Our Top 5 RV Campgrounds in BC for 2021

Hi everyone. So we are still in our sticks and bricks. We haven't been traveling much in our van and that is really due to the weather situation in BC. As well as some travel restrictions. If you watched our last video there's still a lot of the highways that are closed and they're asking people not to travel unless it's essential and there's some fuel restrictions in place all as a result of the flooding and issues. So we've been at home. Yeah. So in this video we're going to give you a little bit of an update in terms of traveling around in BC right now given this post flooding situation. We'll give you a little update on Finch our new cat and also we are going to talk about our five favorite places campgrounds that we visited this past year in 2021. So we hope you enjoy this video. So travel as we noted at the beginning was has been limited for us. There are requests that people only travel if it's essential. There are some restrictions on fuel consumption or at least on how much fuel you can buy at any one time just as the supply chain issues get corrected. Right now the two of the highways leaving the lower mainland elsewhere in BC are actually open but they are only for essential travel. The two main highways the Coquihalla highway and the highway number one are both closed and they're not expected to open until sometime in January for travel. So we haven't been going too far again not because we haven't necessarily wanted to but the weather hasn't actually been very cooperative either so we've been staying at home. And we have some news we've actually officially adopted Finch our cat. As of about a week ago. Yeah and we're really excited and happy and he's doing really well. We just had our first checkup at the vet yesterday and all the tests came out well and the exam came out well and he's healthy and so we're really happy to have him as a new member of our family officially. Although he's been with us for probably about six weeks. Yeah yeah and he's pretty much taken over the place. There's cat toys everywhere and you may hear him scrambling around and a couple new things. We bought him today and I also want to note you may hear some traffic noise in the background. We apologize for that but just just the way we've got the camera set up this time. So since we're we're home and not traveling much we wanted to take the opportunity to do our top five campgrounds for 2021 a little bit early this year so not after the new year. So we're going to talk about the five places that we really enjoyed going to this year and mainly the campgrounds and the reasons why we really like them. So before we start with any of the sites just to mention a couple things. One is sort of our criteria for selecting the places that we go to. So for us it's it's usually access either from the campground or close to it for either hiking or paddling purposes and no question the weather when we're there really has a big impact if we're somewhere and it's the best place in the world and it's pouring rain the whole time. That trip's not going to make it into our our sort of top five trip and you may have other criteria that are more important to you but for us it's primarily paddling hiking or having access to those areas nearby. Yeah so without further ado we'll start with number five. So fifth on our list and actually we had no problem sorting out you know the order of these for us other than the first two were so close and they could probably be interchanged. Number five was actually an area that we've been to before and you would have seen it previously and that was Marquart Lake. It's in an area near Merritt up in the grasslands and you know it's just a wonderful place. The previous year we were there we were I think in June or the start of July and the grasslands were just covered in flowers wildflowers that were just amazing. This time we actually were there somewhat in I think around the middle of September so it was a little cooler at night the flowers were gone but it was still wonderful. Didn't paddle this time but we did previously on the lakes that are there so it's got access to paddling. We walked on the grassland trails they're not really long hikes they're just you can go for an hour an hour and a half into the grasslands but just a beautiful area. It's a BC recreational site so very I guess the term would be rustic. There's not much in the way of services there's a pit toilet and that's pretty much it. I think it's $15 a night if you stay there. The night we were actually there no one ever came along to collect any fees so for us it was free but normally it'd be $15. So there's no garbage pickup there's no water you have to be completely self-sufficient. I think it's more kind of a classic boondocking kind of situation other than there's a pit toilet. It's a very enjoyable spot and relaxing spot and quiet as well. So number four is Bowron Lake Provincial Park. We actually went up there en route to northern BC in August and we really liked staying there. I think we stayed there for three nights. Not very well known I don't think. The campground was not that busy. No actually it was probably only about 10% filled which was actually kind of nice. Yeah most people go there and they don't actually stay in the campground they'll just park their cars and then do the canoe circuits so a lot