Looking for RV Campsites in the Canadian Rockies!

Hi everyone, Gordon here, and I'm just at the van doing a few sort of last minute items before we head out on our next trip. I wanted to mention though that the video you're about to watch is actually the continuation of our trip over the August long weekend to the Canadian Rockies. But since that time, and probably a week since we've gotten back, the weather conditions or the wildfire conditions in British Columbia have again grown significantly worse. There's been additional wildfires that have increased significantly due to high winds, particularly in the interior of British Columbia, other areas where there's been additional wildfires because of dry lightning, so a very challenging time. And right now, yesterday actually, the Premier of the province had said that there's 15,000 homes that have been evacuated, tens of thousands that are under evacuation notice, and they're asking people not to travel to areas that are impacted by the wildfires, which makes a lot of sense. So we wanted everyone to be aware of that. Today is actually August 19th, and we're hopeful that as we near the end of August that the weather will improve and that it'll help assist all the individuals that are currently dealing with the wildfires and hopefully people will be able to go home safely. But in the interim, we just wanted to raise this point so everyone's aware. So with all that in mind, we hope you enjoy our trip through the Canadian Rockies. So we just picked up a few groceries in Clearwater, and we're on our way out to Mt. Robson, taking Highway 5 north. Well, unfortunately, there are no campsites available at Robson Meadows. It's a Sunday of a long weekend, so not really surprising, and they only have about 20 first come, first serve sites. So we're just going to go over to the Lucerne campground and see if they have any available. They only have six first come, first serve, so we're not that optimistic. So we may have to start heading towards Jasper to see if we can find anything. The Lucerne campground in Mt. Robson Park was beautiful, with some sites right next to the water. But unfortunately, there are no sites available. So we decided to head towards Jasper, 36 kilometers or 22 miles away, to see if we have any luck finding a campsite. The notice board after the park's Canada checkpoint indicated all reservable campgrounds were full, but the overflow campgrounds still had sites. So we decided to head over there. Unfortunately, the rain was short-lived. To get to the overflow campground, head north on Highway 16, past the Jasper town site, turn left at Snaring Road, go past the Snaring Campground, then turn right onto Celestine Lake Road. I got up this morning, went out, did a little bit of exercise, my rockin' walk, went down to the river. In the meantime, I enjoyed my morning coffee, looking at all the beautiful mountains all around me. Okay, so we're just doing our departure checklist. Just to make sure everything's in order before we leave. Just have it on my lists here, on my iPhone. So, put away all the loose items, which you've done, except for Finch, who is wandering about. He's using his scratch post. Wallets. You have your wallet there? I do. Propane tank. Closed. Awning in. Yes. Lithium batteries are on and working. Washroom door's secure. All the cupboard doors look good. Power step is on. This is an important one. Backway levelers, we'll have to take those out, we just put some in last night. Van doors are closed. Check the exterior, we don't really need to, we didn't put anything out there. All lights are off, except we usually have one light on. Air conditioning furnace off. I saw it was on this morning. Yeah, it was off. Hot water heaters, never been turned on. The fan's off. And the controller's in the drawer. Our thermostat is inside. We have all our cameras. Gordon has his sunglasses up front. I look cool. Truckie's up front. There's nothing on the toilet, I just checked. We have our cell phones. Finch's litter box is outside. We have snacks and water. Our hiking RV mat's in. And that's it. We're good to go. And Finch is ready to go. He's in his bed this time. The views are spectacular here. Oh my goodness. You're entirely surrounded by mountains. Beautiful, rocky mountains. This wooden shed has the drinking water. There's two gigantic bats in there. What we did yesterday was we self-registered here. It's like $16.25 or 75 cents per night. And of course we didn't have change, so we put in $20. But they also take a credit card number that you can fill out. I didn't have my credit card with me when I walked by, so I just had to pay $20 cash. They get a tip. What we found is in at least the national parks, the staff are always great. They don't get the tip, of course, but just a big shout-out to the national park staff. It's like it's their house. So I'm always so pleased in dealing with them. Yeah, and the washrooms, the pit toilets didn't stink. No, they're actually amazingly nice. Yeah, they were actually clean and blue toilet paper and antibacterial spray, so... Look