Highway 20

There is a detour from Williams Lake to Highway 20 - a gravel road usually suitable for driving in summer - which leads through some charming countryside and for 480 km / 300 mi west through the sparsely inhabited Chilcotin or Fraser Plateau with its huge ranches, an area which is reasonably dry because it lies in the rain shadow of the glaciated coastal mountain range. The route then continues via the coastal range of mountains to Bella Coola, the only port on the Pacific coast between Prince Rupert and Lake Powell which has a road-link.

Highway 20 - only the first 113 km / 70 mi as far as Alexis Creek and the last 60 km / 37 mi or so in the Bella Coola Valley are made-up - links the few remote settlements along the frontier with the still largely undeveloped wilderness and opens up some really unspoiled and original hunting and fishing grounds. Several ranches will take in paying guests for riding holidays. Alexis Creek, with a population of about 100, provides supplies and provisions to the 1000 or so people who live by the Chilcotin River.