Conconully, north to the border

July-August, 2024

This morning, in the Conconully campground, I unbolted and removed the one seriously damaged running board from the truck, the one that was almost ripped off during my ATV-road “adventure”. And then I crawled under the truck and checked everything underneath the truck, from the front tie rods to the rear differential, and everything in between, no leaks, no damage, all was ok. Today, I wanted a very peaceful adventure.

So with that in mind, later this morning, I drove the big white truck downhill from Conconully on the paved road to the town of Omak, and then I headed north … to the Canadian border. 🙂 I took some back roads (all of them were two-lane and paved), sometimes along the east side of the Okanogan River, sometimes along the west side, but I stayed off the main highway (97) as much as possible. I wanted a slow, quiet day.

Omak isn’t far from the border with Canada, so it was a really nice, comfortable drive. No heart-stopping, breath-taking drop-offs on this drive! There’s a dam on the Okanogan River, just south of Oroville, that creates a huge lake in the USA and in Canada. Remember that the Okanogan River starts up in Canada, as do MANY rivers here in Washington State, so the river flows south, from Canada and then into the USA. We owe much of our beautiful waterways to their sources up in Canada, including the huge Columbia River … it too starts in Canada. Oh Canada!

Ok, let’s get on with this day’s drive. Let’s go! 🙂 Here’s the map.

This morning I left Conconully, drove down to Omak, then drove north towards Canada. I kept on back roads as much as possible, but even the main road, Highway 97, wasn’t that busy and it had gorgeous views.

Just north of North Omak is the town of Riverside. You’ll see in the map/image above that I pulled off of 97 there and headed north along the edge of the river. On my paper maps, and on Google maps, that road leads into some mountains, then continues north and leads back to Highway 97 near the town of Janis. [Ok, some of you will notice that my RED line does not get all the way up to Janis … stay tuned.]

As I entered Riverside, I found the sign below.

The first mile or two on that side road took me up a hill where I had a perfect view of the Okanogan River.

I’m still many miles south of the dam at Oroville, so this is pretty much what the river would have looked like before the dam was built.

Below … the green valley of the Okanogan River and its farmlands … and dry hills above.

Just a couple of miles further, those soft rolling hills changed to some mighty rugged country off to the east.

I kept driving, marveling at the terrain. BUT, when I got to the turn-off that led back to Highway 97, it was closed, blocked, no go! So, what did I do, I kept going. Let’s see what’s ahead! The road turned east into the very northern part of Washington. On the map above, the RED line takes a hard right and heads towards the town of Synarep. I continued a few miles eastbound, then decided to turn around since it would have taken me two or three days to get all the way through those mountains and back to my campsite. This is remote country!

On my way south, back to Riverside, on that RED road, I took this video below of an especially beautiful part of the drive. The road was tight in between solid rock walls, with a stream/creek on the right side of the road, and gorgeous trees all around. It was spectacular.

Finally back at Riverside, I jumped onto Highway 97 and headed north until I could turn off at Janis and follow a back road the rest of the way up. When I passed this sign (below), I knew I was getting close to the border with Canada. The Canadian town of Osoyoos is about 2.5 miles north of the USA/Canada border.

And then I came to Boundary Point Road, below… and signs that said “NO-U-TURN” ahead. I didn’t want to cross the border, just see what there was to see up here. I had no intention of getting caught up in customs or border patrol, so I pulled off, took a few photos, and then headed over to the other side of the road to see what I could see.

I drove past a few farms that were in the USA and eventually found myself on a dirt road that ran right along the border! In the photo below, the customs building is the one in the distance with a very long grey roof. The dirt road that I was on is in the USA. The paved road to my left is in Canada. And a simple, wobbly, rickety barbed wire fence is all that separates the two countries.

The photo below is looking at fruit trees in Canada … you can see the border fence at the bottom of the photo.

I then drove back past some fruit orchards in the USA.

 

Above … purple pears. I never knew there was such a thing, but online research later in the evening proved it to be so!

Below … apples! Of course, the dust that accumulates on this fruit will be washed off before sale.

And then (below) I found a clear view of the border customs building. At this border crossing, there was only one building for both USA and Canada, whereas at all other border crossings that I’m familiar with, there are separate buildings for each country. On the right side of the photo below, you can see a little sneak view of the large lake that’s created by that dam on the Okanogan River a little south of here.

 

Here is a closer view of the lake (below). Before the dam was built, this would have been just a section of that small Okanogan River (those two photos up near the beginning of this blog post), but now it’s the very large Osoyoos Lake, enjoyed by people in the USA and in Canada.

And then it was time to head back south, back towards Omak and then up the road to Conconully.

But shortly south of Oroville, I saw this sign (below) posted by the side of the road. I sure had to stop and check that out! For one thing, the image of the animal that made up the sign is NOT a buffalo … it’s a Bison. Buffalo are native to Africa, Asia, India, Australia, but not the USA. I was raised in the Philippines, and saw millions of buffalo over the six years I was there. They haul wagons, till soil for crops (mostly rice paddies), carry people from place to place, etc. The animals here in the USA are Bison. So, this sign caught my attention. 🙂 Partly because I thought it would be cool to see some Bison. And it was!

There weren’t many Bison here. I have no idea why they were here.

It was the middle of very warm day, so it seemed that it was nap time.

On down the road I went. Around several more corners, I came upon this group of horses in the photo below. The waterway in the photo below is part of the Okanogan River, just a small off-shoot of the river. We’re now a few miles south of the dam so the river can be itself now.

Ah, but two of those horses (I think they were young ones) had the same idea that those Bison had … nap time! While I stood and watched, those two sleeping horses twitched their ears and moved their legs. They were perfectly ok, just taking a little siesta.

I then headed down the road to Omak, then up to Conconully, and back to Towhee the Trailer, where I had a little late lunch and then I too had a little nap. Life is super good. 🙂