at the views here. Oh my goodness. It's a little smoky this morning. I think the smoke has blown its way out. So we're just heading over to Jasper Town site now. And on the Internet there's one bar of LTE here, but you can't download much of anything. So we're going to go over there, get some gas, check out the status everywhere we go, and then we'll decide which way we start returning back. So we're at the Jasper Town site now. And we're just actually on the outskirts of town, so you're going to hear some traffic go by. So last night we came in. Quick one-night stay just to pop in and have a pretty good chance of being able to get a place to stay. I think it rates pretty highly. If you're one of the nicer campsites, you might want to spend several days there. I really enjoyed it. It was quiet. Other than there are train tracks, the more east you are in the campground. We didn't find it too bad, but you do hear it. Yeah. And then the other option for overflow camping is if you're in a self-contained RV, you can also go to the Icefield Centre. And they actually... I think it's probably like a parking lot, but apparently there's quite a few spots there too. So if you're desperate to find a spot to stay, like we were on a long holiday weekend... But that's quite a bit farther of a drive. The overflow here is basically 15 minutes out of Jasper, the town. The Icefields Parkway, where we've had some of our viewers stay, I quite like it actually. I don't know, maybe an hour and a half, I'm guessing. Yeah, an hour and a half, two hours from here. It's nice. We really like the town of Jasper. It's nice. It's not too busy. And we literally... I was sitting here looking out the window, parked a couple blocks back, and a small bear ran right in front of the van and then cut across the grass to cut across some of the railway tracks behind us. Yeah, we might have captured just the back of him. So if we did, we'll put it in here. I just wasn't quick enough. Because I literally thought it was a big dog running across the road. And then I looked, and it's like, oh no, it's a bear. And it's literally five feet. I don't know what he was doing in town, but he was getting the heck out of there as quickly as he could. Okay, so what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Our biggest issue is just how we can start to head home and avoid the smoke that's throughout most of British Columbia because there are a lot of areas having to deal with all the issues around wildfires. So we don't know. Our fastest way home... Is the way we came. The other way we could do it is to do the Icefields Parkway, which is probably, and if you've seen our previous video, one of the nicest drives you can do in Canada. It's just amazing. But it's smokey out, and it seems the farther south we go, the smokier it gets, particularly in British Columbia. Yeah, we're just going to have to... Wing it. So we couldn't resist heading down the Icefields Parkway. It's really hard when you're doing a trip to have to go back the way you came in. It's nicer to do a circuit. So we'll see how the conditions are. We did check, and damn, it will be hazy just like this. We decided to check out the Kirkesland Campground, which is still in Jasper National Park. And there are 42 unserviced first-come-first-served sites. Some are next to the river and look really nice. The haze makes the mountains look like they're watercolor paintings. So this is it. It's basically a parking lot. Full of mostly Canada dreams. Yeah, the rentals, and cruise Canadas, and adventurers. Yeah, I'm assuming you can just stop here and stay the night. Or you can just park here. Yeah, look at the view you get if you park. Yeah. One thing's for certain, the views are amazing, even if it's a parking lot. So this is the Wilcox Campground that we stayed at previously, and we'll link the video for that trip here. Crossing over to Banff National Park. As we expected, the further south we drove towards Lake Louise in Banff, the hazier it became. Bow Lake, however, was as majestic as always. After a quick detour in Banff for gas, we took Highway 93 south and headed towards Kootenay National Park and the BC provincial border. We actually pulled in for a one-night stop at Moyee Park, where we've stayed before. And I apologize if you can hear a little bit of traffic noise. I'm just down by the lake, and there's a big hill right across that you can hear traffic going up and down. It's about 8 o'clock in the morning mountain time, because we're still in the mountain time zone. Just about to cross back into Pacific. Mickey's still in the van, probably having a coffee right now. I came down to the lake just to see the lake. And it's a beautiful little spot. This campground is a real family-oriented campground. It's also one of those BC parks that has private residences as part of it. So the whole area is not parked. Some of it is actually some private landholders who I guess are lucky enough to live in a park. So we're going to head back. We came in here last night. We were still a little worried that we hadn't been