venturing4th: Williams Lake to Cache Creek

We spent today's drive traveling through towns that are known by number - 150 Mile House; 100 Mile House; 70 Mile House - these are the actual name of the towns. We aren't completely sure where "0" is, Wikipedia says that 100 Mile House is 100 miles up the Old Cariboo Road from Lillooet, which we will be driving through tomorrow.

100 Mile House is the service center for the South Cariboo, has two lumber mills and is the "hand-crafted log home capital of North America", with an extensive log home industry. We learned a little bit more about all the logging we see evidence of, e.g. the logging trucks, from our neighbor in last night's campground. He said an infestation of mountain pine beetle in BC's Interior has impacted forests and the timber industry in the Province. Mountain pine beetles prefer mature (80 years old or more) lodgepole pine trees. Lodgepole pine forest accounts for 25 percent of the Province's forestland (forestland covers two-thirds of the Province).

The mountain pine beetle epidemic is attributed to a number of factors, including more mature lodgepole pine, successful fire fighting, recent mild winters that have lowered normal mortality rates for beetle larvae, and trees weakened by recent drought stress. Current management emphasizes quickly removing dead trees and harvesting still salvageable timber.

A triple!

Lac La Hache

Mountains are beginning to reappear.

Lillooet Range

Logs going in...

forest product coming out.

This evening we are in Cache Creek, B.C., called the Arizona of Canada. Cache Creek's climate is characterized as semi-arid, with hot, dry summers and cold, dry winters. Area soils are dry but fertile. Residents claim that with irrigation nearly anything can be grown here.