NORTH TO ALASKA 2025 - DAYS 82-84 - MCBRIDE & MT ROBSON BC CANADA

This is a long blog, it covers two different campsites because both of them ended up on the same video posted down below at the end of this blog..

We left that beautiful free campground in the town of Fraser Lake at Swan Lake RV Park.  It was a little later than we usually hit the road, but we had wonderful conditions to drive for the afternoon. Blue sky and puffy white clouds is all we ask for.

We wound our way along through some beautiful countryside, but we really were not seeing many of the hills or mountains that we had in the previous few days. It was looking more and more natural to our eyes with a nice variety of trees and shrubbery and green grasses and wildflowers.

Things were pretty relaxing as we drove along. We even cruised our way around Prince George quite easily. Mid-afternoon traffic was not very difficult.

We reached the small town of McBride and did a little bit of a grocery stop. We also fueled up and we found we were averaging 15.2 mph gallon. I guess not being in the high mountains has made a difference on our fuel consumption. That's pretty nice. Normally we are in the 14s. There was some road construction going on and we had to wait a little bit to get moving again. But all in all, it was a very pleasant and easy travel day. 

We looked ahead on the maps for any type of a campground maybe that we could find with laundry facilities. 

Just on the east side of McBride was a little place called Beaverview RV Park. It was kind of interesting. It was a person's farmhouse and a nice big field with trees along the river. There was one loop of campsites, with the back half along the edge of the river. 

Then further on was another large clearing if a caravan came through where a bunch of people could camp together. 

They had a little building with laundry facilities and showers and bathrooms off to one side. It was quiet and it was clean. Easy access off the highway. 

We were able to have a site that backed right up to the Fraser River. No complaints from us --- it was $52.50 Canadian which brought it down in the $30 range for us. Not too bad with a site with electric and water. They had a dump station that we could utilize on the way out.

Their laundry was quite reasonable, and we were able to catch everything up for only $10.50. I think that was three loads plus bedding.

McBride Beaverview RV Park website:

https://beaverviewpark.com/

The campsites are all neatly trimmed lawns and each one has a nice table and fire ring. We backed in on the level ground and got set up in no time. Since we were getting off the road kind of early, compared to usual, we set up the lawn chairs and decided to kick back and relax.

We could peek right through this opening in the trees and have our view of the mountains. Yes, there were some mountains coming back into view again and the terrain was slowly changing as we went further east. 

We sat back and relaxed. Steve popped open a beer and I had a glass of wine. We are really liking these newest reclining lawn chairs that we bought recently from Camping World. They're so much more comfortable than the other ones we used to have from Dunham's sports. 

They're heavier to set up, but they have nice wooden handles and they are very comfortable with their padded fabric seats, and extra long for Steve's legs and tall on the back for his shoulders. Since they are fabric, we put them away each night and never leave them out in the weather.

Nick enjoys our reclining chairs too. He's waiting here patiently for us to sit down so he can jump up on my lap. We keep his leash chained to the chair using a large carbiner clip. That way I am not struggling to hold on to the end of his leash and also hold my wine glass! 

I walked through the shrubbery to check out the river. It was moving pretty rapidly from the rain over the last few days. I peeked back and saw Steve relaxing after a long day of driving. He looks so content.

 You can see the previous loop of campsites that are not situated along the river behind us. The little white building over Steve's shoulder is the laundry facilities and showers and restrooms.

I turned back towards the river as dusk was coming on and the sun was beginning to set. We did see some clouds rolling on in and there was more rain forecast for the next day or two or three. So we were really lucky to have a wonderful day today for driving and seeing scenery.

Although the water looks calm, the current was very fast when moving through this area. The Fraser River is a wide rapidly moving river winding along in this part of British Columbia.  We noticed a lot of rafting companies in the area being advertised, and saw a lot of boat dealers along the way. Must be a high area for tourism and outdoor recreation.

At first I was a little disappointed that we weren't right on the riverbank. But actually, this little section of woods separating us was kind of pretty too. I found some wild raspberries to pick, and the people from the neighboring campsite wandered over to pick some too. We started chatting and had a nice conversation together.

