Canada, that is—where the colour grey is spelt the English way. Especially in British Columbia. 

In the week following Memorial Day, The Mate and I had a nice free chunk of days between various commitments and appointments. Perfect timing to introduce Vanna to our favorite portion of North America…starting with a quick visit to the auto glass shop to fix her poor rear window.

Heading for the eastern portion of the province, we crossed Washington’s Cascades and spent our first night in Twisp, right next to the Methow River.

Thanks to the window glass, it was late afternoon when we arrived, but also so windy we were just as happy to skip the bike ride we’d normally look forward to there.

Crossing the border into Osoyoos, the gazillion not-yet-open fruit stands made us regret being there so early in the season. On the other hand, given the fires of recent summers, we felt just as happy to experience lush greenery and cooler temps around Penticton, a region we’d had to skip last fall due to…see the opening words of this sentence.

We were happy to finally poke around Penticton, given its reputation as a bike-trail nexus.

The Kettle Valley River Trail goes right around Okanagan Lake, through town, and up the other shore…

…with fun add-ons like this trestle, traveling through vineyards…

…and this raven, guarding its throne:

Oh, and speaking of guarding: I also met this guy along the path:

Can I just say, Okanagan Lake is RIDICULOUS? 84 miles long (135 km), 2.5 – 3.1 miles wide (4-5 km)…it just goes and goes and goes. [thanks, Wikipedia]

Midway up this endless, snaky lake is the town–city?–of Kelowna. It was very close to Ground Zero in last year’s fire, so we were glad to see it seemed to have survived…but we found it too big and trafficky for the vibe we were in. After riding a short piece of rail-trail, we got out of town. (Might go back in a non-Vanna-sized car someday; tons more trail there.)

[Not pictured: Kelowna traffic jam. But also not pictured, to be fair, the 3-foot long gopher snake we met on the bike path.]

One ridge over from Okanagan, though, is a lake we fell in love with last fall: Kalamalka. Also ringed by a bike path…but right along the shore, zero roads involved.

Tiny in comparison to the endless Okanagan, Kalamalka is twice as deep (over 400 feet in places) and famously color-changing (colour-changing) thanks to molecules from limestone deposits which are temperature-sensitive. I learned all this from a kiosk I had ridden past last year…but I was still more fascinated by the scenery along the ride.

The water’s so clear I even found myself taking pictures of fish.

But, just as last year, I found myself focused on the parkland across the water, which includes no campgrounds–day use only.

Instead, we spent the night in Dutch’s Campground, a funky old place at the head of the lake. Not a park–but for campering, just our speed.

Next morning broke drizzly but warm, and I was thrilled to finally experience the land across the lake I’d been staring at: Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park.

SO satisfying to finally get in there and hike all through its uppy-downy trails.

From Kalamalka P.P. we turned right and headed straight east, reversing our route from last fall. Truth be told, any road driven in Vanna vs. our Toyota feels like a completely different road. (As in, “Who put all these curves and steep downgrades in here?!”)

But we also stopped in places we skipped past last year. Like the town of Nakusp (na-CUSP).

Travel Tip: wherever you go in Canada, look for the Information Centres. Even the smallest towns have them, and we’ve always found them to be staffed by the FRIENDLIEST, most helpful folks. Which might be redundant when describing Canadians.

At the RV campground in Nakusp, it wasn’t only the people who were friendly.

[not pictured: Gretchen cleaning the floormats next morning from what we’d tracked in. Turns out camping around free-range chickens isn’t the best idea.]

Now in the Slocan River Valley, where we’d spent two nights last year, we treated ourselves to an easy walk along the rail-trail, digging the peace.

At the end of this day, we decided to treat ourselves to a night in a hotel, with restaurant food and everything. But I’ll catch up about that in my next installment, OK? Right now I’m going to leave you with these peaceful flowers (…and extra credit if you can name them for me, because Google apparently can’t).

The Mate and I have always had a huge crush on British Columbia. We’ve meandered up the Sunshine Coast, used Harrison Hot Springs as a base camp for checking out multiple provincial parks, thrilled ourselves with the Discovery Islands, and last September, spent two weeks exploring the lower half of Vancouver Island. And that’s not even counting the many times we’ve driven through on our way to the Rockies, murmuring, “Why aren’t we stopping here?“

This trip was all about stopping here. Not traveling too far in any direction. Going in circles, even. Exploring parks we’ve never heard of. All in the name of soaking up the wonders of a place that REALLY needs a better name.

