September 18th, 2018
Today was a driving day as we left early in the morning to make our way back towards Williams Lake. I got up early to see if the four bears were around and sadly they were not. I had a shower and shave this morning and once I got back to the tent, and started cooking, we were informed that the four bears were out and gone. They had come out while I was in the shower. Damn.
We left Bella Coola and our first stop was at an old house that was marked as a Moss-covered roof where a movie actor, played The Incredible Hulk, had been.
We made our way up a side road near Atnarko, but it was extremely rough and only made it in about 3km, which took over an hour.
We stopped by the river and saw a lot of bear signs along with a variety of salmon in the river including Koho Salmon.
We were hoping to camp in on this road, but no one is permitted to camp along the road until the lake, which was 11.5km back. The reason for not permitting camping along the road was due to the amount of grizzlies along the road.
We climbed ‘The Hill’ looking for the plaque where the dozers met when they formed this road. We also looked for the sign that read ‘Freedom Road’, but again somehow missed it.
We aimed for Lake Chilco and drove for about another hour on the Route 20 to the turn off, but found out this road was closed. We then drove about 5km to Bull Canyon Campground and found the gate locked … closed for the season … oh well, off to another spot wherever that may be. LOL
Along the highway, we spotted an old cemetery which was quite unique in that almost every grave had its own fence.
Driving on, I spotted a huge black bear. It was quite entertaining to watch it go under the barbed-wire fence and then started to roll over a culvert pipe to scratch its back. Too funny!
Made our way to a recreation site by a pond near this location, and there were only two campsites there … we got the second one thank goodness. :)
