"Strange Landscapes" a One Hundred Mile House Travel Page by Darby2

Most of the Cariboo Plateau was created by massive volcanic eruptions eons ago which left a harsh landscape of basalt lava flows. Here and there, pockets of soil eventually filled the hollows and made a nursery for vegetation to take hold. Still, the minerals in the lava create a wierd and forbidding landscape of rocky outctoppings, alkali sloughs and rolling karst like topography.

Avocet shorebirds in one of the alkaline sloughs.

A closeup of the colourful lichens covering rocks in this area. It can take hundreds or even thousands of years to grow like this.

Some of the rocky lava landscape takes on a dazzle of colour whith the bright orange lichens that coat the rocks.

The area still abounds with wildlife, as evidence of these bear tracks indicate. Both black and grizzlies inhabit this area. If you look carefully, there appears to be a cub track in the upper right corner

Dogtooth Violets

About 10,000 years ago when the massive ice sheets covered this area, meltwaters carved their way through the lava to create the Painted Chasm. It's more than 400 feet deep and stretches for several miles. The once massive meltwater rivers are nearly gone...only a small stream wide enough to step across now flows over the brink of the Chasm.

A side road off the Highway 97 north of Clinton will take you to the overlook of this spectacular canyon.