This post is part of ‘The Big Loop’ series, which chronicles our summer road trip from Ontario out to the West Coast of Canada and back via the northern US states.

From the Rockies to the Pacific Coast

After a week in Alberta and the Rockies, it’s time to head back west to (eventually) drop Dene and Kerry in Vancouver. British Columbia is a beautiful part of the world and it’s hard to choose where to visit, but we’ve mapped out a route that gives us a couple of days in three different spots: the mountain town of Revelstoke in the Western foothills of the Rockies, the wine and fruit bowl of Penticton, and the world-famous Whistler Village.

Jasper to Revelstoke (via Banff, again…)

Today was always going to be a very long day. We’ve driven this stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway so many times over the past week, back and forth between Canmore and Banff, Canmore and Lake Louise, Canmore and Jasper and back to Banff… we’re sort of happy to be moving into uncharted territory. But a little sad too. The scenery and landscape has been unbelievable. But luckily, we’re not done yet as we have another week travelling through beautiful British Columbia.

 

 After leaving Jasper heavy early this morning and driving the 300km back along the spectacular Icefields Parkway, (unable to resist taking just a couple more photos of the mountain scenery), we stop back at Banff. once again. We drop our nephew, Lukas, off at the bus station so he can continue his holiday to New York City sans-oldies. Said oldies then turn around and head back past Lake Louise for one last time and turn west. Just inside the BC border we stop at the tiny town of Field which sits in the shadow of the mountains of Yoho National Park.

A hundred years ago wealthy train travellers would stop for lunch in Field so that the trains didn’t need to carry dining cars up the steep mountains of the Rockies. In that same spirit we stop for a delicious lunch at the ‘Truffle Pigs Cafe’. What we didn’t know was that downstairs they sell what we all decide is the best ice cream on the planet. Creamy deliciousness, helped by the fact we’re sitting in the warm sunshine surrounded by mountain peaks.

We wind our way through the Western side of the Rockies through ski towns and glaciers, catching glimpses of the railway line we’d taken the week before.

A quick stop at Rogers Pass in Glacier National Park where we find this great sculpture of trousers, which bring back some fond memories for Feathers.

They are in fact mountaineering pants (yep, that’s a thing). The ‘Breeches of Miss Conduct’ are here in recognition of the pioneering legend Georgia Englehard. Georgia was a serious mountaineer, summiting 24 peaks in the region in just three weeks of 1931, and she wasn’t about to let skirts slow her down. To the horror of her male counterparts she swapped long skirts for trousers to hit the trails in this birthplace of Canadian sport mountaineering. The local paper was clearly outraged:

“The young women who strut about the street and dine in the hotels dressed in riding togs should be soundly spanked and sent to bed… Pants are made for men and not for women. Women are made for men and not for pants…”

Summer in a Mountain Town

 

 After 600km of driving we finally pull into Revelstoke late in the day and collapse in a heap.

Revelstoke is best known for its winter sports, and of course the multiple Hallmark movies that have been filmed here (Welcome to Christmas, Marry Me At Christmas, Frozen In Love…). In the summer, it has that laid back feeling of a place lazing around enjoying some time off before that first snowfall. After the chilly conditions of Jasper, we’re pleasantly surprised by a return to summer conditions.

After a 10-hour driving day we’re very happy to find the Monashee Gin Distillery for a celebratory drink. We’re treated to their humorous cocktail descriptions and our first taste of Revelstoke friendliness in the form of Izzy. Québecois Izzy and her British partner have started a coffee roasting business in town and she’s more than happy to give us some suggestions of places to go in town.

The next day, Dene and Kerry challenge us to a tourist-a-thon. What can we each discover in this small town?

We have the benefit of the car and take a drive up Mt Revelstoke to check out Nel’s Knickers. We drive up the winding road into just the very edge of Mount Revelstoke National Park, another massive national park here in BC. It’s kinda funny how it feels like every five minutes you’re hitting another iconic national park out here on the West Coast. In Ontario there are something like 300 provincial parks, but only a handful of national parks, so it never seems worth it to buy a National Park pass for the year. But out here? You’re using that beaver pass all the time.

We find Nels Nelson Hill, the first permanent ski jump in Canada and – another set of trousers!? Kinda fun to stand up on the launch ramp looking down at certain death the ski jumps these crazy Canucks (actually mostly Norwegian) would go over in the early 1900’s.

We then find a golf course and enjoy a round of golf with the Rocky Mountains dwarfing us in the background.
Dene and Kerry have had a much more-action-packed day visiting various art galleries in town and catching the town’s shuttle bus up to the ski hill for a view over the valley.

 

 On our way out of town we stop in at a local cafe to get a taste of HOLM coffee, roasted by Izzy and her partner Simon right here in Revelstoke. We can’t help thinking that in another life we might just have found ourselves living here and loving it. In fact, we find out just a few days later that our friends Stuart and Claire have done exactly that. Nice work!

In the Rain Shadow: The heart of the Okanagan Valley

The Okanagan Valley in central BC has two aspects that people don’t usually associate with Canada: very high temperatures and wine.

As we continue to retrace our earlier train journey, we drive past Salmon Arm and hit the northern reaches of Okanagan Lake, an extremely long (135km), extremely skinny (less than 5km), and extremely deep (almost 300m in places) fjordal lake created by our old friends the glaciers. Again the Aussies in the group are stunned by all the water.

The Okanagan Valley starts here and extends all the way into Washington State below us, and is known for its sunny and dry climate. Fruit orchards and vineyards line the valley, and the temperature steadily climbs as we approach Kelowna, where we stop for a wood-fired pizza lunch in the garden and some wine tasting at Quail’s Gate winery.

