Destination Revelstoke: A Guide to BC’s Best Mountain Town

In this Destination episode, we take you to the heart of British Columbia, to a mountain town nestled in the Selkirk Mountains — Revelstoke. Whether you're into climbing, hiking, paddling, mountain biking, snowboarding, or skiing, this town offers endless opportunities to explore the great outdoors. From cozy coffee shops and tap rooms to great restaurants and outdoor gear shops, everything in this town caters to adventurers. Revelstoke has something for everyone.

Join us as we spill the tea on our adventures as we spend a long weekend exploring Revelstoke, British Columbia. 

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Transcript

TEASER:

We explored this gem of a mountain town in only 48 hours, stay tuned to find out what there is to do if you only have two days to visit Revelstoke, British Columbia. 

SCRIPT:

Revelstoke, British Columbia is primarily surrounded by the Selkirk Mountains, which are part of

the larger Columbia Mountain range system. Geographically speaking, Revelstoke is about 300

miles from Sumas, Washington and the border crossing. The mountain town of Revelstoke is exuding a great outdoorsy vibe, from coffee shops, tap rooms to outdoor gear shops everything and anything one would want to do outside. Revelstoke is the basecamp from which one can launch. Climbing, hiking, paddling, mountain biking, snowboarding and skiing just to name a few. What’s cool about this town though is that it isn’t pretentious or bougie, the people that we met are down to earth, proud of the area that they get to call home, and they are all so nice. 

Originally, our plan was merely to just pass through Revelstoke on our coming and going to Banff and Jasper, but with the wildfire we had to reroute the back half of a trip just a week or so before we left, and we ended up finding a full hook up campground here in Revelstoke, so we spent a few days exploring the area and it did not disappoint. It was on my radar as I’ve had a few friends tell me about Revelstoke and many have shared that I would like it, and they were right. 

The history of Revelstoke seems to be in line with how the West was settled. According to the Revelstoke Museum, it states:

March 1, 1899 was the date of Revelstoke’s incorporation as a city, but the community was founded much earlier, during construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885. Front Street, the main business street in the townsite of Farwell, laid out by surveyor A.S. Farwell, was originally very much a wild west town complete with general stores, hotels, brothels and saloons. A fire swept through the new townsite in May of 1885 leveling many of the buildings, but within two weeks, many of them were rebuilt. 

In 1886, the Canadian Pacific Railway asked the federal post office department to change the name of the settlement to honor Lord Revelstoke, whose banking firm had provided the funds to ensure the completion of the railway. A court case between the Canadian Pacific Railway and Farwell delayed development of the town for many years, and it was 1897 before landowners could get clear title to their property.

Revelstoke was once one of the largest and most prominent communities in the interior of the British Columbia province, mostly due to its importance as a railway center. Steamboat traffic from the south connected with the Canadian Pacific Railway making this an important transportation center. 

Getting to Revelstoke, as I previously mentioned, Revelstoke is about a 5-and-a-half-hour drive from the US/Canada border in Sumas, Washington. Coming from Banff it is about a three-and-a-half-hour drive. I’d like to say that Revelstoke is a good stopping point from those coming from the Pacific Northwest enroute to Banff, but honestly what I’ve learned from my experiences is that Revelstoke is worthy of being a destination on its own. 

Our first day, we woke up to very typical Northwest rain. The sounds of pitter pattering even in the summer we find cozy. It did mean that some of our plans we would need to readjust for, but either way our first destination was a wonderful coffeeshop that had been recommended to us by a friend of mine, Cristin, the publisher of Paddling Magazine whom I used to work with when I worked in the paddle sports industry. She told us all about this coffee joint called Dose. We rolled in for some breakfast and coffee. When you open the door your ol’ factory bulbs are assaulted with the aroma or roasted coffee, which is a dramatically different smell than that of just brewing coffee. The place was bumping, and I would expect that it’s always hoping because the food and coffee is excellent so I don’t want to just say it was because it was a rainy day as that wouldn’t do them any justice. We were able to find a table and sit down to enjoy our meal of avocado toast in this cozy coffee shop. As any good Pacific Northwestner, we know to prepare by dressing in layers, especially when in the mountains as the weather can change, so we had our lightweight rain jackets with us and after breakfast and a caffeinated pick me up, we enjoyed walking around and exploring the downtown area.

