Saturday, May 17th, 2025 dawned as another day of mixed sun and cloud. Today is our son’s 25th birthday and hopefully, he isn’t too busy at his job as we are only half way through our getaway.

Today, we are heading south to check out Little Hell’s Gate on the North Thompson River. It is about a third of the way to Kamloops from the cabin. We’ve been to Hell’s Gate on the Fraser River a few times, but this is our first time exploring this area.

After about an hour and a half, we reached the goat path road down to the falls. A couple were leaving as we got there so we had the viewing platform all to ourselves.

While it’s not as impressive as the big Hell’s Gate, but it had a nice roar to the falls. It wasn’t loud enough to drown out the train that was heading up the valley though.

As we were leaving, we met a nice young couple from Germany who are exploring Canada in a van for 6 months. They’ve already visited quite a few countries in their young lives and were excited to spend so much time in Canada.

We headed back north to Blue River to grab lunch at Grizzly Food Shack. I’d seen it rated well in reviews and the menu looked good so we decided to check it out.

Wasp saved us a table while we waited for your food. Lunch was pretty tasty and I would go back again if I’m ever in the area.

We started heading back towards the cabin looking for photo opportunities along the way.

It wasn’t very far to River Safari and Lynda really wanted to check it out. It looked like an interesting excursion, I wasn’t willing to pony up the money they wanted for the tours. I told Lynda to save her pennies and bring me another time.

We continued up the highway towards Thunder River as the map showed a train bridge that is supposedly photogenic. The road on the map to it didn’t exist so we turned into Blue River Black Spruce Provincial Park.

The road that climbed the mountain from there looked interesting, but it was closed so we continued up the highway some more.

The little bridge on the road to Bone Creek Wilderness Retreat looked interesting so we drove down the road.

The view from the bridge was the best one along that road.

We continued up the highway and stopped in Valemount so I could take a photo of the Fire Station. I really liked the mural on the building and wanted to get a shot of it.

I had one more stop planned before we went to the cabin for the night. The Tete Jaune Spawning Grounds Recreation Site was just a minute or so from the cabin so we went to check it out.

We were getting hungry so we headed back to the cabin to buy some firewood so we could cook our flatbread pizzas we had brought. Lynda built the fire and looked after the cooking. I was okay with that as it gave me time to sit on the porch and relax. Holidays can be rough. Lol

The pizza was good, not pizza in Nice good, but it was a lot cozier then Nice.

After our meal and cleanup, I had time to look for some photo to take.

It was starting to get dark so we decided to head inside for a nice cup of tea before bed. Tomorrow we’ll head into Jasper.