I looked back and still saw Steve relaxing in his chair. I think he needed that. Nick had settled down and relaxed too. I think he realized I wasn't coming back right away and he would wait patiently for me to come back and sit down so he could jump up in my lap.  Look at the beautiful hill in the background behind Steve in that direction. Things were definitely getting more textured in the terrain as we got closer to the Canadian Rockies.

We had a peaceful night, after catching up all of our laundry. It was good to put fresh sheets back on the bed and to have clean soft fluffy towels for taking our showers.  In the morning, we topped off our freshwater tank before leaving, and hit the dump station to take care of both of the black and gray holding tanks. We were good to go again...

But the weather was definitely not going to cooperate with us. Here came the rain that was forecast for the weekend. At times we were driving through complete downpours.  The camera only focuses on the raindrops and not on the scenery ahead.

It was so fogged up with low hanging clouds that we could barely see the mountains up ahead as we traversed east on Route 16.  There are big mountains further ahead but you can't even see them underneath all those clouds.

As we drove along, the wispy clouds were slowly starting to lift in the rain let off a little bit. Now we could see things, maybe not the same as a sunny clear day, but at least we could see things.

Like I said, there seems to be a lot of tourism and rafting companies here. We saw various large transport vehicles dropping off and picking up adventurous folks going out in the rain on their rafts. These rivers are really this bright turquoise blue because they come from the glacial waters further ahead in the mountains.

Look at those brave hearty souls challenging themselves with the weather and the river. No thank you.

As we kept traveling east, the scenery looked to be getting prettier and prettier, but was hiding behind all of the clouds and the rain.

We decided that since it was a Friday, we might start looking for a campground earlier than usual. Because of the upcoming weekend, we thought maybe it's best to find a place for both Friday and Saturday nights. We were now in more populated areas, getting close to Banff and Jasper. Campsites might be harder to get... So it's time to start looking. 

Only 50 miles down the road was a large British Columbia park system called Mount Robson. Within the park were three different campgrounds. They were mostly all reserved, but we did find a handicapped site in one loop that the ranger said she might let us go on, if nobody took it by 5:00 p.m.  But it was crammed full of people all around and lots of noise and camper park next to camper next to camper. Some of the campsites around the handicap site had multiple families on one site. I don't know if they were just visiting or all camping together but there was a lot of noise, a lot of children, and a lot of dogs. I don't think it would have been a restful place to stay for the weekend.

This is a pretty popular place:

https://bcparks.ca/mount-robson-park/

We drove through the loops looking at all of the reserved signs. What is strange is that in most campgrounds, if it's reserved, they hang a little tag that shows who's coming and what days. So that way a walk-in-person like us can still take a campsite that normally is reservable, but not reserved for that particular night.

But at this campground, nope, it's just a red reservable placard mounted on the post means you definitely cannot take that site for the night.  

Any site with a green mounted placard on the post were completely filled up for the weekend.

We noticed afterwards that probably 75% of the reservable sites with the red placards were not even occupied for the entire weekend. Go figure.

So we left that loop of campsites and went backwards up the highway in Mount Robson Provincial Park to the first loop of campsites called Robson River.  Again, lots and lots of red placards with nobody on them. And all of the green placards were filled up. 

But then... off in the corner, site 19 was actually a "first come first serve" site! All by itself. And there was nobody on it!  We backed into it right away and waited for the ranger to come around to collect the fees. You don't put fees in the pay post anymore here. The ranger comes right to your site and registers you.

It was raining again, so the ranger didn't come right away. We decided we might as well get set up because it was a "first come first serve" site and we should probably take it for two nights. That way we are covered for the weekend.

Looking out the back window, there was a nice picnic table and campfire ring. But it was rain rain rain all of the while.  What is nice about traveling in the motorhome, as opposed to a truck and a trailer, is we are already inside and warm and dry as soon as we stop. We don't have to unhook or go back through cold wet woods to go into a damp camper and start the furnace and wait for things to warm up. We are already warm and comfortable without exiting our RV.

