Northwest Touring

I met a family of four vacationing last summer whose daughter is a Dartmouth Freshperson this year. He owns a micro brewery in Boston. They asked me for tips for a family trip in the Northwest this summer. I wrote for them (1) a general listing of options for different types of trips and (2) a more specific outline for the trip they selected.

General Listing of different types of trips

Dear Dan:

This is in outline form.  We can go into detail later when you zero in on possible options. I have not marked up any maps for the same reason. No overnight camping is anticipated because of gear requirements.  White water rafting, hiking, heli-hiking, etc are available in many of these places.  I have maps of Washington and BC which I can send off if you’ll give me your address.  We have lots of maps so that is not a problem or you could get some at a local bookstore.  You might add one for Idaho.  Call if you have trouble finding places.  On most maps you can look at their place directory and find the map location on the grid.  Obviously there are innumerable variations of what I’ve covered plus more options.  Things are easily added or deleted along the routes.

Big Circle Trip:  10 days to 2 weeks or a lot longer

Leave Seattle and spend some time in Vancouver and/or Whistler.  Vancouver is a great city for sightseeing.  There are unlimited things to do in Whistler.  One great option is a day of heli-hiking.  In 10 minutes you are up where no one has been.  A guide accompanies you and they provide lunch. Bring your camera.  Whistler is as big as Vail and Aspen put together.  There are a great range of activities and places to stay and dine.

Then retreat South an hour and take the Horseshoe Bay Ferry to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island and drive North from there.  Stop in Campbell River and fish at Painters Lodge or April Point.  You could also get short float plane flights to more remote lodges for say a two-three night stay (only if the fishing reports are good).  Painters and April Point are not remote like the others but they are quality and an easy stop off on your way north.

North of Campbell River is Telegraph Cove, which is adjacent to a large pod or pods of Orcas.  There are a variety of trips to view these wonderful creatures in the Broughton Archipelago.

Proceed up Island to Port Hardy.  At 6:30am each day, there’s a ferry that makes a 12 hour run up to Prince Rupert.  It’s a spectacular inside passage run when the sun is out which is fairly often in mid summer.  Spend a night in Prince Rupert and then head to Smithers with a stop over in Hazelton which has a very interesting Indian center.  This route follows the Skeena River through the woods and mountains coming out eventually into remote farm land.  There is a nice B&B in Smithers.  Spend the night and then proceed from Smithers to Jasper Park.  To give you an idea of distances, we have driven from Jasper to Seattle in a day but don’t do that.

From Jasper go South to Lake Louise.  We recommend the Poste Hotel in Lake Louise.  The drive down the Ice Fields Hwy is gorgeous.  You might go to Banff as well or go directly west through Kicking Horse towards Golden (We’ve also done Golden to Seattle in a long day).  Between Lake Louise and Golden is Lake O’Hara Lodge built nearly 100 years ago by CP Rail.  As with many of these names you can Google it. Start heading back by going over Rogers Pass to Revelstoke.  From there go Kamloops, Merritt, Hope and home or to Vancouver.  Individual places to stay and things to do are more easily defined in step #2.  You might have to eliminate a few of these stops to meet your 10-14 day objective. Advanced reservations are required for the ferry if you have a car and wish to reserve a stateroom which I think is worth it for storage of personal goods and naps so you’re not running down to your car to get things.

A variation on this route would be to go south from Golden to Bugaboo Park.  Canadian Mountain Holidays have two nice lodges in this area which you get to by helicopter.  They are on Dartmouth and Stanford Alumni Travel programs.  You can Google them as well as everything else I’m talking about.  You’d then continue south to Fernie for a couple days of excellent river fishing and return via Whitefish  - or you could return the short distance to Golden and follow the former suggested route.  I have not been into the CMH lodges but I drool over the thought of doing so.  Google them.

You can also take the ferry to Prince Rupert in both directions.  It returns the next morning.  If you did that, I’d suggest you come all the way back to Victoria and then take the Ferry system either through the San Juans stopping there for a night or so and then proceeding on to Anacortes or go to Port Angeles to see Hurricane Ridge and the Hoh Rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula.  There are some very nice B&Bs near Port Angeles.