I say this jokingly, but it feels like Revelstoke has a gear shop on just about every block in town to meet the needs and more so the desires of the outdoors person. I don’t’ fly fish, I’ve thought about starting and it is something I’m interested in, so we walked into Fine Line Sup and Fly we checked out their selection of paddleboards as well as their fly fishing rods, reels and flies. We then we did some other window shopping at some of the other outdoor gear stores on MacKenzie Avenue. I was drawn into Kat Cadegan Jewelry store as I perhaps wanted to find a fun and different souvenir for my wife and her designs were very natured inspired and hand crafted. Her work was beautiful.

The buildings and architecture of downtown Revelstoke you can tell that the history runs strong here, it still has a bit of that wild west feeling, but not in a kitchy way, instead it is authentic. I must admit I really like this historic old town streets. I even found a second hand store that also doubled as a vinyl store, called Mountain Archives, and I was able to dig through some crates, which always makes me a little happy as I just love a good dig as you never know what you’ll find. 

It was at this point, that the kids were getting a little restless and we could tell that their energy levels were escalating, and they needed to find an outlet. Cristin gave us another great recommendation the Quartzite Climbing Gym. Revelstoke’s FIRST and only indoor 
bouldering gym and according to their website Quartzite is the main type of rock found in and around Revelstoke. It is classified as a quartz-rich rock and is great to climb on. Everyone inside this climbing gym was super friendly and while our kids were running a bit feral at this point, we focused on teaching them the etiquette about who goes when, and when it was their turn to climb. The other climbers helped teach our kids about routes and even offered suggestions and encouragement. It was a very friendly and inclusive space to let our kids expend some of their energy. By this point in the day, everyone was ready for another meal and the adults were ready for some pints. 

We headed back into the downtown core and worked our way to the Craft Bierhaus for pints and barbecue. This place was amazing, it’s kid friendly, has amazing food and a killer tap list. It was a homerun. From hot dog sandwiches to fresh smoked brisket, ribs and all the accruements one would expect for sides. It’s a recipe for the meat sweats for sure. We also made sure to try a few different Canadian craft beers and they also knocked our socks off. What was great about this place is that it has that European seating with a long table and kegs that had been converted to bar stools, so we found a table and settled in. We were there pretty much when the opened which is at 4 o’clock in the afternoon. The two large TVs that they have in the place were not showing your typical sports, but instead they had mountain biking and skiing videos on. It was such a cool spot and if I lived locally, I’m pretty sure that one of those keg bar stools would have my name etched into it. 

This was a pretty full day for us, so after what turned out to be a bit of an early dinner for us, we headed back to camp and located our camping chairs and enjoyed just have conversations, listening to some music with each other and the other family that we were traveling with. Sometimes it’s the quality of time spent regaling in the day’s adventures, telling tall tales, and laughing that leave an impact on the memory banks. 

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As the sun rose on day two of our time here in Revelstoke, British Columbia, we had a full day planned so we got up and after it quickly. We headed out to go for a ride on the Pipe Mountain Coaster at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. This alpine coaster is like the one that they have in Leavenworth, Washington. Our kids were able to ride them solo and had full control of a brake so they could go as fast or as slow as they wanted to. These pipe coasters can get you up to about 35 miles per hour. They were a lot of fun and we had a good family competition to see who could go the fastest. One trip down the coaster sets you back $39 dollars for one rider. 

We grab a quick bite to eat from a food truck that happened to be up there on the mountain as the kids were getting a little hungry by this point. Then we headed off to go meet up with Cristin and her husband, at the Martha Creek boat launch on a damned section of the Columbia River. Her and her husband were kind enough to take us out for an afternoon of tubing. We dragged the kids around in a tube for some on water fun. It was so kind of Cristin and her husband to take us out and the kids had a blast. The kids were pretty tuckered and hungry after spending an afternoon out on the water, so we headed into town to go to one of Cristin’s favorite places for pizza, The Village Idiot. 

