Black bear just inside Tweedsmuir park.

Pat spotted this one! She's gotten a real eagle eye now.





Arriving at the park on the east side- Tweedsmuir lodge in on the west side of the park.

Our last day on the road started with picking up a few supplies in Williams lake for Carol, filling up with Gas and me having my last Tim Hortons coffee. Carol warned me again to competely fill up the tank and fill up again in Anahim, the last town (I use this term loosley) before "The Hill".


We can't believe we are almost there. The remaining distance to cover is about 450km. The drive started us climbing steeply up to a plateau where we could see our mountain destination in the distance. The road was fairly good for a couple of hours but kept narrowing until Anahim.


Their was very little on this road aside from incredible scencery and wildflowers, the roadside is covered in dogroses, lupin, Indian paintbrush and what looked like aspen's . In fact there was so little in the way of civilization that the unbelievable happened, Pat "went picking blackberries" (i'm not allowed to say pee-lol).


We did come across a shop on the way that sold just about everything you could want in the middle of nowhere, hunting and fishing liscenses, wine and liquor, knives, camping supplies and car parts. We just bought wine and popsicles.


We arrived in Anahim and filled up the rest of the tank as directed by Carol and got back on the highway which was now a packed dirt road. We knew the hill was coming up as there were signs posted for about 40 minutes preceding it, warning about steep grades up to 18%, new snow tires or chaines had to be on all vehicles in poor weather, Use lowest gear..etc.. At the top of the start of the hill I did feel a bit nervous but put on a brave face because Dilly was a little white in the backseat. The Hill surpased what we expected. Most of it was between 8% to 15% grade with small streches of steeper road in between. To add to the challenge it became a single lane for most of the journey down but there were some pull outs were we could allow ascending cars to pass but thankfully there was little traffic anyways. One side was rock face and the other was a sheer cliff with no barrier. We did stop halfway down to allow the brakes to cool as even in first gear we had to use the brakes a good portion of the way down as well. Carol says the road has actually improved since she first started using it!

View on "the hill"

All the bottom of the Hill, Dilly told me she now had split the world into two sets of people-those who have done the hill and those have not.

15 minutes later we arrived at Tweedsmuir lodge, where Carol treated our "hill shock" with a fantastic Salmon dinner and drinks before sending us off to bed in our own lovely cabin. Carol had told us so many bear stories before bed though we were a little nervous walking back to the cabin but did arrive in one piece. Pat insisted on a flashlight even though the way was well lit. Perhaps she was going to throw it at a bear if it came across us-I'm not too sure. The cabin is fantastic, it's first class, nothing like what we have become accostomed to on this trip.

Lounge at the lodge.

View from our cabin

We actually haven't made it into Bella coola yet-it's about a 40 minute drive down to the town. I don't think anyone wants to get in the car today so we might do it tomorrow. Dilly's refused and is propped us with a cup of tea admiring the view off of our front porch but I just might get Pat to go on a walk in the woods with me today-We'll take Carols rottwieler with us just in case!


Indian Paintbrush