Revelstoke (how cool a name is that?) is a tourism town in British Columbia, Canada, where people come to ski, mountain bike, hike, fish, rock climb: you name it. It reminds me a bit of Red Lodge in Montana: a gateway to grand national parks in BC.
From the vibe I got at the only laundromat in town today, the tourists right now are mostly Europeans in their rented vans, chatting (and blocking the aisle!) about their summer tours of Canada. How gauche. I blog about mine. 🙂
We pulled off in the town on our way to the campground to have lunch and a beer, and our wait staff person was wearing a tank top. I was almost appalled, it had been so long since I’ve seen bare skin. She said it had been hot hot hot there until the day we arrived. I do believe we carry a weather curse with us.
Blanket Creek
We’re here for only one full day, as a break between destinations Tracy’s planned.
Turns out this park is its own lovely destination. It runs right alongside the Columbia River, which we thought briefly might run into the Kootenai, which helps create the Koocanusa: the body of water that we loved boondocking by on the border of Canada and Montana last summer (oh how I remember it being so warm when I swam in the water!).
In any case, the Columbia is actually to the west of all that, and it’s just as gorgeous as the Koocanusa. For our maybe three hours of non rain here, we set ourselves up by the river and stared out at the clouds passing among the snow-capped peaks of the Canadian Rockies (I think thats what they’re called here).
Snow-capped mountains really do surround us: I took these two shots from the same spot.
There are tons of hiking trails in the lush woods here, plus people are kayaking and paddle boarding on the wide, calm river.
Oddly, a really strong waterfall is within a mile walk of the campsite. Sutherland Falls.
Here are some shots of Banjo along the nature walk, from the campground to a creek over to an old homestead.
If we come this way again, we now have an idea of how many national parks and provincial parks and rivers and waterfalls and glaciers are right here. And maybe we’ll come when it’s freaking warm and not raining. In the meantime, off to an even colder place.
Ukulele Segment
In light of how my soundtrack album wet awry (again kudos to Finn for the fine production; the awry was mine), I’m going to restart the uke segment here when I have an appropriate song I can video at the blog post’s location. So it’s more to show you where I am (and to practice the difficult task of playing a newly learning song for an audience, of sorts).
Here goes a sea shanty played on a cold rainy day by the Columbia River. It’s called Jack-a-Roe.
Skip ahead if you’d like; there’s a good view of the mountains behind the river behind me.
