Stoked for Revelstoke

Following a stop in at the Brewpub in Salmon Arm, as mentioned in my last post, we made our way to Revelstoke. We were headed East on Highway 1 when Justin asked me to Google that "mountain coaster thing". Turns out that's at Revelstoke, and I had completely forgotten! As a skier, I was excited to see Revelstoke, despite the lack of snow. Thankfully it was a beautiful sunny day, since we quickly found out we would be in for quite the wait (2 hours) to get on the coaster.

We purchased tickets and toured the "village" - It was quaint to put it simply- I was expecting a little more since I'd heard of Revelstoke as this great ski resort. The town itself seemed cute and worth exploring; however, we basically skipped right through it to head straight for the mountain.

After walking around the base of the mountain for maybe an hour or so, which included picking up some souvenir stickers, we decided to head up the gondola and take a look around the top of the coaster. There is a chalet at the top, but it unfortunately was not open. This was rather disappointing- if you're going to operate a summer attraction and invite people up your mountain, and expect them to wait hours, having somewhere for them to have a drink or snack would be an excellent idea!


It's a good thing the view was beautiful... because our wait turned out to be closer to 3 hours! This is definitely the day we got the most sun, despite those threatening clouds!

To be clear, this isn't actually the top of the mountain. This is where the gondola stops and the coaster starts, there's another higher section that would be open for skiing in the winter. So we walked around, sat on the deck of the closed chalet, and sat around some more. We watched people start the course and laughed at those that gav'er and those that held back. We found out it had rained the last day or so, which is most likely why it was ever busier than normal (the track is closed when raining). 

Waiting and waiting...

I admittedly may not have waited 3 hours for this, but in the end it was pretty fun. 

They ask that you don't take videos or pictures while on the track, so of course Justin did anyway. 

                                         

 I did enjoy the coaster, but the whole way down I kept thinking I'd rather ski down this hill!

Following our long afternoon on the mountain, we headed towards Glacier National Park. Because we had spent so much time at Revelstoke we didn't have much time to explore this park. We did stop at the abandoned Glacier Park Lodge near Rogers Pass. Shortly after our return, I read a very interesting story about what happened to this lodge and why it's abandoned... it's too bad as it seems like it was a great community resource. 

Imagine a beer or coffee here

Not really knowing where we were going to stay, and starting to get hungry, we carried on looking for a place to stop. This would turn into another longer-ish day of driving. The road through here is spectacular- with twists and curves that once again left us missing our small compact cars. We settled on a beautiful road-side stop to setup and make dinner. 

There was unfortunately no overnight camping here so we continued to drive as it got darker... We ended up at Hoodoo Creek Campground inside Yoho National Park. It was a simple campground (i.e. no showers or water), but had a neat view surrounded by mountains. 

Arrival at Sunset

Enjoying a beer after a long day

We took our beers and walked around the loop of the campground. We talked with a few people- two European guys who were there for hiking and climbing, and a man on a solo motorcycle ride for a few days. We then headed to another group's campsite- they were a super nice mom, daughter, and friend camping with their dogs. We enjoyed some home-baked goods and chatted. Turns out the daughter is also a teacher... Kindergarten- bless her, that is not the age group for me! They recommended a bakery to visit in Lake Louise for when we got there. Remembering we had a long day, we turned in for the night. 

We enjoyed our quiet night on this small campground, which was a great prelude to the much busier Banff and Lake Louise we would reach the next day. More on that next time!

J & S