108-Mile House is a community in BCs Cariboo district. It's one of a number of small towns along the Cariboo highway with rather uncreative names: 70-Mile House, 93-Mile House, 100-Mile House, 105-Mile House, and 108-Mile House, 111-Mile House, 114-Mile House ... each town named for its distance from the highway's original starting point near Kamloops.
We had first visited 108-Mile House back in February. On that visit the lake was frozen, the golf course was covered in snow, and the path down to the lake was treacherously ice-covered. Now, in the warm weather of May, we went back to see it again.
Due to some high mountains we didn't fly a direct route from Kamloops to 108-Mile House. Instead we followed the Thompson River west and then took the Clinton Valley North - making the transition from the interior dessert around Kamloops to the wet high-plains of the Cariboo district. The change in terrain is starkly obvious.
The South Cariboo
Once in the Cariboo, the landscape is peppered with colorful-water lakes. As Janine flew, following the power-lines towards 108-Mile, I looked out on all that still water below, and all I could think about was how nightmarish mosquito season must be in these parts.
108-Mile House has a wonderful airport with lots of free parking for the plane and the cutest pilot lounge you've ever seen. The 108-resort-golf-course is basically across the street and the 108-mile-lake is a 15-minute walk down from there - this time without any ice for me to kill myself on.
Despite the fact that I was carrying a backpack full of food for our picnic by the lake, I stopped and had a very tasty hotdog from the golf-course food truck. I have a weakness for hot dogs.
The 108-Mile lake is gorgeous! There were people canoeing along the still water, a beachside picnic table for our lunch, sunshine, and lots of beautiful trees. We had our lunch there before exploring the pathway north towards the 108 Heritage Resort. We ran out of time before getting too far down the path, but learned later than the path goes all the way around the lake - probably a 2-hour walk. We will have to come back one day and see about that ... after I look into the mosquito forecast a little more closely.