of people in the parking lot over there but in the actual front country campground itself it was pretty quiet. It's a really nice campground we really enjoy a particular spot we are in. Again it's somewhat rustic there is a hand water pump there are pit toilets. In terms of other things obviously you're on a canoe circuit and you do limited paddling. You're limited to two different lakes if you're not actually on the formal circuit. Nothing in the way of hiking. It's a short nature trail. It's a kilometer or two. Yeah but you can also hike up to the beginning of the canoe circuit. So very short limited hikes or probably like a walk. The other thing that's really kind of nice about it is you're not that far from Barkerville. It's about a 28 kilometer drive on a gravel road so if you did want to stay at Bowron you could take the road into Barkerville and you know spend the day there and then come back easily enough. The road seemed to be well maintained when we were there. It is gravel and I think when it would be very wet it would be quite muddy. That's what it looked like to me. Anyway a really nice campsite. We really enjoyed being there. So number three in our list was actually on Vancouver Island. The Campbell River area and it was the BC Hydro campground. It was in part for us what was really enjoyable was first of all we were pretty certain we weren't going to get a campsite for that night. So to suddenly find one open up there was somewhat of a relief for us. And then it was a beautiful site. We were you know just a little ways away from the lake. New campsite so everything's very pleasant. Again it's rustic in the sense that there's limited services just pit toilets. Nothing really from the campsite itself to hike from but you're right on the lake so paddling's easy and of course you're right at the start of Strathcona Park. You couldn't ask for probably a nicer area to go hiking. Yeah it's a good base camp and one of our neighbors was saying that they were actually going to venture further up north but then they decided to just stay there because they love their campsite so much. Yeah they actually ended up staying an extra week I think and so the campsite's free. It's covered. BC Hydro is one of the services along with the local forest company. They provide the campsite for free which is great and it's just a beautiful spot. We really enjoyed being there and we also had a guest as you watched the video you would recognize that we had a small bird who became very attached to us and I think any other camper that was there that made it kind of fun as well. Yeah it was a finch and so serendipitously when we saw a finch on the SPCA website we were like wow maybe it's meant to be. They're not related. No. And one finch wouldn't get along with the other. No yeah one finch would probably try to eat the other one. But it was a beautiful spot and we really enjoyed that. Number two was amazing. It was Stone Mountain Provincial Park and we stayed at the Summit Lake campground there. And if you watch that video you're right off the Alaska Highway. Again it's a very rustic campsite. There's only a pit toilet and a hand water pump. What's interesting about the pit toilet is it's actually a composting toilet so it's solar powered. Very nicely done. And the other thing and it's the same with any of the campsites along the Alaska Highway they're close to the Alaska Highway so you may get a little bit of road noise during the day but what we found is that sort of between seven o'clock at night and six in the morning there's virtually no traffic. So it was a wonderful place and we had a creek behind us. You can paddle in the lake and there's several hiking trips you can do right from the campsite itself. So really amazing the northern Rockies. Yeah yeah just it was just beautiful and and the sunrise and sunsets that we saw there basically the mountains were were orange twice during the day and it was just just gorgeous and beautiful so we really enjoyed it. Now it is in northern BC so you know we were there at the end of August beginning of September so it started to cool down at night and the weather started getting a little wetter but we really enjoyed it. The other thing we wanted to mention is that you're in Syria one of our viewers mentioned this actually you're in serious bear country there so you really want to be bear aware and probably take with you some bear deterrents like bear spray or air horns. That's what we usually take just to be really cognizant that there are grizzly bears there are black bears and you just need to be aware of that when you're going on any of your trips. We'll just mention too that if you're interested in getting more information about the hikes you can stop at the Fort Nelson Visitor Center and they actually have a nice little booklet that details all of the hikes in the area and they have a nice little map and description and the trailhead so a really really handy book that we used quite a bit when we were up there. They also have a free sandy dump for people with RVs yeah a beautiful rec center right there if you needed to shower or want to work out and also they have like a board right at the free sandy dump that tells you which gas stations are open on the Alaska highway between Fort Nelson and basically the border to the provincial border to the Yukon. Yeah and that's important because