able to avoid the smoke. But if you can see, it's not bad. Just some light haze. So it was a good choice to come sort of far south and then back along the U.S. border effectively. At least it looks like a good choice so far. We'll see how the rest of the day goes. So we're going to have an early start this morning. And it's about roughly a 9-hour drive for us to get home. And I don't think we're going to do that long. I think we'll probably break it in parts. Either stay somewhere maybe around the Kill Valley area or possibly go a little bit farther and stay at Manning Park and finish our trip sort of where we started. We'll see how the day goes. Just on the trail here. It goes back to the campsite. One of the things we do like about this park is that I think a large percentage of the campsites are first come, first serve. Which really suits folks like us who don't really like to travel on a schedule and aren't too sure where we're going to be depending on the weather or how long we want to stay somewhere. So a big plus for us not having to make reservations. The other funny thing about this campsite if you followed our journey this time in this trip this is actually probably the loudest campsite we've stayed in despite the fact we were at Sun Peaks and then at the Overflow in Jasper. And of course Wells Gray was super quiet. But it's a family campsite so there's tons of people here. Lots of people out enjoying being in the outdoors. But once it gets dark the noise settles down very quickly. And they had a good shower building so Mickey and I took advantage of having a couple long showers which was very pleasant. On the road we've actually been doing some simple breakfasts. Not taking out the stove to cook since we want to get going. And Gordon is having some yogurt with blueberries and nuts this morning. And Finch wants to go for a walk. And I'll probably have some cereal. Nice and quick. Oh that's all dirty. It takes Finch a little while to get comfortable enough to step out of the van. He's a very cautious guy. As we drove through the communities of Greenwood, Midway and Rock Creek we noticed that the temperatures were still pretty high and it was still early in the afternoon so we decided to press on. As we passed through the town of Osoyoos we could still see some smoke from some of the remaining fires on the hillside. The red retardant on the road shows how close the fire got to the highway. So happy to see clear skies. We're actually heading towards Manning. Sort of back where we started except this time we're in Manning Park at Mule Deer. Who's out there? Our last morning breakfast. And it's our last day in our trip. Part of that is because the skies are blue. You'll be able to see that. No smoke. We actually changed camping spots. We're in spot number one. It just is a beautiful spot. Although the picnic table is on the wrong side for our van the way we would normally park it. It's just really nice here. It's like we have our own little park. And Mickey likes it because we're not too far from the washrooms or the garbage. So we're actually in Mule Deer Campground. Which is actually probably... I don't know. We really like it here. We like Cold Spring because we can do a short hike from there and a longer hike. But this is just a nice campground. Unfortunately we're kind of near the highway. There's only one campsite and then the road. But last night it was really really quiet. Nice end to our trip. So you can see the river is actually quite brown here. And when we were coming back and we were driving through the Princeton area the river looked like a river of mud. So we're not sure what's happened to create such brown water. It was the same yesterday when we were coming up. And a week ago of course it was nice and sort of green here. Clear and looked beautiful. I just asked the park operator. They weren't aware that the river was brown. So they weren't sure why. We're all packed up and ready to go. Heading home after one week of travel. Just a little over a week. We really enjoyed the second half of our loop. If you watched the first part where we started at Manning. And then we went ultimately to Sun Peaks. Then to Wells Gray. And then to Jasper. And then back down. It was nice. It was a lot more RVing. Less hiking on this particular trip. But that was somewhat dependent on the weather. And the smoke actually was the real challenge. Very nice trip. I really enjoyed it. It was nice seeing a lot of the areas. And again some of them we're going to go back to. Probably my highlight was Wells Gray. I just really liked it there. Yeah the campsite was great. Very peaceful. Very very peaceful. I think that was the best campsite that we had. But then it's understandable given the other ones that we've been to. And you've seen those. Yeah although we really enjoyed everywhere we've been. It's been a nice trip. So if you enjoyed this video. Please be sure to give us a thumbs up. And subscribe to our channel if you haven't done so already. And we'll see you next time. See you next time. I think he actually wants to drive. Music.