We decided to make up a little lunch. I had just picked up some really luscious looking tomatoes, and Steve fried up the bacon. We were going to have BLTs!

Every now and then the sun would peek out. And we were hoping it was going to be a change in the weather patterns for the weekend. I sat up front in my little "office" to get some editing done and wait for the ranger to come and collect the fees. I really wanted to curl up and take a nap, but we didn't know when she was going to make it around to this loop to collect.

Finally, we said heck with it... we were going to take a nap anyway. Of course, as soon as we laid down and just dozed off--- we heard a gentle tap tap tap at the door. Plus  the dog heard it too, and had to make a ruckus. 

We paid our fees and she said we were very lucky to have gotten this only "First Come First Serve" site that isn't even on their reservation list website.  It was $28 Canadian cash, which comes out to $20.39 US. This is a rustic site with no hookups. The dump station is way up at a central location at their visitor center. But we were thankful to have a place for the weekend without having to search and scramble in more populated areas. This was really different than when we were finding easy free boondocking campsites in the Yukon or up in Alaska.

So we paid our fees for two nights and got our little paper tag to hang on our post. 

I had taken out a large pork tenderloin earlier from the freezer to thaw. I had a really nice supper in mind for a cold drizzly rainy day.

Normally I take my electric pressure cooker along when we travel. It rides nicely back in our cargo trailer along with the air fryer and Steve's griddle and grill etc. Yup, we usually take all of our appliances. But because we didn't take the cargo trailer for this trip, we had to cut down on all of the extra accessories. The one thing that I insisted on bringing was this little manual pressure cooker. It stows away underneath the sink and doesn't take up a lot of room. I enjoy cooking with a pressure cooker because it's shortens the cooking time and it makes everything taste so good and really makes the meats tender. 

It's the old style with the rocker weight on top that makes little pssst pssst pssst sounds as it's cooking.  I cook the meat for about half an hour and then just let it rest and slow release. I cook it with dollops of my Andria's brush on steak sauce, some French onion soup mix, and some Harvest Blend seasonings. You'll have to watch it on the video link down below how I make it.  Links to those products are in the description underneath the video on YouTube.

After the pressure is released, I open it up and add in peeled potatoes and carrots. Oh my, it smells so good already and we still have to close it back up and simmer for another 15 minutes under pressure.

There we go, all done. Steve says it's not a meal until I "plate it up" or "bowl it up" in this case.  The potatoes were just about at the point of falling apart and the carrots were so tender and sweet. The meat was fall apart perfect. 

There was enough that I could take the leftover potatoes and carrots and chunk them up smaller, take 1/2 of the remaining meat and cut that up into little pieces. The next day I put that all together with gravy mix and some frozen peas and make stew.

Then the last half of the remaining meat I shred up and put in a ziplock bag in the freezer. That we use either for pulled pork sandwiches or I toss it into soup or even into enchiladas or tacos. So I get three meals out of that one pork tenderloin.

After dinner, Steve decided he was going to do a little further repair on the previous repair we did on our recliner chair pull handles. If you recall, a while back both of our D-shaped pull handles broke free from the cables. Steve was able to still work the cables back up through the brackets and clamp onto them each with a small vise grip pliers. So for the last week or so we have just been pulling on a vice grip pliers to make our recliner foot rest come up. Our chairs are much more comfortable with the foot rest up because the back also tilts back and the seat scoots forward in the "wall hugger design" method, like Lazy Boy recliners.  We really wanted to be able to use them for the remaining 2000 miles of our trip.

While we were in Frazer Lake, we saw a hardware store. We had hopped in and found a few things to maybe work better than the vise grips tucked alongside of our cushions on each side of our chairs.

When we get home, we will order these replacement handles and the entire cable system for each side. But it's hard to order something like that when you're on the road. This company has all different lengths and we need to measure the exact length and the tip at the spring end length before ordering. To do that we have to actually unbolt the chair from the bottom base of the slide and completely flip it upside down to get access. So we will do that after we get home...