Beautiful Coastline? Best Countryside?

We started in Manning Prov. Park, especially of interest to me because it’s the terminus of the Pacific Crest Trail, of which I’ve hiked many sections.

Since we were camped at Lightning Lakes, it seemed only fair to hike around them.

Bear Country? Bewitching Conifers?

The weather window started closing behind us at Manning, with snow predicted the next night, so we kept moving, down toward the flat(ter) Okanagan. We’d heard of the famous Kettle Valley rail trail, and in Princeton we did ride a section of it, but we also checked out trails in the community reserve of China Ridge, just above the town.

The trails were more mountain-bikey than we usually ride, but we enjoyed our short stint up there.

Biking Country? Best Camping?

Next night we camped by the Kettle River, right where the rail trail crosses. Having had two rides that day, we just strolled some of it; the river was the best part. Notice the burned area in the back left? That’s from a 2015 fire. We were hyper-aware, this whole trip, of the fires still burning near Kelowna, and made sure to avoid the area.

Burning Cruelly? (unfortunately that “BC” could apply many place)

Following lovely Rt. 3 (the Crowsnest Highway) to Castlegar, we once again met up with the Kettle Valley River Trail, and rode another section…along the Columbia River. Yes, THE Columbia River–what we Washingtonians, and probably some Oregonians too, tend to think of as OUR Columbia River.

Behold Columbia? (That one at least makes some sense!)

After that ride, we swung north on little Rt. 6 to the tiny town of Slocan. We’d chosen Slocan because of its proximity to Valhalla Prov. Park, whose photos looked more national-park level than provincial.

But we soon discovered how hard it is to get INTO Valhalla.

It’s really a backpackers’ park, and we hadn’t come to backpack.

Big Cop-out? Maybe. But luckily for us, Slocan boasts its own rail-trail, which follows the Slocan River as it flows out of Slocan Lake.

Slocan itself is a sweet, quirky little town with rainbow crosswalks and helpful volunteers in the library. We’d go back there in a minute, and maybe ride all the way down to some other simpatico towns on Rt. 6 with hippy-sounding cafes and bakeries.

Bakery Central? (I guess that applies to lots of places too) Biking Capital?

Even rockslides don’t stop these folks. You can hike right through this one.

Leaving Slocan, we decided to loop around a bit. The plan HAD been to camp 2 nights at Glacier National Park…but that weather window slammed shut, and we didn’t want to camp in snow. With an extra day before our hotel reservation in Revelstoke, we followed Rt. 6 back west in a squiggly semi-circle that took us back to–ta dah! The Columbia.

They don’t even call it a river there, they call it Arrow Lake! Seeing that mighty river so abused brought us no joy. OK, a little joy. It was still fun ferrying across.

Burdened Columbia?

But that afternoon cheered us right up. First we got to ride yet another rail trail (Okanagon) along Laka Kalamalka, an honest-to-gods, true-blue, undammed stretch of watery glory…

…and then, that evening, near the lake, the Mate and I got our first Glamping experience, on a hydroponic farm!

Doug, the friendly owner of Utopia Feels glamping, gave us the full tour, including veggies:

…critters:

…and of course, the glamping tents!

I can’t say we’ll ever do this again, but it was a hoot and a half to do once!

Bountiful Campgrounds? Bodacious Comfort?

Leaving the Okanagan behind, we turned north and east again, as if heading for the grand Rockies. But this time we stopped short, in the town of Revelstoke, home of…

…you guessed it: the Columbia River. Still dammed (just upstream from town), but looking closer to a real mountain river than I ever dreamed it could.

Beautiful Clarity!

Revelstoke nestles into a whole batch of mountains, including Mt. Revelstoke, which has its own national park. Clear skies were in short supply when we drove the single road in and up to hike toward the summit:

Over the next couple of days, as the rains moved in, we took advantage of little breaks to revel in local awe (Revel? in Revelstoke? See what I did there?).

Just up the road (literally, up) from Revelstoke is Canada’s Glacier National Park, and it KILLED me to be so close and not go. But we were disinclined to drive in possible snow & ice. So…next time, B.C.

Best Choice?

But Revelstoke was quirky enough for us. Examples: Woodenhead, apparently carved decades ago by some dude for the fun of it, and adopted by the town:

…and this Indian-German fusion restaurant we found.

After Revelstoke, stymied by weather to the east, we turned west. I’ll save that for Part II, because that part was

BEYOND COMPARE.