Jun 26 2008
RV Adventure, Day 11: Kamloops to Vancouver
We awoke to the polar opposite of the weather we had left behind the night before - it was now warm and sunny, and the winds were virtually calm.
With little to do at the campground we were not long hitting the road again after breakfast and coffees.
Between Kamloops and Vancouver lied todays challenge - the Coquihalla. For the initiated, the Coquihalla is a toll road that is the preferred option for the last stretch into Vancouver, but is also famous for it’s extreme grade. Peaking at 1300 meters (4200 feet) at the top it’s not necessarilly the height that’s impressive, but the fact that it drops to only 200 meters (650 feet) in the period of about 25 kilometers. At it’s peak it’s an 8.5% grade, which for heavy vehicles can be a challenge to descend. I was looking forward to the challenge, and I was hoping that our truck would behave itself on the way down since we do weight a considerable sum.
At the top of large grades (while driving a heavy vehicle) one must slow down and select a lower gear to allow the engine to perform some braking on the way down - if you relied on your brakes alone they would quickly overheat and become useless, then making you a candidate for requiring one of the many emergency “Run-Away” lanes that although will stop you, will leave your vehicle in rough shape to say the least.
Thankfully the Coquihalla decent went extremely well. Like Rogers Pass on the way up it seemed endless at times, but the truck held back well with almost exclusively engine braking alone, only requiring me to bleed off speed with the brakes on two occasions, making for a very safe run down the hills.
In an effort to avoid the significant additional fuel tax in the city of Vancouver itself we made one last fuel stop on the eastern outskirts of the city to fuel up, and then the last trek into the city.
From here west the roads become noticeably flat again as you make your way down to almost sea level, marking our arrival in Vancouver. Over 4,300 Kilometers later, we have arrived at the western termination of our trip. Welcome to Vancouver!
With the trailer in tow our options for sightseeing in the city were nil, so we headed directly to our chosen campground in North Vancouver. It turned out to be a vastly different experience then what one would consider a traditional campground, instead providing paved pads to park upon, full hookups, and even cable TV. Unsurprisingly, for an urban campground the sites were fairly tight together, making extending our awning a challenge as it nearly touched the living-room slides of our neighbors to the east, but in the end it worked.
As we were unhooking and unpacking we met our friendly neighbors to the West who actually lived only 30 minutes from us in Ontario. It’s a small world!
With much of the day now having passed we opted to simply relax at the campground for the evening instead of trying to rush any activities, and the day wore on. The weather was still quite pleasant (although a bit warmer would have been nice), but considering the fact that the locals had reported that up until today it had been dismally cold and rainy, we once again felt lucky to have brought the nice weather with us.
After the kids were off to bed we sat outside and chatted with our neighbors for what must have ended up being a few hours, and then retired for the night.