Hiding from bears in Revelstoke

It was worth the eight-hour drive from Vancouver to meet an old friend, Yuka, in Revelstoke. We began our adventure by crawling into the deepest, darkest part of the woods to camp. The carpet of moss that covered the forest floor fascinated Yuka, who had been living in Alberta for years. The alpine vegetation we encountered the next day provided a variable contrast as we hiked up Mt. Revelstoke. What was intended as a two-hour stroll stretched out into a five-hour hike up to a snowy mountain lake.

That evening we camped on a beach with the sunset fading away behind our tent. We couldn’t enjoy the view for long, however, due to the mosquitoes eating us alive. As we tried to sleep, we could have sworn we heard a bear sniffing around. Terrified, we hid under our sleeping bags and shouted nonsense as loud as we could. The next morning, a glowing sunrise over the lake and mountains was not the only thing to greet us as we sat warm in our sleeping bags. A small, fluffy dog approached our tent — we suspected we must have found the bear from the previous night.

We rode The Pipe Mountain Coaster — an outdoor roller coaster shooting down a mountain — and I was sure not to use the handbrake once. The beautiful scenery swirled around me as I zoomed past, going in and out of dense forest. Yuka and I trekked to the middle of nowhere to go bouldering. With the massive crash pad on her back, we tore through thick bush.

After losing the trail and getting lost for hours we resorted to walking along train tracks. We then had multiple Stand By Me moments as we dove out of the way of trains that sped silently around the corner behind us.

Once we found a boulder, Yuka taught me new climbing techniques, including how to fall on the crash pad — arguably the most important of all. With mud and cuts all over my legs and arms, I was grinning on the bus ride home while reflecting on my perfect weekend of adventure in Revelstoke.

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First online Sept. 2, 2016, 3:30 a.m.

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