On Our Way - BC/Alberta

Day 1
We got away almost on time at 9:00am Monday morning. Overcast and about 15 C when we pulled away. We stopped to fill up in Abbotsford, sun is burning off the clouds so we turn on the AC. Uh oh, no cold blast of air. It was working fine when Pete drove it up to have the brakes on the trailer checked a couple of weeks ago. This could be a long, sweaty trip until we can get some time to have the van’s air conditioner serviced. We stop for lunch at the Coquihalla rest stop ( I wonder how many times we`ve stopped here?).

 Change into shorts as the temperature is continuing to climb. At the second gas stop in Merritt we open the side windows  Through the sage brush country of Kamloops and the mercury is now about 30C, decide to push pass Dave’s place in Sorrento at 3:00pm and get further on, thinking about spending the night at Martha Creek Provincial Park outside of Revelstoke.

At about 4:15 we see the sign for Yard Creek Regional District Park and decide to check it out for tonight’s stop. This was originally a provincial park campsite just a kilometre or so off HWY 1 that was closed in 2003 and then reopened as a Columbia Shushwap regional park. 65 sites, well treed, only about 3 occupied when we pull in. Decide it’s basic, but fine for an overnight sleep close to the Hwy but no significant highway noise. Then we discover it is mosquito territory! They even have Mosquito bombs set up amongst the campsites. A failed attempt at putting up the netted picnic shelter and we decide to retreat to the trailer, turn on the little oscillating fan, make dinner, walk the dog (quickly to avoid as many mosquitoes as possible) and call it a night.

Day 2 dawned sunny but the mosquitoes were not sleeping late so we pushed away from Yard Creek heading east before 8:00am. As we approached Revelstoke, the Rockies rose up before us. Just another reminder of why this province is so amazingly beautiful. From the vistas over Shushwap Lake yesterday to the majesty of these mountains today we are given frequent reminders of why we live in BC.

Lunch was a quick roadside break at Yoho National Park. Clouds started to become more prominent as we moved through Banff National Park but the temperature remained in the high 20’s. Having visited Banff several times before we didn’t linger on this part of the drive and started looking for campsites in the Bow Valley around 1:30pm PDT or 2:30pm MDT. We rejected a couple of smaller provincial campgrounds (sites too small or mosquitoes too plentiful) and ended up getting a site in the Bow Valley Campground. It had been 19 years since Brendan and I had camped there on our way to pick up Pete and Graham after the Scouts Canada Canadian Jamboree.  After swapping for a better site in the trees close to the river,

 we settled in, walked the dog and made dinner to the sound of distant thunder. Through dinner, the thunder, now accompanied by lightening became less distant and we had just finished dessert when hail the size of dog food pellets started to rain down.  The storm was short-lived but the after dinner dog walk was shortened when showers returned.

Day 3 arrived with the clouds starting to lift

and we got back on the road before nine. Today would be a short drive (well short by my standards, I’m not sure if Pete who is doing the driving feels the same way) and after braving the traffic of Hwy 1 through Calgary it was on to the straight prairie highway surrounded by lush green and yellow fields of hay and canola almost all the way to Brooks, AB. From here we headed up the back roads and arrived at Dinosaur Provincial Park about 1:00pm.  

What different landscape! The hoodoos and the badlands seem like they have been plunked into the surrounding verdant ranching landscape. Despite the 30+ C temperatures we enjoyed visiting the viewpoint and hiking the badlands trail before viewing the Royal Tyrrell Museum Field Station.

 Campsites here are OK, if a little crowded. I do find Alberta Parks description of their parks as having flush toilets and showers a bit misleading when that means that all the toilets in the campground proper are vault pit toilets and the only flush toilets and showers (just a couple for very large campsites like here  and at Bow Valley and paid tokens required) are in a building near the entrance. But as Pete says, it’s just for one night and we are fully contained, not like the old days in the tent trailer. Turns out the mosquitoes were as bad here as at the previous stops. Pete suggests I change the name of this blog to Travels with Mosquitoes!