Day trip to the town of Hope

This morning David went to the driving range to hit a bucket of balls while I lazed around the motorhome. The forecast for today is a high of 33C. It's going to be a hot day again. When David got back, we decided to take a drive to the town of Hope. It's only about a one hour drive up the Trans-Canada highway, north east of Chilliwack. The little town is surrounded by the Fraser and Coquihalla Rivers and by the North Cascades and Coast Mountains. There are a lot of trails around Hope and we wanted to check out the tunnels on the Kettle Valley Railway trail located in the Coquihalla Canyon Provincial Park. "The trail passes through mature coastal forest to a spectacular granite canyon and the Othello-Quintette Tunnels. These tunnels are an engineering marvel, built between 1911 and 1916 as part of the historic Kettle Valley Railway." We had lunch in town then drove to the trail head parking lot.

This is the Coquihalla River running through the canyon.

You can see the light at the end of the tunnel (LOL); this is the first and longest of the four tunnels. There may be five tunnels but we only saw four. If there is a fifth one, it was not in line with the first four and didn't go any further although the trail continued on. It gets pitch black as you walk towards the other end so you can't see your footing. It's a good idea to have a flashlight.

As you come out of the first tunnel, you can see the next two tunnels.

The river runs swiftly through the canyon. This was taken between tunnels one and two.

The trees and rocks on the trail are all covered in thick moss.

Later we walked around the main streets of Hope. There are a lot of wooden carvings all around the town. These were done with chainsaws and Sept 4-7 will be the Second Annual World Class Chainsaw Carving Competition. Carvers from around the world come to participate. David and I are hoping to go back and watch some of the carving.

Here's a Totem Pole with a backdrop of the mountains and rivers behind.

We were told that this one of a wolf with cubs won first prize last year.

This one commemorates 'Chip', an RCMP K-9 that died in the line of duty.

This is my favourite one and won second prize last year. This is the front.

This is the back (end)... ;-0 It's really cute!

This is the town's park with a gazebo. What is so beautiful about British Columbia, after the mountains, are the very tall trees like these ones in the park.

While eating an ice cream cone, we walked around town a bit then drove back home.