Weeks 5-6 : Whistler and Eastern B.C.

Charlie joined us for a week in Whistler.  It's a fantastic place to ski, very reminiscent of an Alps resort, with great restaurants and bars all contained within a walking village.  We'd never been here in the summer, but it was just as enjoyable as winter.   We spent an excellent week biking, hiking, eating and watching the Tour de France (on my laptop in the Airbnb).  (If you're viewing this in an email, click here for a better viewing experience.)

Nice trails in Squamish, just south of Whistler

Very scary (note my "brave face") suspension bridge over a raging river

Dennis and Charlie spent a fun few days at the downhill park.  So many winter ski resorts are now offering downhill activities for mountain bikers.

I prefer to avoid things like this (at all costs), so the dogs and I had a few days of running and hiking along beautiful mountain streams.   There were so many trails that it was easy to avoid the hordes of tourists that follow the more traditional routes.  This seems to be a lesson we're learning again and again on this trip - any time we try to go to a popular site, such as a national park, we're met with tour buses, congestion, frustration, unavailability.  It's made us rethink our priorities.  Yes, we want to see Glacier National Park, but would we be just as happy sitting by a secluded mountain stream, with perhaps just a peek of the peaks?  For now, yes.

WEEK SIX -Eastern British Columbia

We spend a fair amount of our time honing our stick throwing techniques.

We left Charlie on a bus headed towards Seattle, and continued our journey north.  We kept commenting that, while the rest of the country was seeing shorter days after June 21st, our days were still getting longer.  We rarely saw stars in the sky, since it stayed light in the sky beyond our bedtime.

We spent 4 hours riding over very rough, steep (and scary) "roads" to get to our next destination in the Chilcotin National Forest.  It's funny what Canada considers a highway - it may or may not be paved, sometimes it's a combination of both.  Usually it's a dirt road, and you consider yourself lucky if it's been graded lately.  And yet, it is a designated national highway on the maps.

Dennis flew by float plane to access the pristine trails
of the Chilcotin National Forest

Yup, pretty pristine

The dogs and I did a long run/hike along the Gun
River trail in Chilcotin.  They were smart enough not
to try to swim here, although they were tempted when a
deer they were chasing bounded across the river.

We camped in the sweetest spot here in Chilcotin.  There was a 5 star resort - in the middle of, truly, nowhere (how does it stay in business??), that also had a huge grassy area with private beach set aside for campers.  We were the only ones there and had use of all the resort facilities.  The discriminating factor was that it cost $50, which apparently is an insulting amount for campers to pay.  Sign us up - it was the best of both worlds!!

We'd heard good things about Kamloops, but when we got there all we saw was a windy, hot desert.  So different from what we'd been seeing!  We get enough of that at home, so we jumped back into the van and drove an hour further down the road.  Dennis found a private campground - Tim's Riverside Campground.  Basically a guy (named Tim) owns a piece of property with some river frontage, and he's carved it into about 30 sites.  Fortunately only 3 were occupied, and we had a very nice, shady spot along the river.

Okay, so not the most romantic fireplace, but give
Tim credit for clever portability.  In case you can't see,
it's a washing machine drum on a lawn mower base.

This is the outhouse from Tim's campground, which just begs commentary.  It was gaily festooned with every version of the noun painted on its side.  "Loo!  WC!  Privy! Longdrop!"  Inside was even more noteworthy.  First, I've never seen a two-seater before.  Who wants to be together so much that they're willing to sit side by side inside?   And is that book by Elizabeth Warren a political commentary by someone?  Or do they really enjoy the experience that much that they'll do some highbrow reading while inside?  And does it really improve the smell if you have SIX deodorant dispensers?  However, it was one of the nicer ones I've experienced.

We departed Tim's on our way to Kelowna, which is BC's wine growing region.  If you didn't know BC had a wine growing region, you aren't alone.  We didn't either.  But we sure drank a lot of it while there - and it's delicious!  They don't produce enough to export, but there are hundreds of wineries in the region.  Usually the bottle prices on small lots in the US are double the average, but we found most were priced at about $20 Canadian ($15 US).  Which is another reason why we drank a lot of it.

Sometimes dogs are welcome inside the winery, sometimes not.
But they did provide a nice bucket of water and some shade.

We camped at Frog Falls in Revelstoke - the
last of the good Canadian camping spots.

The final BC bike ride, in aptly named Golden

As we neared the popular tourist destinations of Glacier and Banff, the crowds became denser and the camping spots more crowded and unacceptable.  We actually paid for entry into Glacier park, got stuck in traffic, and immediately turned around and left.  For us, the magic of camping is being in remote places of beauty, surrounded by nature - not jet skis, large families and RVs.  Out of desperation, we almost camped on the side of a side road, only to be enveloped by a cloud of mosquitoes so dense you inhaled them.  We ended up in a crappy motel off the mountain about 9pm, only to find that the time had changed on us so we missed dinner (restaurants close at 10).

The next day, after another nice ride, we were also unable to find a campsite.  We decided to hightail it back to the good old deserted U.S.  The border crossing was the nicest experience compared to the San Ysidro crossing.  Just a car or two with super friendly, folksy customs people.  They even gave us a tip on a nearby campsite - after taking our citrus, tomatoes, green onions and 2 perfectly ripe avocados.  Fortunately they didn't care about the case of wine.