to get a better view. We had to be careful where we walked, as free-roaming horses are allowed to graze in the valley. There was a little too much wind coming up the valley to get a good reflection in the water.

There is so much to see and do in this area, we feel we have only just scratched the surface. We have a couple more days and will try to get out and explore some more. Stay tuned.