Revelstoke Boosts the Critter Count

More from the summer, the weather for Simon and Tess's visit improved dramatically towards the middle of their stay and we had blue skies and 30C...so we decided that after a few good meals that more hiking was in order so took the guys off to Revelstoke which is about a 3 hours drive north east of us.

Revelstoke is on the main highway towards Alberta and Calgary and this was pretty much the last good weather hiking weekend of the summer and we were expecting the road to be busy....but we are in Canada, in the Okanagan and they just don't do busy, well by UK standards, so we had traffic like the middle of Lyndhurst at 3am....i.e. none...!

So cracking drive through the Spallumcheen valley, past Armstrong (more on this town when the CD arrives from the UK!) and through Sicamous which is the House Boat Captial (with capital letters) of the Shuswap before turning east to the Columbia Mountains and Revelstoke.

The aim was to arrive early evening, hike to the mountain lakes the following day and see how the legs were for the day after.

We booked a great little cabin about 20mins outside Revelstoke, however picturesque as it was their website did neglect to mention than Canadian National Railway ran alongside the opposite shore of lake and the freight trains were no respecter of a) weekends and b) litttle numbers followed by the letters AM!









And these trains were long - 50 freight trucks minimum!

Smarticus, you would have LOVED it!

The next day we heading up to Revelstoke National Park - very sensibly there is a road to the top on Revelstoke Mountain and from there you can hike to Eva Lake which was the aim for the day. Apparently, and this is according to the guidebook, you can hike to the top of Revelstoke Mountain instead of driving but its not worth it as it is mostly in the trees and you get no views whatsoever...honest!

We had seen Eva Lake on a documentary months ago and it looked amazing and it was on our Top 10 list to do so it was great to do it with friends - although normally there are 6 of us on these hikes, but the Smarts were not with us - however due to a flash of inspiration by Miss T we did manage to evoke their participation through the medium of sugar coated chocolate and extra vowels.... I present The Smarties...

The hike was about 5 hours in total and was an amazing mixture of Alpine meadows, rock scrambles, trails and waterfalls.

The start of the hike was slightly marred by my over eagerness to read absolutely every notice and information guide as one pointed out in rather big letters than there are over 18,000 grizzly bears in BC at the last estimate and that over 6,000 lived in Revelstoke National Park. Note: BC is FOUR times the size of the UK.... Revelstoke National Park?...ummm not so big....likelihood of meeting a grizzly: HIGH..... likelihood of wanting to meet a grizzly: LOW (unless you are Mr R!).

At this point we started moving all the tuna and sweetcorn sandwiches into Mr R's backpack!

Level of luck on this visit: extremely High - no grizzlies encountered! yay! Especially as a bear bell would be more like an invitation to lunch than a deterrant! What we did spot was a sunbathing marmot on the way back from Eva Lake.

Eva Lake was amazing, it sits right on the edge of the mountain, kind of like Mother Nature's own infinity pool, and looks incredibly inviting after a long hike, however it is FREEZING, and we didn't have our swimming togs (pity!).

You can also hike onto Jade Lake however this involves and almost vertical climb of 700 metres, then the same downhill and then you have to repeat to get out...so we decided to skip that one! And good job we did to as it gave us the time to go to Miller Lake which for some really bizarre reason is overlooked by all the guidebooks however we all thought that it was more beautiful than Eva!

We rounded the day off with amazing BBQ back at the cabin, expertly cooked by the chaps and very Canadian with wieners and salmon!