Day 13 - Off to BC for Real

After a rough night at Abraham Lake, we’re back on the road towards British-Columbia.

Peaceful Morning

After a rough and cold night of strong storm winds at the head of Abraham Lake, the wind finally died down to give us a marvelous view of the pristine blue lake at its most peaceful state. We ate our daily oatmeal and drank our much needed coffee before setting off on our journey towards BC.

On the road again

The last part of our journey on the Icefield Parkway was as wonderful as every other bit of it going up and down. Seeing all the mountains, glaciers, valleys, rivers and waterfalls we’d seen going north from a new angle was truly a sight to behold. Although, it felt as if we were only getting a glimpse of the true beauty of the rocky mountains with the smoke in the air limiting the distance we could see.

Into the heat of Golden, BC

Going into Golden, BC, we saw our first forest fire. We’d already seen the damage that such a fire could do to the forest near Maligne Lake and even this same morning going back onto the Icefield Parkway from Abraham Lake, where a forest fire ravaged a huge swath of land in the Kootenay Plains in 2014. However, we still hadn’t seen any live forest fires until now.

Dogtooth Climbing Gym

Two days after our first climbing gym since arriving out west, we stopped at our first climbing gym in BC, the Dogtooth Climbing Gym. This gym was a nice, outdoors-style set, climbing gym. The grades of the routes were much harder than what we were used to! Marty had a great time pushing his limits on the harder routes, he almost managed to send a pretty challenging V6, but we’re not here for the grades, we’re here to have fun! Unfortunately we did not get to try out their renowned top-rope climbing wall, as Marty didn’t know how to belay, not to worry though, he’ll learn soon enough.

Camping in Donald

After a good climbing session, we needed our rest, so we looked at the trusty iOverlander app. We found a good looking camping on our way towards Kamloops or Kelowna, as we don’t yet know whether passing by Kamloops is a good idea with all the wildfires in the area. After validating with the BC fires map, we settled for a campsite near Donald, BC, in the middle of nowhere. The campsite was awesome, but the night to come was going to be a cold one with the glacier river right next to us.