 Location: The Cayoosh Range is located northeast of Pemberton, British Columbia, about two hours drive north of the resort of Whistler. The range lies north of the Duffey Lake road, connecting Pemberton with Lillooet.
Terrain: This range is located in the transition zone between the wet west coast and the dry interior plateau, the weather being drier than the mountain ranges to the west and south. Most of the mountains are fairly gentle making the range ideally suited to back-country skiing and scrambling. A series of long, glaciated hanging valleys can be found throughout the region. Once one makes the ascent through the obligatory headwall, more gentle terrain can be found in the subalpine. The rock is primarily granitic in the south and mostly metamorphic in the north of the area.
History: The Northern Cayoosh Range was traditionally used by the First Nations People of the Anderson Lake Band. The deep gentle valleys penetrating the area from the D'Arcy area provided easy access into rich alpine terrain. The Lost Valley was traditionally used as an area for young men to test themselves, as it could only be accessed via the alpine and was rich in food. The Barkley Valley was explored for minerals in the 1950's and 1960's. It is a uniquely beautiful and rich area, with some of the most verdant alpine meadows in southwestern BC, and abundant rodent and ungulate populations. In the 1970's a group of people attempted to create an alpine settlement in the Barkley Valley, but a particularly heavy snow year led to isolation, starvation, and an eventual rescue. Early season hikers will still find evidence of their attempts to bring agriculture into the area, and a number of ruined buildings can be found next to the rescue cabin that was recently built at the confluence of Crystal and Elliott Creeks. The southern Cayoosh Range was not widely explored in modern times until the 1970's, when logging roads from Mt. Currie and Lillooet were pushed into the Upper Cayoosh area.
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