Day 24, Monday BC Day, August 1st. Roberts Lake to Hwy 99 Salmon viewing campsite.

I wake to see it has rained sum, it was a good thing I packed everything in to car before going to sleep. I made my way to Horsefly to find I made it right move staying at Roberts Lake as Horsefly is another dying mining town hoping for new life as a lake vacation hotspot.

I turn around and head for the main road at 150 Mile House and breakfast at  Red Rock Grill, extremely bad service, waited 10 minutes to be seated with 2 staff at the bar waving at me yah yah I’ll be right there.  Bacon and 2 eggs sunny side up please; I get sunny side down.   

About 40km south of 150 Mile House the road opens up to a large bowl shaped valley dry, rocky and hilly on one side and lush green meadow on the other. It would seem that one side hay is grown and the other side cattle eat what they can and wait for food to arrive. 

I turn off at 100 Mile House towards Mahood Falls, looks like 52km side trip turns out to be 108km. The pavement ends in 52km and from there its gravel.  At the end of the paved road is a sign for Howard Lake conservation rest area and park, in need to a pit toilet right away I head up the hill.  This turns out to be a narrow winding steep rough gravel road that seems to be endless. 20km later and asking direction to the pit toilet, things are good once again.  Getting back to the gravel road, I meet up with a few other tourists trying to figure out which road to take. BC seems to spend a lot of money on tourist centers but not enough money on direction signs.

Mahood falls, really nice 3km hike along the ridge edge, with a strong hemlock forest smell.  The first fall is completely blocked by 2 well placed hemlock trees; the other falls are worth the hike, complete with a rainbow at the base.  No pot of gold to be found, just a large individual fishing

Heading back to hwy 97 I back tract north to 108 Mile House Ranch, a parks Canada site, turns out to be another trading post. Travel in Canada you get trading posts, Turkey is Roman ruins, Egypt is ruined temples and Israel its churches. 

I drive up to Loon Lake road, thinking it’s another hwy 99, which it is for the first 30kms.  You seem to drive right into the mountain and for added drama cows on the road.  The drive flattens out as your approach Loon Lake a high end vacation hotspot, with no camping around.  

I have good cell phone coverage here and decide I need to book Vancouver Hotel 2 nights, best deal again is Hotwire at $175 total at Four Points Sheridan Surrey.  I did check Expedia, hotels and booked and those other sites had the same hotel for $149 per night and Hotel.com said it was $149 down for $200, Hotwire was $71.66 per night plus taxes totaling $174.96 for both nights, Vancouver starting Wednesday.

I pull onto hwy 99, its getting dark and this not the road to drive at night. Within 2km there is a roundabout for Salmon viewing spot, nobody there but on old campfire spot, I pull in for the night. 624km today.