On a hot summer day I drove up the Coquihalla Highway and turned at the Inks Lake Interchange.    I turned right onto the dirt road and parked at an open area on the right.    I have hiked the trails, tracks, and routes of the Outer Inks Trails many times.    There is a maze of tracks, mostly used by dirt bikes and ATVs in the summer, mostly through douglas fir forest, but there are a few glades, some marshes and ponds, and some smaller lakes.   Cattle graze in the area in late spring and early summer.    It can be busier on weekends, but by September the trails are quiet on weekdays.     By late fall, the area is even quieter.     The trails all connect to other trails, all the way up to the slopes of Chuwhels Mountain.    There are some signs but it is hard to navigate using them.     Many GPS maps have all these trails and with it hikers can make their own routes.

On this day I hiked a known route, a combination of single tracks and double tracks bearing south.    A Greater Kamloops Motorcycle Association trail sign calls this route the Outer Inks to Connolly Lake route.

With the heat of the day I was trying to limit the length of the hike, so I turned west and took a track that went past Dam Lake, a reservoir pond in the hills.

I went up the east side of Alkali Creek Gorge (dry at this time of year) and came down the west side, looping back on other tracks.

The forest was very dry and the whole hike was hot, even in the shade.    I will be back to hike another route in the area at the end of fall.