Day 40! - Hells Gate

Hope – Hells Gate, 171 miles total and 26.7 mpg. Totals for the trip, 6960 miles, 27.9* mpg. Those are the stats.

Hope is not lost, and it’s not going to Hells Gate. But we are, so after a light breakfast – muffin and mocha – at, you guessed it, the Blue Moose – we’re off to see Hells Gate before the predicted rain starts. It’s a little overcast, but nice. We stopped at just about every possible spot on the way to and from Hells Gate – but I gotta tell ya, this was a short trip! We hiked, we dillyed, we dallied. It was a fun trip, and we saw some interesting things.


Hells Gate is a small but interesting place. Here the Fraser river is pinched down to a fairly narrow point, and the considerable amount of water flowing through here makes it not whitewater, but very powerful. It was hell for the early explorers, and it’s still hell today, by all accounts. When the railroad was built, there was an accidental rockslide that made the channel even more narrow. This made it very tough on the Salmon, so eventually they built a Fish Run along the side, so the Salmon could get upstream. It is basically a large concrete structure/pipe with restricted water flow that the fish can swim through with little difficulty.


The highway and parking area are high above the water. There is a Tram down to the other side of the river, and/or, if you’re interested, you can hike down a fairly steep road/trail to the bridge that crosses the river there. We hiked down, naturally, and planned to take the Tram back up. Once you’re down there, there are a number of touristy things to do, such as pan for gold (not in the river, which is still a couple of hundred feet below), buy stuff and such. (S-H Nothing of interest to buy) We got a Salmon Chowder and just gazed at the river and the surroundings. Trains do come by, on both sides of the river. It’s pretty nice, all in all. After a while Sally-Heath decided to hike back up the trail. It was too steep for me, so I kept the boys and bought a one way ticket up. We met at the trailhead about 30 minutes later. She had a good hike, and I saw the river and canyon from the Tram, which was interesting.

We headed back to Hope, and made a couple of stops along the way. One was for a short hike to an old bridge across the river. That was a nice easy hike, and when we got to the bridge we discovered that the boys could not go onto it – the steel lattice roadbed holes were too big – there legs would fit through, and we’d have 8 broken legs in zero time if they got onto that bridge. So we tied them up and went out ourselves. It was interesting. We hiked back and continued down the road to the Country Store, where we had ice cream and sort of shopped.(S-H Nothing of interest to buy)


Back to Hope, and wouldn’t you know, a nap jumped up and grabbed us! Sometime during the nap the rain started. When we got up we continued the plan for the day with a drive (60km) down Route 3 to Manning Park Resort and points in between. This was really just an excuse to see more of the surrounding area – there really aren’t, as far as we can tell, any real ‘attractions’ in this area of Route 3. But the route itself was beautiful, trees and mountains, and the trip was nice. We found Hope Slide, not a kids ride, but a place where, on Jan 9, 1965, a big part of a mountain came down and killed 5 people, raising the local valley some 70 meters! On that same day I was discharged from the Navy. No relation, I’m sure.

Back in Hope we went to the restaurant next door for a drink and appetizers. Good thing. The Red Bistro has only been open for a week. We were chatting with one of the partners, and he asked where we were headed next. We said Squamish, and he replied there could be a problem. Seems there was just a major rockslide, and the road from Vancouver to Squamish, route 99, the ONLY road, was closed! Indefinitely! What luck to find that out now, instead of Saturday at the road closure itself! We’ve decided to Squamish anyway – we can take the long way from Hope – only about an hour longer, and maybe they’ll have it open before we leave Squamish. If not, we’ll have one long drive from Squamish to Vancouver! The appetizers and drinks were good, the information was excellent.

Back at the room, we ate last nights Chinese leftovers, and looked into alternatives to our Squamish plans. Left them as is, just rerouted. It’s not raining now, but rain is forecast for tonight and Friday. We’ll see how that goes. Later!