Visitors to Vancouver often assume that the Rocky Mountains should be right on their hotel doorstep. In fact, they’re about 500 miles away.
Between the Coast of British Columbia and the Rockies lie three mountain ranges and an intermontane plateau that includes the region known as the Cariboo. Mountains generally make for great motorcycling roads, and British Columbia, Canada’s most mountainous province, is no exception. The flip side is that mountains make their own weather too!
Fortunately, the sky is blue when I head out of Vancouver. The Fraser River’s fertile delta spreads across a 50-mile gap in the Coast Mountains behind me. I’m heading east along the Fraser Valley on BC’s Highway 7. The Fraser River is named for Northwest Company explorer Simon Fraser, who traced its course to the Pacific Ocean in 1808. The mountains squeeze closer together on either side as I roll past flat fields of grain and berry bushes. To the south, 11,000ft Mt. Baker’s snowy peak gleams in the sunlight. I’ve rarely seen it free of clouds, so that’s a good sign for the weather to come.
At the eastern end of the Fraser Valley is the aptly named town
