Another atmospheric day in rainy Revelstoke.

It rained a lot in Revelstoke, not sure if it just so happened that we were there on a rainy week……or if it’s typical for this part of the province…….but it rained…a lot…!!

When we first arrived and drove up to the gate at the base of Mount Revelstoke National Park, the road to the top was not yet open due to snowpack on the top section of the road. The low level walks are fairly short (1 to 3 km) and with no real ‘views’ due to the dense forest. So having already visited the Rail Museum…the next day we headed back up the Rogers Pass to the Discovery Centre (there is no visitor centre at Mount Revelstoke NP…so I had to go back to get my pins for my National Park pin collection..!!)

In an effort to manage at least a little bit of activity, I downloaded some of the short walks along the Trans Canada.

The first one was the Skunk cabbage walk…..

There is a paved road down to a small park area literally a right turn off the eastbound Trans-Canada. The road leads down to the river, where my intrepid blogtographer HAD to climb down the bank to take some pictures…..

The path leads off through some pretty big old growth cedars in true BC style.

….and then to the boardwalk leading to the habitat of the Skunk cabages…(not entirely sure why they are called that because they did not particularly smell…..but maybe that is a seasonal thing..!!)

There was more giant hogweed than anything else along most of the boardwalk…LOL…

…and then we found some…

Unfortunately the second loop of the boardwalk was closed and under restoration…….maybe that’s where most of the cabbages were…..

Rock Garden Trail.

The second trail was the Rock Garden. I downloaded the trail for this one mainly because it was one of the few that were actually open. Between COVID and two successive harsh winters with a lot of avalanche activity in the pass…..there has been a lot of damage to the regular boardwalk trails in Glacier Park. The rock garden was a little hidden gem.

Although not a long path, it is quite an extraordinary little ecosystem around an old rock slide.

It’s like a fairy garden that someone very clever might have landscaped…..except that it was designed and built by the ultimate landscape gardener…….

…it’s a natural place…and well worth the stop if you are ever travelling this highway.

….and we found this little bright and colourful little chap on the way back down…..

Coming back into town…we thought a drive back to the Mount Revelstoke park gate might be in order……and were delighted to find that the road had been opened, it’s a winding drive to within a km of the summit so we drove up to check it out…….. and walked the final part of the summit trail to the top since we were there anyway.

Mount Revelstoke Summit Trail

The road up to the summit of Mount Revelstoke is paved, 24km of switchbacks weaving up to the top (6,375ft above sea level). It’s densely forested with a handful of lookout spots on the way up. …and then from the parking area it’s one last kilometre up to the top.

Once at the summit their are a bunch of short trails there with quite spectacular views…..

One to the north….

…one more to the south….

…and a little climb up through the last of the snow ( this was on June 15th..!!) to the Fire lookout…..

…..with my faithful blogtographer waiting for me to fall over in the snow…!!!

It was another easy little walk…but very pretty with the wildflowers busting out all over the place to make the most of their short season…..

We hatched the plan to do the Eva Lake Trail from the summit over to the next peak as the weather was looking good for such a trip….

Next day..dressed and booted ready for the hike…they closed the top road again…( aaaaaaaaaaargh…!!) …….this time the fire guys were in cutting some of the dangerous trees…..talk about all dressed up and nowhere to go…..

Extra pix.