Revelstoke

I came through Revelstoke on the Trans-Canada in October without planning to stop, which is the classic mistake. The town sits in the Columbia River valley where the river bends north after cutting through the Monashee Mountains, and the setting has a particular drama — the valley floor flat and wide, the mountains going almost vertical on both sides, the river in its braided grey-green channel. I pulled off at a gas station to check my phone and ended up staying two nights. The mountains had something to do with it. The hot springs had something to do with it. Mostly it was the unexpected quality of everything — the coffee, the restaurant on MacKenzie Avenue, the sense of a place that had decided what it was and was not interested in being anything else.

The Meadows in the Sky Parkway is one of BC’s more extraordinary pieces of road engineering: a 26-kilometre switchback that climbs from the valley floor to the Mount Revelstoke summit meadows at 1,938 metres. In late July and August, the meadows above the treeline are a deep carpet of wildflowers — subalpine firs, heather, Sitka valerian, western anemone blooming white in the late-melting snow — and the views from the summit cover a panorama of Interior ranges that goes on longer than you can properly absorb. The road closes with the first serious snowfall, usually October, and reopens when the park service can clear it, usually July. The narrow window makes it feel earned. I drove it on a clear October morning with the valley beginning to show the reds and oranges of the larch season below, stopped at every pullout, and arrived at the top with the sensation of having driven into a different altitude of existence.

The Halcyon Hot Springs, forty kilometres north on Highway 23, occupy a canyon cut by Slippery Bill’s Creek above the Columbia River. The pools are set at different temperatures — coolest at the base, hottest at the top — and in October the steam rises into cold air and the forest above the canyon walls is exactly at peak colour. I sat in the upper pool for an hour with the canyon walls orange around me and the cold air on my face and the hot water doing what hot water does to stiff muscles after a day of driving mountain roads. There are not many better hours I can recommend from this province.

The town itself has made a business of its snowfall record, which is genuine: the Revelstoke Mountain Resort receives an average of 10–12 metres of snow annually, which is among the highest in North America, and the snow here is the dry interior variety that ski instructors describe as champagne powder. The resort operates in winter on the mountain directly above town, with a vertical drop of 1,713 metres — the longest in Canada. In summer, the same lifts carry mountain bikers and hikers. The downtown on MacKenzie Avenue has responded to the resort’s arrival with good food and accommodation, but it retains the character of a railway town — CN Rail still runs through, the train horns audible at night, the roundhouse heritage site marking the days when this was a major divisional point on the transcontinental line.

When to go: Late July and August for the Meadows in the Sky Parkway in full bloom and the mountain biking. October for the fall colour in the Interior ranges and the last days of the Parkway before it closes. December through March for the skiing — book accommodation early, the resort’s reputation means it fills. The Halcyon Hot Springs are at their best in cold weather, which means any time from September onward.