Kamloops

Some days on the van trip we try to be pretty boring.  We headed out from our sweet campsite outside of Whistler and Banff national park. That day we needed to cover a lot of ground and to take care of a few chores. 

We rolled down from the Cascade mountains and into the dry plains of Canada along highway 1.  It was a high desert terrain and hot. A big change from the misty cool weather we'd had in the Olympic peninsula and Vancouver for the past week. 

We stopped in Kamloops - the biggest city along our route that day.  We eventually found an internet cafe, and looked up where a laundromat was.  We didn't write down the address or phone number - oops. As it turns out, we kind of failed at living sans-smartphone in Canada.  We circled the general vicinity of the laundromat for a while, and eventually found "McCleaners".   

As we did laundry, we took a walk to the grocery store nearby.  Joey stocked up on Ketchup chips, and I got a Canadian candy bar to try out.  

Eventually we made our way out of Kamloops.  Pretty boring day so far. 

Then we high-tailed it towards the Canadian Rockies.  We wanted to meet Joey's folks in Banff the next day so we were aiming towards Revelstoke about four hours west of Banff. 

We had a tough time finding logging roads as we started entering the foothills of the Rockies.   We had found plenty in the Cascades - but we weren't having as much luck on this side.  We took a few dead ends, when we finally struck gold.  We found a logging road that looked pretty broad, but not even half a mile along the road we saw some people camped out.  Sweet.  It was still a few hours before dark, it looked like we were golden.  

We wanted to get a little further off of the main road, so we kept going after we saw the other campers.  We winded through the woods - one campsite we saw was flooded, another was pretty close to the road, so we skipped those.  We kept winding around the woods on a road that followed a pretty swift stream.   

It was neat driving near the stream, the water was crystal clear!  We passed a pretty significant waterfall and then all of the sudden we got to a bridge.  The sign next to the bridge said, "Road Deactivated" (or no longer maintained) and "Bridge Limit 2 tonnes" 

"Do you know how much a tonne is?" Joey asks

I think that a tonne is some factor of 2 different from a US ton.  I am really unsure about this.  (As it turns out, I was wrong, a ton is .9 tonnes)

"Well I think the van is between 6 and 8 thousand pounds", says Joey

Um....   

We get out to check out the bridge.  It was pretty simply constructed, a few I beams across the length and some large timbers across the width.  No railing. There were some steel plates going across the timbers where the tire treads should be.  

The bridge is totally sketchy, a few of the timbers (a foot square) were rotted through so we have to jump across them.  We get to the other side and the same bridge sign and written in permanent marker the 2 is crossed out and a 10 is written in.  The word "ten" is also written below the numerals.  This is totally sketchy. 

We get back to the other side and waffle on what to do.  I have visions of the van plummeting into the glacial ice-melt and then rolling down the waterfall a bit downstream.  I tell Joey I am not going over the bridge in the van. 

So we agree to back-track.  (In the end, it is good we did since the bridge would have held 4,400 lbs.)

At this point, the sun is getting low.  Twilight lasts for quite a while this far north, so we still have a good hour or two before dark. But we want to hurry. 

We take another branch of the road that goes uphill.  We ascend numerous switch-backs in the woods on the side of the mountain and eventually pop out into a clearing.  We're in a transmission line path through the mountains.  The road branches again, and we take the uphill branch.  It travels uphill pretty steeply.  We skid around a little bit, but don't end up needing the 4 wheel drive.  We end up right next to a transmission tower, and having to avoid the guy-wires supporting the thing.  We agree it wouldn't be a good idea to sleep below high voltage transmission lines on top of a steep grade - so we turn around.  Joey deftly avoids the guy-wires again as we go down to the other branch of the road.  

The road traverses the transmission line clearing and goes back into the woods.  It keeps climbing. A few times we double back across the transmission clearing further up the mountain.  At this point it is dusk. 

We are tired, and have not found anyplace over the past several hours.  Joey pulls over onto a narrow turnout on the road.  We decide to stay here.  I am still leery - let me describe the scene:   

It is dusk, we are essentially on a little more than single lane gravel road on a switchback on the mountain side.  The pull out is on the cliff side of the road - not the mountain side.  The road is pretty steep.  One good thing is that there is a log uphill of the turnout sort of blocking it from downhill traffic.  

We decide to grab some nearby rocks and Joey chocks up the tires - he also points them towards the mountain.  I heat up a stew and we eat in the van.  It's dark, and we go to sleep. 

to be continued... 

(Spoiler alert - approximate map of our route: http://goo.gl/maps/4Izpt)