It took us two days to drive out to Ruskin for Christmas. No matter how we sliced it, it was going to take two days to get home, too.
And that was a good thing.
Travelling through the mountains in winter is a tough slog … getting across them in daylight is nigh impossible, and I refused to attempt it in the dark. I can do it in the summer, just not when the roads are crap.
The trick this time was that we dropped in on my cousin, Jen, who now lives in Penticton with her husband, Rob. That’s slightly out of the way, but only just – it’s definitely not unreasonable. And, frankly, seemed like a good detour on the way back, since there was no way I was gonna try the Coquihalla.
We left at 10am but didn’t even make it out of Ruskin before Alex wanted to find a geocache. I dunno what it is with geocachers in BC but the coordinates never seem to line up properly and the hiding spots are wildly different than the ones we see in Alberta (I can almost sense the ones in Alberta, the ones in BC continue to stymie us); we left with a DNF. The next and only other stop for a couple of hours was to get gas that had gone up $0.14 in one afternoon for no apparent reason.
It always takes longer to get to Hope than it does to drive from Hope to Ruskin; I assume because I’m facing the long drive and I really don’t want to go home. I wanted to see our kitties again, but Ruskin had been extra nice this year.
Even before we’d hit the rise into the Crowsnest, we could see the snow line on the mountains. For the last 13 days, we’ve had only rain. I already knew from the forecasts and the DriveBC site that snow was waiting for us.
We found it as we entered Manning Park, about an hour from Hope. Here the mountains along with the altitude colluded to produce some genuinely beautiful scenery, the snow weighing down the branches, turning lofty pines into narrow white-and-green spires. The only break in the colour, other than the cars and trucks, was the brown from the salt and grit that accumulated at the sides of the road.
Alex commented that I “didn’t need to drive at speed”. Which I wasn’t, except in the straight portions. I won’t profess to be some magical guru who knows the exact conditions of the road, car, weather and will never have an accident (that’s just begging for Murphy to leap out of my suitcase), but I do try not to put my family (and myself) in harm’s way by doing something stupid. I would also offer that we were being passed, I only passed trucks on passing lanes going uphill.
We stopped at the Manning Park Lodge to make use of their toilets. The roads in the Lodge grounds were icy and rutted, unlike the highway (which was dirty and wet, but otherwise clear). It was humourous to see people walking about, bundled up in their parkas, while the four of us tumbled out of the Dinosaur in our hoodies and sweat shirts. It didn’t even seem that cold.
The road didn’t really clear until we got to Sunday Summit, which is the long descent towards Princeton, along with a few major drops, and a near-hairpin around the Copper Mountain mine. Although it was actively snowing in Princeton, it was, mostly, easy to get around.
We attempted to go to the Brown Bridge Pub, only to find they don’t permit minors. Which, in hindsight, I think was a good thing as the adjoining Villager Inn seemed to be the source of a certain smell that pervaded the area. We went to Jean’s recommendation: the Cool Beanz Coffee House.
We continued east towards Keremeos, dropping into the much flatter portion of the Similkameen River valley. Halfway along, it was almost dry as a bone, no visible snow, a much easier drive than a couple of hours earlier. But the snow was back by the time we got to Keremeos, a constant light dusting. And it was getting darker. I did not want to try tackle a mountain pass in the dark, so I was keen to turn north and tackle the last bit.
So of course, we had to briefly turn south for a geocache. At least Alex found this one fairly rapidly.
Highway 3A from Keremeos to Penticton is probably a gorgeous drive in the summer. With the snow we were getting, it was sloppy, though not slippery, which was I was thankful for. Despite my concern of being stuck behind a slow truck coming out of Keremeos, we were flying along with everyone else, before dropping into the Okanagan valley and turning onto Highway 97. This took us up the western side of Skaha Lake, past the Penticton Airport, and then to the Walmart.
We needed a housewarming gift, after all. And the biggest plant I could find, much to Choo Choo’s irritated dismay, fit the bill.
The next hardest part was finding Jen and Rob’s new home. Even with Google helping us (and failing to point out the correct exit on a traffic circle), it was a lot of turns and winds and steep climbs up the side of the hill. Their place backs onto the Skaha Bluffs, which is a paradise for hikers, bikers, climbers, and pretty much everything Jen and Rob are.
Their house is gorgeous. Although rented, it’s still a huge improvement over their apartment in North Vancouver – the garage is bigger. And I’m sure it has a wonderful view of the valley, but by the time we got there, it was dark. Jen was not yet home from work.
Mike and Brenda were there, visiting since the 27th. We had hot dogs and hamburgers, Alex learned how to play bridge with Brenda, before being sucked into some weird card game with two decks that Jen lost horrifically at.
And then it was 7:30. We’d been there nearly four hours, but the time had evaporated like a puddle in a chinook, and we still had to get to Kelowna. We said our goodbyes and packed into the Dinosaur. Jen made me promise to let her know that we’d gotten safely to the hotel. She had warned me that the 97 between Penticton and Westbank was … not good.