Smaller Loop:  Go to Vancouver for a night or lunch and then on to Whistler.  Return south by going northeast to Lillooet and following the Fraser River on the east side of the coastal mountains to Hope.  You can come south from Hope on either side of the mountains.  On the east side you could stop in Winthrop and return via the North Cascades Highway which would offer good day hiking possibilities.  Further south there is also a great trip on the Lady of the Lake from Chelan to the north end of the lake and back.  There is a small very adequate overnight accommodation in Stehekin.  There is good hiking and river rafting up there. With this option, you’d return via Stevens Pass which is also very scenic.

Smaller Loop yet:  Take the North Cascades Highway over to Winthrop and stay at Sun Mountain Lodge for 3 nights and do some riding, hiking, sightseeing there.  The highway is neat and the inn very nice.  You can then return via Wenatchee, the Ausrian themed village of Leavenworth, and Stevens Pass.  There are several interesting spots to stay along this route and hiking as well.  If you don’t mind gravel mountain driving you can take the road up to Hart’s Pass and day hike from there at the 6,000 foot level.  Actually, there’s only one bad place.  It’s called “Dead Horse Drop”.

Another option would be to take a float plane with Kenmore Airways in Seattle up into the BC Coat east and north of Campbell River.  They put together packages with lodges up there.  It is a very pretty 2.5 hour flight including customs into extremely beautiful country which is only accessible by air or boat.  The fishing has been spotty up there in recent years.  Fish or no fish it’s still very nice country.

There are excellent day hiking trails within an hours drive of Seattle.  You could use your friends house as a base camp or stay in the mountains overnight.  One new property near many trailheads is the Inn at Suncadia. Look for Cle Elum off I 90.  Also nearby is fishing and floating in the Yakima River canyon near Ellensberg. 

Dan:  This is at least a start.  After you have digested these contents, let’s talk.

More Specific Outline

Dan, your idea of starting in Calgary and working your way to Seattle via Whistler and Vancouver is excellent.   Here is a menu of suggestions.  Your family can have a “full meal” by selecting those options which sound the most interesting and fit within your time limits.  Everything mentioned below can be Googled.

Enroute from Calgary, stop and sight see around Banff and then take the Bow River Parkway (a side road paralleling the main highway) to Lake Louise.  The Fairmonts (formerly CP Chateaux) are lovely but crowded with tourists.  In Lake Louise, the Post Hotel is smaller, European, and has excellent accommodations and food.

You could spend two nights at the Post using the intervening day (hopefully sunny) to drive to Jasper for lunch and sightseeing.  The Ice Fields Parkway is one of the great 140 mile drives in North America.   You’ll see lots of game in Jasper and Banff because the predators won’t come after them in town.  Bears, sheep, and mountain goats are viewable in between.  Be alert for bear.  Blacks are just as dangerous as grizzlies because they are more unpredictable and aggressive.  They are a real problem in Whistler.

Very close to Lake Louise near Kicking Horse Pass in Yoho National Park is Lake O’Hara Lodge.  It was built 100 years ago by CP as a fancy alpine route hut.  You park your car in a lot close to the main road and are taken up to the Lodge in a school bus.  This vehicle and walking are the only means of access. A friend of mine is with the Canadian Mountaineers and they go every year .  He knows of no incidents of anyone breaking into parked cars.  The area as you’ll see on the web site is  a visual and hiking wonderland.  Spend at least 2 nights. Reservations should be sought now for this and the next option. 

Canadian Mountain Holidays operate high end alpine lodges for winter heli-skiing and summer heli-hiking. There is a parking lot near Spillimachen south of Golden where you can leave your car and be helicoptered into Bugaboo and Bobbie Burns Lodges.  Both Dartmouth and Stanford include these trips on their alumni travel programs.  It is an expensive 3-6 day stay (see the web site for options), but you will remember the experience years after paying the bill.

Golden is an uninteresting railroad town, but you’ll find many exciting nearby activites on the city’s web site.  The chair lift up the Kicking Horse ski area reveals fabulous scenery and up top is a nice spot for lunch.  There is also a Grissly Bear preserve on the mountain.  Just north of town there’s a small wolf preserve.  You can call ahead and book a one-two hour hike with 2-3 wolves.  The wolves think the lady who runs the preserve is the “Alpha” and she can control them.  I think Rothwilda has closed the Capristo Mountain Lodge (a very nice B&B) south of town. We’ve never spent a night in Golden other than there so I don’t know where else to recommend.  The Cedar House Chalet nearby is, in our opinion, one of Canada’s finest restaurants.  There is a sign on the road about 5 miles south of town directing you to it.

