To Revelstoke

July 23, 2023

Moving day. Perhaps from having been reading Kelly’s journal for the last month, Rachael’s got ice on her mind. Her plan is to head down to the ice machine at the office just before we leave so she can put a chill on her water bottle for the hike we’re hoping to take in Glacier National Park (the Canadian version) on our way to Revelstoke.

The time comes, she heads out to the office and comes back sounding sheepish a few minutes later, sans ice. There is no ice in the offICE.

The drive to Revelstoke starts with about an hour heading north on Highway 93, the same road we biked on our first day here. As it was then, it’s quiet and scenic the whole way - better to be biking of course, but very pleasant and relaxed driving too. At Golden though we come to the Trans-Canada Highway and head west and suddenly the driving is heavy and stressful.

As I drive I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen this stretch of the TCH, which my first wife and I drove most of the way across Canada back in 1972. We were on a road trip with my best friend from the army, Gary Rose, who was tragically left paralyzed from the waist down just a month after getting released from service on the same day I did. We joined him as he checked out a set of universities he was interested in pursuing studies at that were allegedly wheelchair-accessible, something that was much less widespread fifty years ago. Dalhousie in Nova Scotia was the last on his list, and after that we made a bee line west across the country. And I do mean beeline - the road across the heartland was virtually empty then, and I got the only speeding ticket of my life on the open, featureless prairie near Swift Current, Saskatchewan.

At some point we turned south and across the border, but I can’t remember where; and I can’t remember even how we joined up with or separated from Gary since we were living in Ferndale (near Bellingham, where I was going to school) and Gary and his wife lived in Pueblo, Colorado. I’ll have to send a message to Carol Jo to see what she remembers.

Also on my mind as we drive is climate change. I’m thinking about the glaciers that are rapidly receding everywhere, the name of the park we’re coming to, and wondering how much longer there will be glaciers up here or even if there will be much ice to see even today. As we start the climb up to Rogers Pass though suddenly the sky is filled with craggy silver and white peaks - awesome, but not really conducive to a hike because suddenly the air ahead is dense with smoke from an apparently nearby fire.

And what was Rachael thinking about during all this time I’m contemplating such deep thoughts? There’s the sad fact that her water bottle doesn’t have ice in it for one thing, but the other is undoubtedly the bears. We’re city folk and easily spooked by menacing wildlife - we were even anxious in our tame walk along the Old Coach Road. We spent some time last night reading the literature about hiking in Glacier and finding ourselves anpprehensive about it. Neither of us likes the thought of a grizzly knowing on our bones.

Our thinking is that we’ll stop in at the visitor center and ask the rangers about safety issues, but when we get there and read the signs saying we need to find another couple to walk with us without risking a steep fine we decide we’ve seen enough. Between the smoke and the threat of bears we decide to just keep driving.

The view east from Rogers Pass. The sky looks clear enough in this direction.

Worse to the west though, and worse than it looks here. My eyes are burning by the time we reach Revelstoke.

Whatever fire is here, it must be pretty localized. We haven’t gotten far past the summit when the sky starts clearing again.

We arrive in Revelstoke not long past noon, several hours before we can check in at our hotel. We spend a couple of hours killing time at a coffee shop and then move on to the Craft Bierhaus where we have our main meal of the day, appreciating a colorful decor, enormous portions and an impressively long tap list.

We’ll be staying four nights in Revelstoke lodged at the Grizz Hotel, a good enough place right in the heart of town.

Have we ever eaten at a place with burl tabletops and beer kegs for chairs? Not that I can remember.

Nice place. The video offerings are definitely a cut above those at the golf club yesterday.

And how many places have a tap list like this? Offerings one thru eight are all IPA’s, but I’m in a mood for something darker today so I look further down the list.

#16, Brave Liver Scotch Ale, is dark enough. Also, we can appreciate here the corporate dress code of this place.

I ordered the half chicken but this looks more like a turkey. This must be three times the size of the half-chicken the golf course teed up for me.

Rachael’s enormous bowl with chicken left enough leftovers for two meals. And we didn’t really each need our own side salad if we’d known they’d be like this.

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Patrick O'HaraHey Scott. I agree with you in that stretch of highway from Golden to Revelstoke, it's fast and scary to drive.
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9 months ago

Keith AdamsProbably a good call on the bears, though the odds are in your favor. A friend of mine told me how to distinguish between brown/black bear scat and grizzly: brown bears put out smaller pellets that tend to have lots of seeds and berries, where grizzlies eject larger pellets flecked through with small bells and bits of hiking boot.
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9 months ago

Kirsten KaarsooTo Patrick O'HaraIt is a horrible stretch of highway and in the winter it is that much worse. One never knows if it will be open or not and then how long will be closed as Roger Pass always has avalanches, more often than not they are set off by the highway department to make sure it is safe to drive through. They will give you warning when they are going to 'bomb'.
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9 months ago