Coquihalla Highway

Certainly a change today as more cloud cover shifted in.

This is for Marty as he was driving along the Coquihalla.

Stratus layer moved ahead of the frontal band across our region.

We didn't see much moisture, but I just want to highlight this, this gravity waves or Stratus undulatus.

We road tripped up to Kelowna.

And, uh, there was snow on the Coquihalla.

Can you believe that? Just at, like, the very tippy top of the s- where the toll booths are, and then through the summit.

Not a ton, but, um, it was...

It was kind of...

No, seriously.

Now's the time of year where snow on the Coquihalla is fun.

Yeah.

April 8, 2006.

A group of day hikers are walking a trail near the Caroline Mines exit off the Coquihalla Highway, about 19 kilometers north of Hope.

If you have ever driven the Coquihalla Highway between Hope and Merritt, you've driven right past this spot.

There's a pullout, a foot trail that winds down through the bush toward the Coquihalla River, and the remains of an old cabin.

Hikers and hunters use this spot.

You mentioned BC.

There are maximum speeds on the Coquihalla Highway at 120 kilometers an hour.

Alberta, there are two, uh, pardon me, there's a highway, uh, Highway 2 that, uh, the h- the limit is 120 kilometers an hour.

Generally, it's 100 to 110.

But right now, my kinda focus on the film is if we've got a timber harvesting land base, we should at least manage that one if we're not gonna do anything with the other two-thirds.

And if you're in Kelowna right now, and you're driving to the Coquihalla, and you drive down to Vancouver, you'll see all these fading trees.

That's spruce budworm and Douglas-fir tussock moth.

It's killing the trees.

And then just for everyday people in B.C., This fire, it's already closed Highway 1.

It's now 10 kilometers from the Coquihalla Highway, which is one of Canada's busiest arteries just for people passing through there every single day.

But also a huge amount of goods goes through that corridor.

If the fire gets to that place, it shuts down a huge amount of Canadian trade, business, everything.

firefighting effort is successful.

So what we saw above Maca Creek was an example of a successful firefighting effort.

It was work that was being done to stop this fire that, if it had been let to go unimpeded, probably would have headed towards Holmes, headed towards Coquihalla Highway, closed down that highway, closed down trade across much of BC.

Forced residents from their homes, put people on edge in Merritt.

I was driving up, driving up to Kelowna to speak to the BC Road Builders.

I'm on a s- on the Coquihalla, just l- just had left, um, um, uh, Hope, and there's somebody in, heading in my direction, but on the side of the highway [laughs] on an e-scooter.

And I just said, "This is..." Without a helmet, by the way, as well.

Yeah.