But in the meantime we picked up some of these really nice metal rings and some little cable clamping devices called ferrules. 

Steve carefully unclipped each of the vise grip pliers and was able to thread the cable up through the ferrule, around the new pull ring, and back through the ferrule again. I had to carefully hold it in place while he then used the pliers to squeeze really really really hard on the ferrule to clamp the cables into place so they don't slip free. It took a lot of strength to do it, but he got each one done as you can see in the photos below.

 

TAH DAH!!!!! 

I think Nick is the most happy that the chairs are now fixed, because that is his favorite place to be. Right between us on the lake portions when they are extended out. He likes to be close to us, and it is much easier for him to jump up and down if the foot rests are extended.

On the video below, I show us demonstrating how our table leg works between both of the little foot rests. This is something we did last year, but I am showing it now because I grabbed some screenshots during our repair on the handles. 

Last year we bought a little taller post and an additional bracket from the Boat Seat Store  https://www.boatseatstore.com/

Our original post that came with the RV was too short since we added a taller loveseat.  Also the table that came with our RV was a big huge rectangle which is okay if you are sitting there eating a meal. But we want to just a smaller cocktail table size instead. 

We found a beautiful wooden tray at Aldi and attached the extra bracket underneath. It is offset so it can swing either closer to us or further away, depending on where we want it.

And now it's at the perfect height between us and each of our leg rests can extend upwards and around that post. It is centered perfectly on the floor and works quite well for our needs. 

Nick says it also puts him at nose level for any little pieces of popcorn that we might drop!

But actually, he is very good about being around our food and never snitches or steals anything off the table. He waits until we give it to him.

We are happy now that the recliners are fixed enough that we can use them for the next 2,000 miles until we get home. High five!

I've had a few people comment on the beautiful quilt in the background on the love seat in many of our shots. It was inspired by a maple leaf quilt I saw at a Vermont Visitor Center last year.  

My friend Judy helped me pick out all of these fabrics one day at a quilters rummage sale. I used my little antique Singer Featherweight sewing machine to put together all the blocks. Each leaf is a little different, but they are all coordinating in golds, beiges, rusts and browns.

Piece by piece, block by block, I assembled them all last summer while we were camping. I would work on them whenever we were traveling, so it truly became a Camping Quilt.

Once I had all of the blocks done, I sew them together into one big panel. Then it is "sandwiched" with layers of backing and batting on individual rollers on my big quilting machine. All three rollers unroll simultaneously as I pull the quilt across onto the flat surface. There I stitch through all three layers together which is making it "quilted". There isn't anything computerized or pre-programmed on this machine. I do all the stitching myself by grabbing those black handles. It's kind of like bicycle handles. And I guide it around on the sandwiched fabric layers. It's kind of like drawing with thread.  I do my little hooks and swirls and loops across the entire width of the quilt. Once I reach the end, I advance that section towards the rear roller of the finished quilt. Now the 3 front rollers all unwind with the layers for the next section. They hold taunt under tension, so there are no wrinkles.  Yes, Nick helps. 

Here's the finished quilt, all done, hanging on a line on our front porch. Each quarter of the quilt blocks are aimed in different directions diagonally to the corners. 

I had a few blocks left over, so I added brown borders and made them into throw pillows. I finished sewing up the openings on the pillows while we were traveling on this trip. So this really is a quilt that's been created while we have been camping.

Here it is, but it's under the funny overhead evening LED lights. It's making it look much more yellow than what it is. We like to keep this on here for Nick's little claws that might go into the fake vinyl material of the love seat. Also we like to curl up in it at night when we watch TV. It's so nice to just grab it and pull down over us and get cozy while we watch RVing videos on YouTube!

So that's about it for Mount Robson. It was raining raining raining the entire weekend. We did get out and walk around a little. But most of the time, we stayed inside and watched TV and took naps and researched future sites to see on our route home. 

Here's the video that goes along with today's blog:

241 miles traveled to McBride

52 miles to Mt Robson

7,429 miles traveled so far