Whither Shall We Wander?

We're currently in Blue River, BC and have to be in Los Angeles on the morning of 19th August to drop the bike off for shipping home.

We're thinking about going to Vancouver Island and have Crater Lake, Mt. St. Helens, hopefully a ride-in appointment with Rick Mayer which I guess will take a day, a visit to someone in St. Raphael (Hi Don if you're here) and a route down the coast with a detour into Crater Lake.

We have little bit of slack in our schedule and a couple of questions.

1) Is Vancouver Island worth the ferry ride? (we're a bit concerned about finding accommodation there as it's peak season but if it's worth the trip we'll hopefully find something).

2) Are there any other must-see places we should have on our route back?

Thanks.

Kevin

I did it because it was 5000 points in a rally and only visited for an hour. It would be something I would want to spend multiple days to amortize the $45 USD each way (what I remember on my credit card) expense. The TCH through Kelowna reason, Banff and variety of other place in Washington would be my first go-tos if you haven't been already.

+1

Vancouver Island is a great place to visit with a very interesting ferry ride but not something I would try to do in a day. As mentioned, Kelowna area, Banff (also Jasper and Kootenay regions of South-Central BC). The Cascades in Washington. No end of GREAT stuff to see in that part of the continent!!

Have a wonderful trip!

Ross

Ignacio said:

I did it because it was 5000 points in a rally and only visited for an hour. It would be something I would want to spend multiple days to amortize the $45 USD each way (what I remember on my credit card) expense. The TCH through Kelowna reason, Banff and variety of other place in Washington would be my first go-tos if you haven't been already.

Click to expand...

You've been in a rally? That explains the haircut! Has your head recovered yet?

RossKean said:

+1Vancouver Island is a great place to visit with a very interesting ferry ride but not something I would try to do in a day. As mentioned, Kelowna area, Banff (also Jasper and Kootenay regions of South-Central BC). The Cascades in Washington. No end of GREAT stuff to see in that part of the continent!!

Have a wonderful trip!

Ross

Click to expand...

We stayed in Banff last night and have just come up through the Icefields Parkway which was fabulous. I struggled a bit with 'TCH' until my brain started working and now have Kelowna as a waypoint in Mapsource. I shall Google the Cascades to see where they are. Thanks both.

Kevin

Okanagan is a great place to ride, but imo Kelowna is not. Traffic is pretty brutal all year round, and especially during tourist season.

There are many nice little secondary highways in the Okanagan/Similkameen/Southern Interior. Check out Google maps, and select the 'avoid highways' option.

I'm an Island boy, born and raised in Victoria, so I may be prejudiced, but you'd have to force me at gunpoint to endure that boring ferry ride even one more time.

Vancouver Island is nice enough, but Victoria is just another big-ish city now, and exploring the best parts of the island would take far longer than you have available.

Here are a few suggestions. I've ridden many, but not all, of these: https://www.bestbikingroads.com/motorcycle-roads/motorbike-rides-in-canada-/british-columbia--___13400.html

Beep if you're riding past my place on hwy 3a west of Hedley..

silver spirit said:

Okanagan is a great place to ride, but imo Kelowna is not. Traffic is pretty brutal all year round, and especially during tourist season.

<snip>

Click to expand...

I didn't see this until just now and we're in Omak. As you suggested, Kelowna was pretty crap. It seemed huge with traffic lights every 20' and all of them bar three were red! Vernon was busy as was Osynoos but the traffic wasn't bad apart from that and the scenery was really nice.

Thanks for the BBR link but we're now back in the US.

Kevin