“Not good” has a variety of definitions, depending on the person, but it can be summarized as “difficult, potentially dangerous”. There are no lights on most of the road, hardly any reflectors, notably on the bends that follow the curve of the valley walls, over which is a plunge down the canyon and into Lake Okanagan. Add in the aforementioned snow (still falling) and the wet road and what you have is something like this:
High speed (greater than 50 km/h) travel in perfect darkness, broken only by your headlights and those of oncoming traffic, causing your vision to switch from “please let me see” to “dear gods, turn the lights down”, wipers causing streaks no matter what interval setting you use, constantly worried about the upcoming turns, never mind the hills you have to climb where the aforementioned on-coming traffic seems to be heading directly for you.
I drove consistently 20 km/h or more slower than the posted limit. I was passed constantly by people who had night vision goggles or were determined to dance with the devil.
I was relieved to enter Westbank, where the street lights balanced out the high contrast driving of the previous hour. We stopped once for a cider as we headed up through Kelowna.
The Sheraton Four Points had space on their website. Like with Kamloops nearly two weeks earlier, I went in sans reservation, which turned out to be better in my favour, thanks to the Canadian Automobile Association. We got a room on the 6th floor.
I slept somewhat okay; the kids barely slept at all (Monkey declared the next morning that she will have her own room the next time we travel). We headed out and up to the Jammery, which we’d been to the last time we were in Kelowna. It’s decent, and probably gave us all too much to eat, as neither Alex nor I were hungry for the remainder of the day.
It was only as we were passing through Vernon (where we managed to find some cheap gas) that Alex wondered why we hadn’t gone the extra distance to save even more time, leaving from there. I think it’s because I keep thinking Vernon is some small town, not a large city. Besides, we couldn’t have eaten at the Jammery…
The road up to Sicamous was intermittently foggy, but the view over Mara Lake was gorgeous and I’m kicking myself that I didn’t stop for a picture. We hit the same construction as we did on the way west, the crews still stabilizing the rock walls of the 97A.
We got coffee in Sicamous, then headed east. The roads were initially dry, but the closer we got to Revelstoke, the wetter and dirtier they became. Rocks few from time to time, and I am amazed the windshield didn’t shatter.
Then came the comment. I can’t even remember what it was, but it was along the lines of “you’re being reckless”, though worded more politely. Still a bit tired, I got lippy and fired something back along the lines of “if you don’t like how I drive, then we’re not driving ever again”.
I don’t normally talk back. I normally suck it all in. It’s not worth the fight. But the previous days’ comment still rang with me, the drive from Penticton to Kelowna still haunted me, and I wasn’t looking forward to the Rogers Pass, so having these comments was doing me no favours. I like the drive through the mountains, I truly do, and getting comments from someone who’s reading or watching movies or whatever is going to make me never want to do it again.
I might still be a bit touchy on that.
Anyway, we passed through Revelstoke without stopping, unlike usual. The road moved well, though the cargo trucks had constantly cut corners on the curves, causing the rest of us to do the same, running over the rumble strips that tell you “you’re in the wrong part of the road”. (I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the sound was what prompted the comment, as it was quite prevalent in Eagle Pass.)
Some dickhead in an Amazon tractor trailer was trying to rush everywhere, and tried to pass another tractor trailer going up the west approach to Rogers Pass at Glacier. If you’ve driven the road enough, you know that it’s where the highway bend strongly to the left – there’s a reduction on speed at that point – then goes to an 8% grade climb. The Dinosaur’s engine was not happy to get past that moron and I wasn’t too keen to be stuck behind another truck at the top because I got delayed.
But we got down the other side just fine, if a bit slow.
We stopped in Golden only so long to get the kids something to eat. Their breakfasts had been far more reasonable, so they were hungry; Alex and I were still working on our two-egg sausage and bacon hash.
But Golden meant that the rest of the trip would be easier. It’s not entirely 4-lane road from there to home, but it’s close. Save for Yoho National Park, it’s easy going, and even the Big Hill wasn’t a chore. The hard part was not falling asleep on the stretch from Lake Louise to Canmore.
We got into town around 16:30 local time, thankfully missing an accident west of Jumping Pound that was diverting all westbound traffic up Jumping Pound Road. I’ve been in the wrong end of those kinds of accidents before, and they suck.
The furnaces will still running full-tilt when we’d gotten in, the temp having only risen 4 degrees from their “vacation” setting (it would be another 4 hours before they stopped; useful info for next time). We unloaded, unpacked, I went up to the store for some of the essentials, then we relaxed. The driving days are hard and while it’s good to be home, it does mean the trip is over.
But the house still feels a bit empty. The cats are still at the kennel; we’ll get them tomorrow. Then things will seem normal again.
