Yes, Happy July, the summer season is in full swing and camping is full on! Lorraine and I hope you all had a great Canada Day and for our southern Brethren, we wish them a happy Fourth! So much has happened since our June update so let me get into it.
The Back in June we had our second trip of the season to Castle falls Provincial Park. Within this park there are four campgrounds, Beaver Mines Lake, Castle Falls, Castle River, and Lynx Creek; we stayed at the Castle Falls campground. The area is nestled in the eastern slopes of the Rockies and surrounded by beautiful wooded foot hills. The area is really close to Pincher creek (30min) and Beaver Mines (10min) where there is a small General store. Over all the area is one that we will definitely go back to further explore, as we were stuck in our campground without a toad in which to explore with. Castle Falls campground is a three loop campground with a few choice sites sitting next to the river. We were camped in loop 2 at the back nestled into the forest. Other sites were located in glades that were situated throughout the campground. The falls themselves are beautiful and offer a cool respite from the heat of the day as the area can get rather hot and humid. We spent 6 days here and enjoyed every one of them. So did finny as he got swim the Castle River twice a day, so he was a very tired pup after dinner was had.
I was happy that the RV worked perfectly, no issues! The fridge modifications I made last month worked very well keeping our fridge near 0c even in the heat of the day. I even got to use the Solar array but only for a few hours a day, but it sure helped in charging the batteries. The new steering stabilizers I had installed on the rig back in May really came into play on this trip as the drive was 3.5 hrs of very straight road until we came to Fort McLeod, then it was a right and into coulee country as we drove towards pincher creek. The RV drove like the Jeep even in the windy areas I was so happy and impressed.
The drive over all was very pleasant and paved all the way to the access road of the park. The access road though was a different story. 7km of washboard gravel, so be prepared to drive slow and be rattled a bit. Look for a review of this campsite in the trip Gallery coming soon.
In July we will again be heading off to a new location St. Mary Reservoir. This place has been recommended to us so we decided we would check it out. It is supposed to be a great place to sit and soak up the sun and float on the river or on the lake. The sites have power so we will be able to run the Air conditioner and not have to rely on the Generator or Solar. This place lies along the Hwy 2 in Alberta near the town of Cardston and close to the US/Can Boarder. This trip will be the final shake down trip prior to us heading to the west coast at the end of August.
As you may know I have been trying to plan a trip to Tofino to meet up with my daughter to celebrate her 30th Birthday. In the year of COVID this has not been an easy feat to say the least. What with travel restrictions cancelled bookings due to Government directives, and Ferries that refused RV bookings and out of town travelers, it has been a challenge to try and plan ahead. Through perseverance and lot of searching and a few phone calls I have managed to book our trip to Tofino. This trip will be different than previous trips to the coast as we will be utilizing all private campgrounds along the way, and at our two destinations Nanaimo and Tofino BC. Provincial campgrounds were out of reach to me this year as there was a booking ban on out of province travelers until July 8th. I felt I could not wait that long and I was right! I started trying to book back in April for Tofino which I was successful – barely! And I have played the cancelation game at two other campgrounds in Nanaimo where I just succeeded in getting the week I needed. So I am now fully booked while on Vancouver Island and yesterday I was able to book my transit sites for the trip between Calgary and Vancouver Island. So the trip is planned. The only downside is that the transit trips between Calgary and the Island will be very long days, at least 12hrs one way. Why? Well try as I might I could not find a campground that was not booked solid until October in Kamloops BC or Surrounding areas. Kamloops is my half way point when I travel to Vancouver Island, and is usually perfect for stopping for a day or two to recharge before making the push to the coast; but try as I might, no sites were to be found. So instead I will have to traverse the Coquihalla Hwy to Hope before I can pull in to a campground that just happened to have an available site to stay for a day or two on both my transit days. In Order to get these sites, I had to check websites and make phone calls almost daily for the last two months! I suppose that is not bad, but boy is camping popular! And are sites hard to come by! I know that Provincial systems are also full as many of our friends had expressed their frustrations with trying to book a site, and amazement that we had sites to go to. Lorraine keeps threatening to rent me out to her friends to help them get organized for the camping season.
Calgary has just finished going through a heat wave that lasted 8 days. As I am writing a thunderstorm is blowing through which has dropped our temperature from 34c to a muggy 22c. For the past seven days our day time highs have been around 37c which is pretty unheard of here in Calgary. Lorraine and I were lucky, we had two window air conditioners in storage, so when we got back to Calgary from Castle Falls I went and retrieved them and installed them in our house. It made a huge difference giving us a nice comfortable 20c in the house during the worst of it outside. Many people including my Son were not so lucky, and had to suffer through it. It got so bad here that you could not even by a kiddie pool let alone a fan or air conditioner. Unheard of Heat!
The countdown is on again with 15 days till we leave for St Mary Reservoir there will be lots to do between now and departure day. Time to break out the checklists and get started once again prepping the RV for travel. I must admit I don’t mind fussing over my Rig and even enjoy doing the cleaning and maintenance.
Well till the net update,
Happy Trails,
The Glampurs
A Couple of photos from our Castle Falls Trip
