Day 9 – Bear Creek Provincial Park near Kelowna, BC to Banff, Alberta via Sorrento, BC

Thankfully, the storms held off last night, and Lilo’s second night of camping was a better sleeping experience. She still woke up very early, but seems quite happy to wake up between mommy and daddy. She squirmed and flopped around for a while, played with our hair and faces, and eventually went back to sleep for another 45 minute nap.

We packed up the truck and headed out towards Sorrento, for a quick visit Vone’s grandfather – time for Lilo to meet her second great-grandfather of the trip. After leaving the campground, we followed the highway for nearly 20 minutes before realizing that Microsoft Streets hadn’t taken us to back south to the main highway as we had expected. Apparently Streets decided it would save us a couple of minutes (in theory) to have us follow the narrow and very winding road along the west side of the lake, rather to waste time retracing our previous route back to the 4-lane highway on the east side of the lake. While I’m not sure it saved us anytime it was a beautiful route that offered a much better view of the Okanagan than the 4-lane highway would have – even if it felt like we were driving on a HotWheels racetrack at time. The only downside to the scenic route was that we missed Vernon – located on the east side of the lake.

Shortly before lunch we arrived at Grandpa Roth’s place on the shores of Lake Shuswap, just west of Salmon Arm. It’s very nice area – proclaimed as the houseboat capital of the world. We had a good lunch with Joe and his wife Pauline, and it was great to for Lilo and I to finally meet Vone’s grandfather, and for her to see him again after nearly 12 years.

It was unfortunately a short visit. Our plan was to camp for the night at Glacier National Park, and since the campground doesn’t accept reservations but rather is a ‘first-come first-served’ park, we needed to get there as early as possible.

After lunch it was back on the road towards Revelstoke and eventually Glacier National Park. But first, Canyonero was hungry for another $100 tank of gas. While it’s roomy, and very comfortable, the Tahoe’s downside is definitely its gas mileage. Its not so bad on the highway where maximizing the use of cruise control seems to go a long way to extending the life of a tank of gas – even through the mountains. I think I’ve gotten better at driving the big beast as well, as our mileage has improved as the trip has gone progressed.. I’ve learned to predict when the engine is about to over-rev as we start climbing a hill, and I’ve mastered the timing of disengaging the cruise control and applying just the right pressure on the gas pedal to not lose too much speed during the climb, all without burning through a barrel of gasoline. Then on the descent, I’ve learned how to shift down smoothly 3rd or sometimes even 2nd gear to keep us from gaining, and to save the wear on the brakes. In the city however, there’s just nothing that can be done, and Canyonero burns through the gasoline like Nicholas Cage’s vodka in Leaving Las Vegas. I guess she’s just made for the open road.

As we passed Revelstoke, we started to climb into the Columbia and Selkirk Mountains. We got giddy as the real Rocky Mountains were finally upon us. These were no longer rounded green hills - they were dramatically higher with jagged rocky peaks that were capped with snow and ice.

They were unlike anything we’d seen on the drive out through the United States. We ‘oooohed’ and ‘aaaahed’ with ever corner, as new and bigger snow capped beauties came into view.

Our giddiness was subdued somewhat as we approached the Illecilleweat Campground (I have no idea how you pronounce that, just make something up and move on) at Glacier National Park. Unfortunately the sign on the highway indicated the campground was full. Our plan to camp at the highest elevation campground in the national parks system was dashed, and once again we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere, with no plan on where to stay the night. Luckily this time it was only the afternoon, and we had plenty of time before sunset to find an alternative. We stopped at a rest area in Rogers Pass to pour over the maps of the upcoming highway, and to plot our plan of attack. The small town of Golden, British Columbia was only an hour’s drive, and surely presented some options. Beyond that, Yoho National park was another 30 minutes, Lake Louise was a couple of hours away, and Banff reachable in about 3 hours.

Golden B.C. was yet another amazing setting, and again unique from any of the places we’d seen in our travels. While huge mountains were everywhere, it was also very dessert like – lots of rocks and sandy cliffs dotted with small brush and very few trees.

We did find an adequate if unexciting campground, but decided to keep moving ahead to avoid construction related headaches that was just around the corner. A major $336 million highway construction project in the Kicking Horse Canyon meant that the highway was entirely closed to all traffic from 7PM to 9PM, again from 8AM to 9AM in the morning, and for short periods at other times. Fearing the traffic back-up’s this could cause the next morning, and seeing that is was 6:30PM now, we decided it would be best to travel through this section while traffic was lighter in the evening.

Sadly the campgrounds at Yoho National Park and Lake Louise were also all full. We trucked on through the evening towards Banff, trying to put negative thoughts out of our head. We had reservations at Banff for the next two nights, but what would happen if we arrived tonight and it was full? Thankfully, we were easily distracted by the amazing scenery through the national park.

We pulled into the Tunnel Mountain campground just outside of the town of Banff slightly after 9:00PM and we were in luck – they indeed had sites available for the night. Thanks to the lingering sunset in this part of the country, there was light until well past 10:30 allowing us plenty of light to get set up. We even got in a delicious dinner of BBQ’d chicken breast, fresh crisp green beans, and some mushroom rice. We spent a couple hours in the darkness, sipping wine, sorting through our photos, and watching satellites in the brilliant starry sky. In the end, the gamble was surely worth it – we now get the next three nights in Banff without another day of driving.