Bella Coola

[markharf]

Just some quick notes for anyone thinking of heading in that direction. A Google search will turn up a couple of far more complete trip reports, so I'm really just trying to cover a few odds and ends which would have helped with my own very haphazard planning.

Basically, I took a ferry to Vancouver Island, rode to Port Hardy, then took more ferries--about US$300 at current exchange rates to Bella Coola for myself and the bike. I spent a few days exploring the Bella Coola area, a few more exploring the Chilcotin and bits of the Whistler-Squamish corridor, and made it back to work a week after departure. None of it was particularly difficult or strenuous except where I deliberately made it so. I haven't even checked my total mileage, but in general I think I clocked an average of 200 miles per day.

Courtney is a surprisingly nice town, with a surprisingly nice hostel (although at $28 US per dorm bed, also surprisingly expensive). The main activity in the area is mountain biking, apparently quite good. Little high end coffee shops and bakeries abound. Then came a long ride to Port Hardy in the rain—not difficult, exactly, but enough to make me wonder afresh about this mode of travel. Port Hardy has a couple of hostels, at least one with adequate private rooms and relatively vast common areas. There are several realistic eating options in town: Canadian cuisine has come a long way since I was a boy and British bland predominated.

The ferry leaves from the BC ferry dock about 6 miles outside Port Hardy. That doesn't sound like a problem, but a 5:30 AM deadline for showing up at the ticket counter (bikes are first on the boat, and bikes bound only as far as Bella Coola are first among the first), meant a 4:30 AM alarm followed by frantic packing in a dark, rainy parking lot, then a half-blind drive in the dark to a chaotic scene as the BC Ferry employees undermined and backstabbed each other trying to stage the boarding.

Ferry passage for myself and the bike: about $300 US, reserved long in advance; they denied that space was available on the earlier August sailings which would have avoided all this wearying rain. They even said that I got the last available space on this one, although there seemed plenty of room on both boats. Maybe just showing up with the bike would be workable...or maybe the sudden onslaught of rains and historic winds gave rise to some cancellations.

The main ferry is huge, comfortable, and (fortuitously) features a few sleeping options, though none comfortable. Sadly, the ride only lasts three or four hours, following which you disembark in Bella Bella--the terminal is named McLaughlin Bay, as if to confuse the sleepy motovaquero. The small boat which delivers you, a couple of locals, plus quite a few European and Asian tourists to Bella Coola is supposed to dock immediately after the large one resumes sailing for Prince Rupert. In fact, this took three hours or more. A quick tour through Bella Bella absorbed 30 minutes of the total; hanging around in the little, uncomfortable waiting room had to account for the rest, since there is not really anyplace else to sit out of the rains which descended during much of that time. There was only so much time I could spend contemplating the leaps of the schooling salmon in the bay.

The little boat on which the next 9 hours would be spent is equipped with a few outdoor areas--windy and rainy--and two indoor cabins featuring narrow, inadequately-cushioned bench seats with signs forbidding lying down. I did so anyway for a bit, but found this almost impossible--they are that narrow. The smaller of the two cabins seemed a better bet for peace and quiet until the video feature began playing on two screens at high volume. We all looked a bit grumpy by the time we finally arrived.

On the other hand, free box lunches and almost limitless free coffee, tea, soup and hot chocolate were provided (contrary to the announcement on the larger boat, which had suggested eating fully at their expensive cafeteria in preparation for the inadequate food service to be found on the Bella Coola leg of the trip). And the captain slowed, stopped, and even circled around a few times to allow photographs of at least one bear and five or six humpback whales. This seemed quite friendly.

