Lillooet is located in the Southern Interior. It is a town of around 2400 people and many more in surrounding settlements and reserves. It is warm and dry for a good portion of the year and temperatures often hit 40 degrees celsius in the summer. There are far less trees than I am used to and the mountains are much closer. The town slogan is "Lillooet- Guaranteed Rugged." I can get behind that!
It didn't take D and I long to settle in and quickly look for new places to explore. We gathered some info from the web and locals, which lead us to doing the trail up Red Rock. It is about a 3.5km trail (7k round trip) from the end of Victoria St in town that climbs about 500m in elevation. Parking is at the end of Victoria St at the dead end, and the "trail" or old skidder road starts from there. The route starts as a wide gravel road and then one has to branch right just before the water reservoir and continue up a smaller road. There are many smaller trails for dirt bikes and mountain bikes that run in all directions, but if you just keep on the road you can't go wrong. Hiking takes about 1-1.5 hours to the top and certainly gets your lungs going. The road spits you out just above Red Rock, but keeps heading up the mountain. A short walk to the left brings you out onto the rock, where there is a nice memorial in memory of a local that passed away. On the way down we usually take the small trail that heads off to the right (north) of the rock if you are facing out towards town. It is steep and slippery due to loose rock, but much faster if you are nimble on your feet. Round trip is about 2-2.5 hours hiking. I ran it in 1.5 hours round trip the other day from my house, which adds another 100m of elevation gain. |