New bumper Sticker reads: ‘Il drove off the Coquihalla’ MERRITT — The finest highway yet built in B.C. is the Coquihalla, which is why it can be signed for 110 kph and driven far faster if Her Majesty’s radar isn’t around. But it is still just a super-highway for four, five or six lanes as the situation requires and you go from Hope to Merritt far too fast to get much appreciation of the country. Appreciation of the country comes in the small, slow, dirt roads where you can hear birds sing. There are a dozen exits between Hope and Merritt and another three between Merritt and Kamloops, none adequately map- ped. The Coquihalla opened five years ago but our government hasn’t yet found funds to redraw its maps. They apparently need the money for jet fuel. This leaves it to us, the travel- lers, to pick our own way through the side roads. Half a dozen trips into the Interior have made a par- tial list possible. Kawkawa Lake turnoff circles back into Hope but don’t bother. Leave your car off the highway and walk to one of the most spec- tacular sights of the entire region, the Othello-Quintette tunnels, through which the Kettle Valley trains once ran. They crisscross the foaming, raging river in a rocky gorge of quite exceptional beauty and you may rest or picnic on benches and tables provided beside the mist flung up by the white waters. Next, eas ward, is Snowqua turnoff, It takes you to a logging road, closed to travel most work- ing days. This runs up a narrow Paul St. Pierre PAULITICS & PERSPECTIVES ed ‘*People Using This Are Tres- passing and Do So At Their Own Risk.”” Somewhere in here the little side roads once met and drivers who dislike tolls more than broken shocks detoured through it, the rascals. The link has been bulldozed shut. You must not cheat on highway tolls, for the same reason you must not lie or steal — the government hates competition. Mine Creek Road and Larsen 64 When the Coquihalla was driven through the mountains it smashed across @ score, maybe more of little roads and left them scattered. 99 valley and ends in a clearcut. Carolin Mines turnoff is also closed to public travel. For the next 10 or more kilometres, where the freeway has not yet departed from the Co- quihalla to make its way up the Boston Bar creek, it is possible to sidle off into gravel parking lots from which you can drive stret- ches of the original Coquihalia Road, crossing little Bailey bridges and, if you care, stopping to pic- nic or fish. The game regulations permit you to keep fish between 12 and 19 centimetres. The others have to be returned to the water. Shylock turnoff is an old logg- ing road which soon ends at a broken bridge. The Zopkics View Point is worth a stop but the Por- tia turnoff isn’t, that is unless some of the extremely narrow, rough and rocky trails lead to some Eden. Somewhere not far from Portia a little stream gushes out of a keyhole-shaped hole in the rock face. It was a prominent marker on the little old criginal Co- quihalla Road but one would be hard put to find it today. Falls Lake is a winner. [tis a walk-in place and well worth it. However, when checked out on the July 1 weekend, there was still so much snow on the road that the car couldn’t be driven as far as the parking lot. Not worth that much. Toll booths come next and then Coquihalla Lake mrnoff which leads to a rest area, a private fish- ing lodge beside the two little lakes and to a logging road mark- Hili turnoffs will carry you along the banks of the Clearwater River on the original road. There are places to camp and places to pic- nic and places to watch the river and think a spell. There is also a mystery, a gov- ernment road sign which points, unclearly, to Fig Lake. The lady at the toll booth had never heard of Fig Lake. Neither had the peo- ple at the Tourist Information Centre at Merritt, nor had the sporting goods store whom they checked with. Only the Forestry Office in Merritt said yes, there was a Fig Lake and true enough, there it is on their maps. But even Forestry cannot say if a road to it still ex- ists. When the Coquihalla was driv- en through the mountains it smashed across a score, maybe more of little roads and left them scattered. Some end at a barricade beside the freeway. Some wander off into the hills and are lost. Some have washed out. There are two more turnoffs before Merritt. Kingsvale turnoff will lead into a vast network of country roads and small and large lakes. Within this you can drive above timberline, drive to Princeton, to Aspen Grove, or, should you choose, to Montreal or Cairo. And finally, Comstock turnoff leads into lovely poplar grove and lake country where roads are un- signed and birds sing. So do not drive the Coquihalla. Drive off the Coquihalla. OS HAD ENOUGH? 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