2010 - Monday, July 5 (Canada)

BC and Alberta, Canada
MEM-YVR, YEG-MEM
July 1 - 9

• Woke up, packed, and left camp around 9 AM. We were planning a long travel day (about 7 hours), so we wanted to get on ASAP.
• Crossed the Continental Divide around 11 AM and continued on via highway 3 to Cranbrook. Had lunch at Cancun Mexican Restaurant, owned by an El Salvadorian man. Lunch was good, and inexpensive (16$).
• Stopped in Canal Flats, in the Kootenay River Valley, for gas (45$). Once past Canal Flats, we pulled off the highway for a photo of Columbia Lake. We drove up on a sandy pull off (may or may not have private property) to the top of a massive plateau-like overlook. Below was a coal train, running alongside the lakeshore.
• We arrived in Radium Hot Springs, BC and stopped at a visitor center there to look up some places to camp. We had tried unsuccessfully to find a place on our own and we weren't willing to settle for RV campers as neighbors. Radium Hot Springs is a very commercialized town, with resorts and parks and motels focusing on what we call the "RV version" of outdoor adventure. Not really our style. We were given a couple maps by the rangers and pointed toward Briscoe via BC 95 Hwy. We drove through Crown Land (similar to BLM land in the States) forest for about 1.5 hours trying to find a place to camp. We had a specific place in mind, but we were going from a map that was not to scale. Most of the forest roads were logging roads and were not marked well, if at all. In addition, the roads were dirt and extremely rough. We were following behind some locals in a pickup truck and at one point they had stopped along the side of the road. We pulled up and asked what they were looking at (like nosy Americans should do) and they pointed out a small black bear in the woods, about 20 meters from the road. First bear sighting of the year! We kept driving a while longer then ran into the same people again, this time going the opposite way. They directed us to the Twin Lakes camping and recreation area that we were looking for initially. We ended up finding it, but decided to go a bit farther and came across Dunbar Lake and campground. There was no one camped out, so we felt like this was a perfect place to stop for the night and pitched the tent. It ended up being one of our favorite places that we've ever camped - definitely comparable to Bowman Lake campsite at Glacier National Park exactly 5 years prior (to the day). Amazing view of the lake (camped on the shore) with a great sunset that went down directly across the lake behind the mountains, some of which were still covered in snow. The lake was crystal clear. We had a great fire and played a few games of Chinese Checkers and drank a lot of beer and wine.
• Dinner was chicken, potatoes, and corn
• Mileage: 496 km today; 1216 km total
• Temperature ranged from 8 C to 21 C.