Disembarking in Bella Coola at midnight, there were no indications where to go, stay, eat, or drink. I eventually found the Rip Rap Campground five or ten miles outside of town, vaguely remembered from someone's blog. I ended up pitching my tent in what turned out to be a common area, but that seemed to work out in the end, being convenient to the picnic shelter with its electric outlets, lights, seating and--yes--shelter from the rains. I found out later that Rip Rap claims to have wifi service, but in any case I did fine with the outstanding cell service. There's camping back in town, too, at the Bella Coola Motel. It appeared distinctly less attractive--without shelter, for example--but it might've been handy to stay directly in town rather than all the way out in Hagensborg. A bicyclist I met on the boat was given permission to sleep in the back of an open, parked semi trailer in the ferry staging area, which he deemed quite luxurious.

There are a few other campgrounds in Hagensborg, plus gas and a grocery/general store. Bella Coola has restaurants, a grocery store featuring remarkably short hours, gas, and a few souvenir shops. There is also a pleasant, but decidedly limited, tourist information spot with a lone attendant who, while well-practiced at giving standard answers to standard questions, seemed to have better things to do than keeping regular hours. If you're the sort of person who really needs a lot of information, I'd start researching in advance of arrival.

Logging roads branching off the main highway are claimed to be steep and rough and to require 4 wheel drive, but the ones I sampled rode adequately on my V-Strom without even airing down or, for the most part, paying close attention. There is spectacular alpine scenery along these roads, and spectacular hiking trails too. These would have been more appealing had it stopped raining--or in some cases, snowing--for longer than a few hours at a stretch. I’d strongly suggest exploring a couple of the ones which lead into the alpine.

The famous "Hill" leading out of the valley and over Heckman Pass at 5,000 feet was not nearly as imposing as anticipated, even in rain and occasional hail. The famously steep grades were not particularly steep; the single lane sections are all vastly widened, the notoriously absent guardrails neither needed nor missed, and even following several days of rain the worst of the mud was quite tame.

I was up and over the pass before I knew it, returned to the pavement at Anahim Lake long enough before dark so that I somewhat impulsively pushed on to Tatla Lake in 40F/4C degree rain and rapidly deepening darkness. The town of Tatla Lake is a tiny little place, but quite friendly. Notably, there was a little motel with a sign on the door saying "Closed," but small print indicating the door to a room was open and "We'll see you in the morning." Ahah. I cranked the heater, stripped off soggy riding clothes, had a hot shower and gradually warmed up. With no tv reception, no internet, and no cell service, I soon found myself quite relaxed. A rather poor old Western movie on the video, a bit of journaling and sorting of maps, and I fell into a deep sleep.

I poked around some of the forest/recreation roads out of Tatla Lake. Probably there were spectacular views of the mountains over meadows and lakes, but virtually everything was clouded in, so it hardly seemed worth the effort. Plus I got just a hint of how nasty the Vstrom might be in actual mud when I tried to cut across to the next drainage, where rainfall had apparently been more intense and more recent. Not encouraging, although I think I would have survived intact had I persisted.

I took the Gold Bridge/Hurley Pass route into Pemberton for the scenery, isolation, and sheer fun of it. Sadly, the Hurley Pass road is being used heavily by logging trucks, and has therefore been upgraded by the addition of loose gravel, then downgraded by the imposition of almost non-stop washboarding. Nowhere near the fun it was last time I rode this route, although still quite scenic. I will say that the grades, road surfaces, narrowness, and absence of guardrails were all orders of magnitude worse than I saw on The Hill. Given the holiday crowds in Pemberton I decided to skip the hot springs excursions I’d planned—there are at least three good ones up various forest roads—and took a ridiculously strenuous day hike instead.

Then home, 7 full days after I left. Not an overly adventurous trip, but it was good to cover some new ground and see a few new sights. Cheap Canadian hotels seem to cost around $65 plus tax--that's $50 US, not a bad deal at all when hostel beds range into the mid-twenties, although much higher in the Squamish/Whistler/Pemberton corridor. On Labor Day weekend, I found hostels booked out but plenty of camping options. Of course, wild camping is endlessly available if so inclined.

Hope some or all of the above is useful to others, now or in the future. I'll answer questions to the extent I'm able and alert.

Mark