When you walk into this pizzeria you can tell that this is where the locals go as well as those who are visiting. The walls are coated in stickers of all sorts, from ski, snowboard and mountain biking brands, to well if you ever find yourself there, I challenge you to see if you can find the RV Out West sticker. The Village Idiot has a full bar, and their list of pizza’s is fantastic. We ordered like we were spending an afternoon with Anthony Bourdain. I think for our party of 10 we ordered five large pizzas. It’s a great environment that has the long tables with a European seating style and it feels cozy and designed to have engaging conversations with one another. Each pie was delicious, and I totally recommend you eat here when you find yourself in Revelstoke.

Now, you’d think that eating five pizzas would be enough to feed a small army and that after this our children would be completely full even with us taking leftover slices to go. That was not the case. Located just across the street from the Village Idiot is the Sugar Shack. Yep, our kids just had to have dessert and so we waited in a line that went out the door for an ice cream cone. The line moved surprisingly quickly and what few bites I could ‘dad tax’ the ice cream was super tasty. The sugar shack has all the toppings that you could add to your cone as well. It really is a diabetic’s crack house. After the kids got their cones, we wandered down the street as Revelstoke has a cool live music scene with a stage and a closed off street so that local bands can play live. It’s free to attend and again we wandered down, listened to some music as the kids wrapped up eating their ice cream. This second day was a full day of exploring and play so we were all fading pretty fast, and we knew that the next day was a travel day for us and it was going to be the final day as we made the almost seven hour drive home. 

Now, you might be wondering what campground we stayed at, and it was called Canyon Hot Springs Resort. This campground was located just up highway one by about 33 kilometers or a 25 min drive to downtown Revelstoke. As I had previously mentioned we were not playing to spend much time in Revelstoke, but due to the devasting wildfire that ravaged Jasper, we had to make some last-minute plans, and this RV resort had availability, and we were able to get the last two sites. It was a well-maintained campground, with friendly staff and a well-stocked little camp store. Two things to note about this campground, they have a mineral pool, which looks more like a pool than a hot spring, but the cost of using the mineral pool is not included in the campground fees. For our family of four, it was going to be about an additional $80 to use the pool and I can’t remember if that gave us in/out privileges or if we could only use it for a half a day. Luckily, for us, we had other plans and so by the time we got back to the campsite after a full day of exploring the kids didn’t ask much about going to the pool. The other thing to mention is that this RV resort is located very close to some train tracks and a few trains did pass and rumble by the campground. Personally, I didn’t find it that annoying, but if you’re a lite sleeper or in tune more to these types of sounds then that should be a consideration for you to think about. 

Now, as I had mentioned on one of our days we had a local friend of mine as a bit of a tour guide, and she had shared a lot of info for things for us to do. We only had the two days so we made the most of it for our family, but I also wanted to share with you some of the things she shared with me and that we were just not able to make happen on this visit. 

Hiking - McCrae is my favorite and goes to an alpine lake and has a cool scramble (but it's a day mission including the drive - about three hours to the top)

Hot Springs – Halfway Hot Springs, you go south on Highway 23, cross the free ferry and go 12 kilometers up a dirt road to get to natural riverside hot pools.

Drinks - best place for cocktails is Monashee Spirits. 
Must-go restaurant for the Revy experience is pizza at The Village Idiot,  
Nicer dinners - 112 Steakhouse and Eagle Pass Lodge
Beers - Rumpus and Craft Bierhaus are the go-tos

The town of Revelstoke is worthy of a trip in and of itself. This mountain community is simply beautiful and amazing. It should be a destination and a place that you add to your list of places to visit. With so much outdoor activities it has something for everyone. It feels like a true mountain town that hasn’t been spoiled by too much development and the abuse of dollars that make it only affordable for the wealthy. It truly is a special place, and we will be back. 

CLOSING

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In next week’s Pit Stop, I’m going to share some tips and tricks that I use when hitting the road for a multi-day trip. How to save some time and keep cash in your pocket all the while enjoying your week long or greater RV trip.