Saturday, July 18 Logging, Fruit and Revelstoke

 Sat. July 18

There is low mist this morning as we continue south, towards Revelstoke.  

We stop at local Tim Horton's for some breakfast pastries.  Have seen a few of these restaurants in the Northwest as I understand they have been moving into the US.

We follow along the Thompson River for quite a while.  Farms, ranches, irrigation equipment and an occasional farm stand.  Very few places to pull over, so few photos.

Small forestry exhibit

Lumber is big business.  We pass logging trucks and lumber yards.  Some have logs and others have processed the logs to cut lumber.   At one place there are many logs  in the river - being transported, we guess.  I don't think they do this in the US any longer.

Later we pass trainloads of lumber, some logs, some wrapped lumber.

Another interesting sign in this mountainous area.

Next stop is Fruit World.  A huge produce stand with  an amazing amount of fruit, mostly local but also some foreign goodies like dragonfruit.  We still have cherries from last shopping, but buy a couple of peaches.  It all looks good! Wish we had one of these by home. 

First we stop at Revelstoke dam for a brief visit and tour.  There are 14 dams on the Columbia River and this is one of the three in Canada. It is 574' high with several penstocks (the big tubular structures that collect and carry water), completed in 1984.

There are some guys dangling on the cliffs adjacent to the dam, and we later learn that they are beginning work on an expansion that is scheduled for 2030.  They are checking for stability and where things need to be reinforced.

Nolan, our tour guide, is good.  There are about a dozen of us on the tour.  We learn that this plant has flexible generation, depending on demand.  No storage here, though they are working on developing battery storage elsewhere.

One issue which is only touched on when someone asks, is the dam's disruption of the migration of salmon and subsequent effect on First Nations people.  There are no fish ladders here to bypass the dams, like we saw in Alaska.

From the dam,  we go find the "Meadows in the Sky Drive" which will take us up Revelstoke Mountain.  We have to wait a little bit at the entrance,  as they only allow a certain number of cars on the drive.  

The first stop is a trail to a ski jump where famous Canadian Nels Nelson set multiple records.

Next is  about an endangered salamander...  Have never seen this sign before!  No sign of salamanders in the small stream.  We continue upward.

The Columbia River View Point is beautiful.

There is a busy parking lot near several trails which lead to the summit.  So we park here and hike upward.  Lots of pretty wildflowers and a few ponds as we take the Parapets Trail to some wonderful views. And wow, does the air smell wonderful with a hint of pine.

Canada has placed a pair of red chairs at scenic spots in parks around the country.

After the Summit we hike back to the Trek and wind our way slowly back down.  We settle on the Lamplighters Campground which is in an area of town called The Big Eddy.  When we first phoned them, they had two spots.  Beth wasn't sure, looked around and called them back and left a message that we wanted a spot.  When we got there, she had just given away the last spot - hadn't listened to messages yet. 

 But she found us an overflow spot that wasn't bad and had 15amp electric.  They did have decent showers and a train that wasn't too far (not far enough) away.  The silver lining to having poor hearing and hearing aids is that when you take them out to go to bed, you don't hear that much!