After lunch we continue to follow the lakeshore for another hour or so until we reach the south end of the lake and the town of Penticton, our base for the next few days. With all this water and warmth it’s no wonder the indigenous people knew this as ‘a place to stay forever’. Penticton has a wonderful beach town feel to it, as well as loads of interesting little restaurants.

Oh, and wineries. Lots and lots of wineries. We do our best to explore as many as we can, but there are Just. So. Many!
The Okanagan is a very diverse wine region. We visit Roche Wines, where our extremely knowledgeable and even more enthusiastic fast-talking host Jordan tells us that the North is like Alsace, the South is like Italy and the area around Penticton is like Burgundy. We do a bunch (a whole bunch) of tastings with him, including some blind tastings where we try (and mostly fail) to pick the variety. But we taste some great wines. 2019 and 2022 were the best recent vintages in the region to keep an eye open for.

We have a great lunch at Bench 1775. On another day we visit Daydreamer (meh) and have lunch and another tasting at Poplar Grove, which has a wonderful patio overlooking the lake and we liked just about every wine we tried there.
Our favourite restaurant/tapas joint was by far Chulo, which was recommended by Jordan at Roche. It’s a great little micro-bar with an awesome vibe and great small plates.

We fill the rest of our time with a visit to the Farmer’s Market (where we find the Aussie making the coffees), swimming, waterskiing (Dene and Michelle!), a couple of walks and, of course, a round of golf. We saw this sign but didn’t give it a second thought…

… Until we saw this guy on the fifth fairway. We let him play through.

Penticton to Whistler via Spences Bridge, Lytton and Lillooet

Today we bid Penticton and its summer heat a bittersweet farewell. We’re heading back into the Coastal Mountains to Whistler, about a 6 hour drive from here. The fastest way to Whistler from here would be to loop south through Vancouver and then up Highway 99, but we opt to take the northern route. I was going to say ‘the scenic route’, but everywhere here is the scenic route.

We follow the Okanagan Lake back to Kelowna and hang a left. The lush farmlands begin to give way to more of a dry desert landscape as we gain altitude into the true rain shadow of the Coastal Mountains. By the time we reach Merritt the river valley floor is quite desolate, with brown hills and loose earth that looks like it could give way at any time. And in fact has, with a number of landslides in evidence around us.

We pass through Lytton once again, which was destroyed by fire in a summer heat dome. Aside from a gas station and a notice board from the local council, there is literally nothing else left here. Seemingly every structure was burned to the ground in the 2021 fire. As we leave town, we see an active bush fire on the far side of the valley. Oy vey.

At Lillooet we reach the northern end of Highway 99, the Sea to Sky Highway, which takes us through some spectacular mountain scenery and eventually leads us to Whistler Village.

Whistler is the number one ski resort in North America, and yet… it gets even more visitors over the summer months! Mountain biking has exploded, and add to those numbers the people coming up to the top of the mountain to have a look around (and I guess those who don’t like the cold?) and Whistler is a hustling, bustling place in the middle of summer.

We settle in to our condo at the base of Blackcomb (thanks Jas and Chantal!) and then head out for a walk around the village. We end up at one of Al’s old stomping grounds, Tapley’s Bar, where we’re hoping to have a game of shuffleboard. But gasp! the board is gone, replaced by a couple of dart boards. So we play darts and drink beer instead.

The next day we buy a day pass and go up the mountain. Whistler Blackcomb keeps on adding more and more stuff! Just before Vancouver/Whistler hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics, they built the Peak2Peak gondola, which spans the valley between the two resorts and means that if you hear there’s some gnarly pow on the other mountain, you’re just one lift away from powder heaven. The wiki page for the gondola makes for some fascinating reading, if you’re into that sort of thing.

They’ve also built a couple of suspension bridges near the peak of Whistler. ‘Cloudraker Skybridge’ sounds more like a James Bond movie than a bridge, and to be honest there is a bit of an evil mastermind vibe to the architecture. You definitely get some wicked views of the mountain. It’s only open in the summer, which is another draw for people to visit at this time of the year.

Of course the day wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the hot tub at the condo. We pretend it’s après ski instead of après stroll.

With our time in Whistler, and BC, drawing to a close, we bring Dene and Kerry back down to Vancouver and drop them off at the airport. We hang out for a couple of days with Al’s cousin Brian, before heading south to the U.S. of A. border. From here we’re heading to Bend, Oregon to see our friends Kristen and Mike before turning east again towards home. But that’s for another post.

From the Rockies to the Pacific Coast In A Nutshell

Revelstoke

• The Quartermaster had excellent food and a great wine list.
• La Baguette is a good bakery and café and they sell Izzy’s HOLM coffee.
• Rumpus Beer Company is a craft brewery with a tiny little bar and local hangout.
• Monashee Spirits Craft Distillery has a fun and delicious and dangerous cocktail list.

Penticton
Wineries. The sheer density of wineries just out of town on the Eastern shore of the lake is amazing. It seems like there is one every 500m along the road. You can hire bikes in town to cycle to many of the wineries just out of town.

Farmers Market. Held every Saturday morning in summer this is a great way to experience to bounty of the fruit capital of BC.

Channel Float. If this is your kind of thing you can float 7km down the river on a tube, inflatable flamingo or other animal of your choosing.

Water-skiing. On the lakeshore you can hire a boat or various other water toys. They do waterski lessons but if you are a water-skier they will also drive for you and charge for the half hour.

Whistler
Peak-to-Peak Gondola. Best to get up there early in the day to beat the crowds. Lots of people wait for the glass bottom gondolas, which only come every ten or twelve cars. It’s probably worth it if the line isn’t too long, but honestly the view is pretty speccie no matter which car you’re in.