You can reach Whistler from Lake Louise in one day but why do it and miss everything in between.  The time change is at Roger’s Pass. Building the highway and railway here was a monumental achievement.  I know the engineer who did the rail track.  There is a lot of daylight in summer up North. Below are three recommendations for a one night stay in between.

Predator Ridge is a golf resort near Vernon.  It has very nice hotel, condominium, spa, and dining accommodations.  When we were there last year, we found the service to be excellent.

Stoney Lake Lodge on Douglas Lake Ranch is their high end facility.  They have world class trout fishing but the lake water becomes too warm for fishing after July 1.  Douglas Lake Ranch is the largest working cattle ranch in Canada.  You can get there by a major highway but a more interesting way is to the take the gravel ranch road which starts near Westwold for Douglas Lake This road crosses the entire ranch and is in fine shape.
Another option at Douglas Lake are some family sized remote Yurts.  However, for a one night stay, the comfortable and small Stoney Lake Lodge is probably preferable.  There are two very nice “tourist stores”.  One is the ranch’s general store in Douglas Lake.  The other is in Quilchena.

The Corbett Lake Country Inn is a small 1950s rural lakeside inn with signs in the bathrooms asking you not to clean your fish in the tub.  The owner/operator is Peter McVey who is an excellent fly fisherman, chef, and host.  We have not been there for 10 years but Barbara’s sister and her husband stayed a night there enroute from Calgary to Seattle in 2006 and loved it.

Get to Whistler via Lillooet and the Duffey Lake Road.  Sheep are often seen in the Spence’s Bridge area where there are interesting rock formations. The 70 miles from Liilooet to the Indian village of Mount Currie is very pretty and has no habitation.  There are hiking spots along the way including Joffre Lakes Park.

If you are ready for lunch when you get to Pemberton, our recommendation is the pro shop at the Big Sky Golf Club.  The view of Mount Currie from their porch is terrific.
The lady who built the golf club financed it by using her winnings from the Irish Sweepstakes about 25 years ago.

Don’t go straight through Pemberton to Whistler.  Take a little longer and drive up valley for half an hour and turn around and come back.  The Pemberton Valley is very beautiful.  Until Whistler was built, the ranches were only accessible except by small planes during Winter.

From Pemberton,  it’s 30-40 minutes south to Whistler.  Whistler has a very many varied places to stay and dine.  True, it is Rocky Mountain urban, but it is user friendly and the main village is basically pedestrian.  There are many places which will be very satisfactory to you.  I recommend Chateau Whistler by Fairmont.  Their accommodations and location are excellent.  One cannot run out of things to do.  Again, there is heli-hiking.  We did that 3 years ago with another couple and it more than fulfilled our hopes and expectations.  You can take the lift up to the top with skis, bikes, or hiking shoes.  There is morning skiing on the glaciers and wonderful hiking either on top or by walking down.  A service road for mountain bikes comes from the top to the bottom. There is swimming, canoeing, golf, tennis, ice skating, paragliding etc. etc.  The village scene is very European and plaza side dining combines good food and people watching.  We like the Rimrock Café which is a ten minute drive from the center of town.  It has outside and inside seating and features sea food and martinis.  I believe you can also charter a float plane from Whistler to April Point near Campbell River for day fishing.  We have not done that but the flight itself would be lovely.

Heading South for Vancouver you’ll run into one of the biggest jobs Peter Kiewet has ever undertaken.  They are preparing the highway to handle traffic during the Olympics.  Expect delays.  It’s a very pretty 2.5 hour drive.   Just outside and south of Squamish is an enormous climbing rock.  With binoculars you can watch the intrepid climbers.

In Vancouver, we favor Fairmont’s Waterfront Centre because I was part of its development team.  On the other hand, Vancouver has many excellent hotels and restaurants.  The Pan Pacific Hotel on the waterfront across from Waterfront Centre is a particularly nice hotel in a top location overlooking Coal Harbour and the Cruise Ships which moor next to the hotel.

There are so many things to do and see in Vancouver, I’ll let your Seattle friends take you where they would like to go.  The University of British Columbia does have an excellent Natural History Museum and Stanley Park is world famous.  Granville Island has lots of arty shops and nice places for lunch. Etc. Etc.

Bring clothes that layer well, one waterproof outfit, and hats.  Barb and I find a set of walkie talkies helpful when hiking or wandering around towns.  Cell phones don’t work everywhere.   In addition to a camera, a small pair of binoculars and an altimeter might be considered.  A 4 wheel drive SUV is suggested.

Jack Hodgson