Friday, August 4, 2017

Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park and Thacker Regional Park, Thursday, August 3, 2017

As reported here, this part of British Columbia continues to bake in record breaking temperatures:


"B.C. is baking under an intense heat wave that is breaking maximum temperature records in communities all over the province, said a preliminary weather summary from Environment Canada on Wednesday night.  A ridge of high pressure has created a heat wave over B.C.’s southern half, resulting in “several days of broken maximum temperature records,” the agency said."

In Hope on Wednesday and Thursday it hit 99 F.

As reported in another paper, the smoke from forest fires has made a mess of air quality:

"Yesterday, conditions were extremely smoky across the Lower Mainland, with the air quality index rising to 10 in the Central Fraser Valley, indicating a high health risk."

So we decided we needed to go somewhere else.



We headed north to Alexandra Bridge Provincial Park and learned about the ways, means and routes of crossing the Fraser River in the past - compared to today's bridge on the Trans Canada Highway (which they were working on as we drove to Alexandra Bridge).



We started down a nice trail in the woods, with evidence of recent tree damage, presumably from the storms a couple of weeks ago that we went through in Revelstoke.




The trail led to the old 1926 road that went to the bridge.  On the road, we came across this restriction on fishing and later saw where they could do net fishing below the old bridge.




And we finally came to the old bridge.


From the bridge, we had great views of the Fraser River.


The metal deck allowed you to see through the bridge to what is below.




I believe the ropes are related to fishing with nets when the salmon are running.


After our hike, we headed back south and stopped at the Somewhere Else Cafe and Store for a cold drink.


Back in Hope, we went to the Thacker Regional Park to hike along the Thacker Marsh.  Part of the trail includes information explaining what they have done to bring back and protect different flora and fauna.








I was reminded of the comment often heard in politics about draining the swamp - and remember thinking as a young man how swamps should be drained so the land could be reclaimed and either built upon or farmed.  But as this park shows, swamps should not be drained - they serve many very useful functions.  This is something many of our politicians should learn.


We had another picnic lunch at the park near our hotel.  Afterwards, because of the heat and smoke, we decided to just relax back at our hotel.

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