Infiltration

on august 29, i spent 15 hours in a car with my mother driving from Chilliwack BC to Calgary AB. rather then take the prefered 10 - 12 hour Coquihalla/TransCanada route, my mom decided to take the more nostalgic Crowsnest Highway. In my opinion a wise decision.

to better understand the layout a map/bio's on the towns are availible here:
http://www.crowsnest-highway.ca/map.htm

The first strech in between Hope and Princeton, the weather was way to foggy to see anything. my mom was wanting to turn off at the Hope-Princeton Slide, but we couldn't see 2 feet in front of us. we didn't stop, we pressed on and stopped in Princeton, BC. (a small mining and forestry based town. population maybe 2500 or less.) not much UE opps in Princeton..

Next stop along the way was the town of Hedley, BC. a small almost ghostly community with an abandoned mine just feet away from a residential area. They used to do public tours of the mines, but not anymore. my mom and i ignored the "tresspassing is strictly forbidden" sign and walked upto the base to get some pics. i wanted to hike up the hill and find the entrance to the mine, but we were pressed for time. i am making a conscience effort to organize a UE trip to the mines.

after Hedley is a town called Keremeos. awesome name, almost sounds greek but it is native. not much in Keremeos though. just a fruit stand. theres an abandoned fruit stand across the street from the new one. guess they moved, cause it had the same name. didn't explore it

upon leaving Keremeos, we encountered the Subaru Canada Iron Man competition Biking leg. that meant a slow crawl up hill, turning a 30 minute drive to Oosoyoos (pronounced Oh-soy-yous) into a 2 hour long ordeal.

O-town is a BOOMING resort town, so no UE ventures/leads opened up. so after stopping for food at the local subway, we headed out of town.

in one of the small towns (i believe Greenwood) there was an abandoned smelter plant. i didn't get upto the base of it, but i do have photographic proof. and outside of the town a few km is a still standning, abandoned tunnel. it was built in 1913, and it is a small section. local hoodlums (and i would assume some tourists) have turned it into a Tag Gallery.

since time was pressed and it was getting darker, there were not many more stops made along the road. there were some "unused" cabin's that made up a former motel along the road near (or in) Yahk, BC.

of course, once one crosses into Alberta, you enter the crowsnest pass. UEA (urban exploration alberta) has explored most of the abandoned mines and tipples in the area. there is little left untouched by them. It was around 10:30 pm when we stopped to fuel up in Coleman. It was too dark to really see anything. (if you are interested, i believe some info/pics is availible at: uea.ca)

we arrived in Calgary at aproximately 12:30am (local Alberta time). having left Chilliwack at 8:30am (local BC time) the entire trip took 15 hours. Totally worth it for the Explorer in need of hitting the open road.

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