July 19 - 23, 2018: Revelstoke, British Columbia (BC)
We arrived in Revelstoke, BC and boondocked at Blanket Creek Provincial Campground. The campground was about 30 minutes from the town of Revelstoke. The Provincial Campgrounds are very similar to the State campgrounds in the US. They have flush toilets, showers (this one was a no pay), and dish washing stations. There is also an RV dump that cost $5.00 Canadian or $3.90 US. There is free drinking water and we were able to fill the trailer before we left on our next leg. Some of the sites are reserved and others are first come first serve. We did the latter. As we also found out with all of the campgrounds/Provincial Parks across Canada, when you pay for your camping fee, you also pay $8.00 to have a fire (some places charge automatically, others to do not). At first we thought this was bad, however, it is actually really cool. They provide all of the firewood for that cost. So...you pay the $8.00 and can burn as much wood as you want. What a great idea!
Originally, we were going to stay in Revelstoke for 2 days. However, after arriving and discovering all of the cool things to do...we stayed for 4 days. We have started going to the Visitor Center as soon as we arrive in a town because they have great maps, a list of what is happening, and we get recommendations for 'where and what the locals like to do'.
While in Blanket Creek Provincial Park, we rode bicycle multiple times around the Campground which was on Arrow Lake and had a man made swimming pool. The nature trail around the campground was really cool because it is an old growth forest and more like a rain forest. The beginning of trail was nice and mellow and then quickly changed into VERY gnarly tree roots across the trail. The picture below does not do justice to the roots in the trail, while Craig was able to ride his bicycle over the roots, I opted to walk my bicycle about 1/2 of the way to prevent doing something stupid and hurting myself : )
One of the days we bicycled from our campsite to Mt. Macpherson to ride some trails. This area is a Nordic ski area during the winter months and mountain biking during the summer months. Total mileage on this ride was 29 miles round trip. 10 miles from our campground riding on highway 23N to the trailhead, 8 miles of trail, and then 11 miles back on highway 23N to our campground. Even though we have the electric bicycles, there is a lot of up and down hills so we were peddling A LOT. Thank God we have electric bicycles! This was a great ride and although long and tricky in some of the spots, it was fun and good mountain biking experience for us.
A cabin back on the nordic trails to stop and take a break and get warm
An example of how Canada manages some of their forests. No wonder they are so healthy!
Another day, we rode our bicycles from camp to Sutherland Falls, which was only about 1.5 miles from our campsite. What a gorgeous place!
During the summer months, the town of Revelstoke has music every night (similiar to Alive After Five in Boise). We partook of this one evening which was fun. We also found a great coffee shop called The Modern Bakeshop & Cafe. And one night had dinner at Nico's Pizzeria where we tried our first Poutine, YUMMY!
And of course, we could not leave Revelstoke without taking a hike in the Mount Revelstoke National Park! We did about an hour hike on Inspiration Woods. This whole area is the only inland rainforest in the world, so we wanted to see what it was like.
Interestingly, there were 3 black bears in the Blanket Creek campground area, but we did not see one of them. This is HUGE bear country. The day we drove into Revelstoke National Park, we could only drive half way up the mountain because they were collaring a Grizzly (capture, collar, and release).
We had thought about golfing at the Revelstoke Golf Course, but decided that we could practice at courses sometimes vs. playing. So, we hit a bucket of balls and did a little competition practicing our putting.
How we spend our evenings
Mt. Begbie - gorgeous!
Hitting a bucket of balls at Revelstoke Golf Course