Mount Revelstoke National Park

Yesterday we moved from Lamplighter Campground to Snowforest Campground in Mount Revelstoke National Park. We had a bit of a dilemma, check out time was 11 AM, check in here was 2 PM, and the drive, even with the trailer, was about 10 minutes. Bud suggested we just pack up and take the trailer with us for another round of disc golf as he could back the trailer into the dead end section of road which was the parking for the disc golf course. So we did, and you’ll notice we had clear skies over the Illecillewaet River this time.

Then we came to Snowforest Campground at the National Park. It’s nice to be in a public campground with more space.

Our site is at the end of the row, so that adds to our privacy.

But the best thing about the site is the robin’s nest in a little tree. It’s only about head high, but tucked in the branches.

You can only see the babies when they stick their open beaks up. I think there are two of them.

I need to correct an error. I thought all of these mountains were the Rockies and wrote that Revelstoke was at the western edge of the Rockies. Actually, it’s in the valley between the Monashee Mountains and the Selkirk Mountains, and Mount Revelstoke National Park is on the edge of the Selkirk Mountains. We’ll reach the Rockies when we move to Banff, tomorrow.

Meanwhile, we only had a day and a half to check out this park. I took a short walk on a trail just uphill from the campground once we were set up and ate lunch.

It was an easy trail,

but I thought I saw bear scat, so decided next time I hiked alone I’d take my hiking stick as well as the air horn. If a bear got too close I could wave the hiking stick and sound the air horn. If it didn’t run off it might at least be laughing too hard to attack.

This morning Bud and I drove the 26 kilometers up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway to the top of Mount Revelstoke. We went straight to the top and stopped at the overlooks on the way back down, but I’m putting them in the blog from the bottom to the top.

The first one is the Nels Nelson Viewpoint. This is where a famous ski jump was. Nels Nelson, a native son, set records here; first the Canadian record of 183 feet in 1916 and then the world record of 240 feet in 1925. This platform is at the top of that ski jump and there are metal replicas of his skis and knickers.

You can stand on the skis and lean forward into the metal knickers and get the view from the top of the hill that he saw…without the snow. That’s the city of Revelstoke and the Columbia River down below.

This replica of a newspaper page was done as a sign. I thought the story of “The Great Fiasco” and Bob Lynburne was interesting so I took a picture of it.

Further up the mountain at KM 5 was another overlook of the town and river.

Across the valley you can see Mount MacKenzie. In 1969 the downhill skiing moved there. Today in the winter townsfolk cross country ski on the Meadows in the Sky Parkway and snowshoe on the lower trails but the mountain is a quiet place.

Still higher is another viewpoint where you can see the Columbia River as it flows south.

Just around the mountain from that is a viewpoint a bit upstream. That’s the river in the lower foreground, and Eagle Pass, where the Trans Canada Highway comes in from the east.

I took this video at Panorama Point, not far from the parking lot at the end of the Parkway. You can see from the east, in an arc around to the south and then west. This area must have burned not too long ago.

And then we arrived at the alpine meadows…

and pretty little Balsam Lake.

Before the turn of the 20th century people from the town bushwhacked to the summit of Mount Revelstoke and found these meadows. It became such a popular hike that the Mayor had the public works department cut a trail. In 1911 the provincial government was persuaded to build a road to the top and in 1914 the area became a National Park.

We walked around the lake looking at the lovely flowers. Some on plants so small they looked like mosses…

and others on tall bushes.

We then took Eagle Knoll Trail that went a short distance through meadows and

stands of Engleman Spruce, providing glimpses of the mountains in the distance.

We ended at a lookout to the north, with Revelstoke Lake, the reservoir created by the Revelstoke Dam, spread below. That was my favorite lookout.

This afternoon I took the air horn and my walking stick and headed out to walk the Inspiration Woods Trail.

It crossed a couple of little streams.

At the larger of the two I took a few seconds of video, just to capture the sweet sounds of a brook running through the woods.

The trail circled through a rocky area where you caught glimpses of the distant mountains.

It was a lovely walk.

Tomorrow we leave, but I will not forget this place.