Canadian Adventure (Part 1) - The Wet Days

Our adventure begins as we cross the border to the north, as we enter the realm of Canada.  Crossing the northern border is usually uneventful – do you have any drugs?, no, lots of booze?, no, small children you plan to leave in Canada?, no, and then you drive off.  This time the crossing was coupled with a distinct shift in weather that marked our entrance to a new realm.  We went from the hottest, driest northwest summer on record, where the air was thick with smoke from all the fires, into rain.  Good old northwest cold, drenching, drizzling, soaking rain. It was about the last way we expected to start our trip.

The first morning as we lay in our cozy van bed near Kokanee Glacier Park we heard the pattering of drops on the fiberglass roof and there was absolutely no motivation to get up.  We were exhausted from all the packing and finalizing of details for our trip that a little precipitation was the perfect excuse to sleep in.  I don’t think we got out of the van until noon.  (Well, except for a early short fishing excursion but that hardly counts.)

We’d make the best of the next few days.  We went on a short wet hike that afternoon and a longer wet hike the next day.  Of course the namesake of the park couldn’t be missed so we marched all the way over Kokanee Pass, around Kokanee Lake to within sight of the Kokanee Glacier.  I wish we’d had time & energy for the final push to the toe of the glacier but maybe that should be saved for next year’s ski trip.

In the morning we headed north with the promise of better weather on the horiozon.  We were stumped by more that just weather this time.  On the road to the MacBeth Icefields, a hike recommended by more than one local, we encountered a fire.  The rain had bedded it down but it was smoldering within a few hundred meters of the road and in the same valley as our trail.  The last thing either of us wanted is to return to a crispy Westy so we moved on.  Our second stumping came when the road petered out and finally ended in a big fat boulder many kilometers from the Marion Lakes trailhead.  Walking was not in the cards so we made our way toward the ferry and Revelstoke.

Camped in a great spot on Upper Arrow Lake we were greeted again by heavy rain.  Despite being in a van everything was soaked so the next morning we went into Revy for a decent breakfast and some coffee.  We finished up some work at the wi-fi cafe, did laundry, planned our next assault and then the weather broke.  It was the first sun we’d seen in days and we charged up Mt Revelstoke National Park for an afternoon hike.  The weather held and we had an amazing hike through the high country with views of changing fall colors, fat marmots, boiling clouds and snow covered peaks.  Things were looking more positive.