there are enough gas stations but a couple of them are seasonal and a couple are open all year so the board actually tells you you know where they are and to say whether they're open or not and you know it can vary I mean we were we were there in the first gas station that we passed when we left Fort Nelson we thought we'd fill up again and it was closed it was simply closed because the people had closed for a few hours while they went back into Fort Nelson to buy groceries so you know it's not necessarily going to not every place is going to be open all the time but I think the two major areas which are Toad River and the Muncho Lake area they have services that are open all year so there's and there's usually some food so they have restaurants as well as a gas station so you have that that option. Yeah. So our favorite number one this year was actually Muncho Lake Provincial Park which is literally just you know an hour's drive from probably Summit Lake where we camped and and that was just wonderful we'd we had a campsite right on the lake there are two campgrounds actually at Muncho Lake Provincial Park both have most of the sites on the water the campsite that we were in it was just amazing we had a beautiful view one way of the lake and of the mountains on the other side and then looking back which I think was to the east we had just spectacular mountains and from where we were camped there again some hikes you could do right from where we were not established hikes you just choose your direction and go but even within a few kilometers either way there's a number of hikes that are that are in that book that Mickey referenced in and it's just a beautiful area again the campsite is very rustic there's a hand pump for water there's pit toilets and both at Summit and at Muncho Lake I think the fees per night are $18. We were joking because when we stayed at no one actually came along to collect our fees so so we didn't pay or we weren't able to pay at Summit Lake they have a self-registration so you're able to just when you show up you can put the money in an envelope and deposit it and and so that works out a little bit easier and both campgrounds are first come first serve so you cannot actually reserve there yeah actually Muncho Lake was the only campground that filled up on that entire trip when we went northern BC except actually there were two there was Muncho Lake and Liard River Hot Springs and Muncho it was a weekend when we were there and by the end of the day it had filled up but when we went there earlier in the day like we were there probably early afternoon there were numerous sites available yeah and so you know in northern BC we're just totally blown away by the scenery the people were wonderful too very friendly one of the amazing things in northern BC too is the the wildlife that we saw was just unbelievable yeah it was amazing within like 124 hour period we saw mountain goats deer bison moose and bear yeah and it was just spectacular so yeah we really really enjoyed that fortunately none of those were actually in any of our campsites yeah it was mainly just driving on the highway yeah yeah i think you want to be careful uh depending on when you're driving too just to be cognizant the highways have a lot of cleared area on either side and i think that's to ensure that people can see wildlife if they're about to cross and the wildlife can see you yeah anyways Muncho Lake was just just a beautiful trip and the weather was good starting to get cold but it was still it was still very nice so very pleasant yeah so we'll definitely when we get an opportunity because it's quite a long ways to drive up there but not as long as you think you could do it in a few days if you really if you really wanted to push it yeah when we came home we drove about 700 kilometers each day and that was that was just too long we had you know wanted to be back in the lower mainland for something but i wouldn't recommend it frankly if we were to go up to northern bc and then continue on through the yukon and back down on the other side in the stuart cassiar six weeks would probably be the the best time frame to do it yeah a lot of people that we met on route told us that it's a must see must do hopefully in the future in the near future so i hope you enjoyed our five favorite trips this summer they were actually all in british columbia in primarily in part because of the the impact of the covid restrictions that were in place yeah and the weather and the fires and there was a number of challenges this year hopefully next summer will be much nicer now if you have any favorite trips that you've done or there's any information you want to share about whether it's travel on vancouver island or traveling up to northern bc please give us a comment below we a we love to read the comments and respond and also i know that a lot of viewers uh read other comments and you know get learn something from the advice that you can provide which would be really helpful so so please if you have any suggestions don't hesitate to send us a comment and we look forward to doing some trips in the near future with finch introducing him to the van yeah we actually have a small leash that we're going to train him on see how that goes yeah so in the meantime we're wishing all of you a very holiday season and we will see you next time we'll see you next time