Bloganagan

Grandma Wears Hiking Boots – Preview

Shuswap

About this time every year for the last three years, I've kicked myself. I wake up one morning in late August or early September, the air has a new tingle and there's maybe just a tinge of yellow in the poplars. That's when I know I've blown it – again. Another entire summer's slipped by and I haven't managed to squeeze in my annual trip to the Shuswap.

Cathedral Park & Cathedral Lakes Lodge

Picture a middle-aged woman in multi-pocketed safari shorts, festooned in backpack and cameras, flinging wide her arms and bursting into a spontaneous chorus of The Sound of Music. Okay, so I didn’t actually sing, but only out of deference to the sensibilities of resident small creatures.

St. Peter’s may be bigger and St. Paul’s more historic, but I think the world's most beautiful cathedral is right here in Southern BC. Encompassing 33,000 hectares of pristine wilderness in the transition zone between the North Cascades and the Okanagan Mountains, Cathedral Provincial Park is a place of spiritual beauty.

Meadows in the Sky Parkway

The flower show starts the minute we pull off the Trans-Canada and pass through the Mount Revelstoke National Park gate. With July giving way to August, the season is nearing its peak. My travel-and-life partner, Bruce, and I are here specially to take in the Meadows in the Sky Parkway, a 26-kilometre paved road whose switchbacks lead right to the mountain summit. This is the only place in the national park system (or anywhere else in the country that I know of) where you can drive a private vehicle in such comfort to a mountaintop.

Magical Shuswap

The Okanagan is a super place, but that doesn't mean I'm chained to the valley. I just love to jump in the car and hit the blacktop - or gravel. Bruce and I are big into road trips around BC's Southern Interior. If it looks like logging roads are on the program, we take his 4-Runner, otherwise we opt for maxi-mileage with my little Corolla, Snow White.

Sometimes we just head out on our own, other times our road trips involve assignments (I know, life's a bitch!). I feel especially hard done by every year when I have to start gathering stories and photos for Okanagan Life's Magical Shuswap Guide. Although I structure the guide as a four-day getaway, it always takes several trips to track down the people and pics I need.

My first guide, in 2006, was a typical summer extended long weekend that took in the sights south of Shuswap Lake that are easily accessible from the Trans-Canada Hwy. Download magical_shuswap_2006.pdf. Last year, the 2007 guide used the town of Sicamous at the eastern end of the region as a base camp and suggested autumn daytrips in both directions along the TCH. Download magical_shuswap_2007.pdf.

I've finished the research for the 2008 guide. This year we're going natural, camping, hiking and fishing our way around the lake. I'll post a link when it's published in late spring. Meanwhile, if you're planning a Shuswap houseboating excursion or letting the kids loose at a Shuswap lodge or even looking at jumping into the hot real estate market, download the PDFs and check out the things I love about the Shuswap.