Travels with Murray: Kamloops, Revelstoke

Kamloops & Revelstoke, British Columbia

July 3 - 13, 2025

We extended our stay in Vancouver by a few days so we could do DeCourcey but did not have plans after that. We had 10 unplanned days until our booking at Banff. We thought we would boondock for a few days so we found a free camping area in the Canadian equivalent of BLM land. It did not look too far off the main highway and the map showed a road so we decided to give it a shot. We pulled off the highway, detached the car and started up the "road" it quickly turned into a very rough and steep dirt road with lots of ruts. We got a mile up and decided this would not work. We had to turn around and head down. The car ant the entire back of Riginante was covered in dirt! We quickly made a reservation at a campground in Kamloops.

Not kidding when we said it was covered
in dust!

We spent three days in Kamloops. Not too much here - apparently it's Vancouver's "desert". We did short hike with the dogs around a lake and a trip to a local wildlife refuge. The refuge was not too bad. The environments were large and had plenty of hiding places for the animals. Their claim to fame was the only Kermode or "Spirit" Bear, a white variant of a black bear. We had a failed attempt at kayaking on the river. We made an appointment to rent kayaks at the riverfront park at 11:00 as the company said they opened then. We waited until about 11:30 before leaving as they never showed up to open - this is the only instance of Canadians being flaky in our entire travels!

This is a walk from our Kamloops campsite

Nice lake at Kamloops

After some research, we decided to spend the rest of the time before Banff at Revelstoke. We had never heard of it but it turned out to be a super cool and beautiful place. It is a ski area and home to Mount Revelstoke National Park. The town also had that quaint old timey ski town vibe with a small walkable downtown strip with lots of restaurants and shops.

We had a pretty site at Revelstoke.

A cool climbing rock in our
campground

Gondola ride was cool...

Because Revelstoke is a ski area, we took the gondola up to the top of the mountain for lunch featuring lovely views. But ... Denis had the bright idea to "walk" down so we did. Now, it was only 3 miles and it was downhill - what could go wrong? Welp it was almost all sharp large rocks going down. One mile took us 59 minutes (a typical hike mile is like, 17-24 depending on terrain). To add to the fun we did not have poles/water. It was simply awful. Lesson learned.

View from the top

Super steep and wearing dumb shoes

Little did we know how we would look
in 2.5 hours

Dining in Revelstoke was interesting especially as we chose a German/Indian restaurant! Again, what could go wrong? Sue was wise and ordered a German meal (pork schnitzel and red cabbage) Denis, however, tried the Butter Chicken Schnitzel. We will leave it at that.

Dogs at top of Revelstoke

We had a lovely space in Revelstoke and it was enhanced by Sue's bear sighting as she rode her bike to do laundry. Sweet little bear but she was too scared to take a pic. We drove up to the top of the mountain with the dogs to check it out.

View from top

Bike ride

Bear scat

All this wood smelled so good

So this is the part of the trip where Sue starts to lose it a bit. Remember that Denis works M-F so Sue is on her own all week. I began to assemble my teeny tiny jigsaw puzzle and, as usual I experimented with new recipes despite being in the tiniest kitchen on earth!