(Last updated May 2022.)
Casually sitting on the couch is where Dallis and I's roadtrip began to Nakusp. We had gotten a phone call saying two ferries were cancelled for the next morning, one being the 6am one we had reserved weeks before. With little to no time to pack our things we decided to head out to the Tsawwassen from Duke Point in Nanaimo for the 10:45pm. We wanted to plan for May long weekend, however we knew that would be a mad house.
Halfway Hotsprings was our main attraction and it‘s gotten severely busy over the years. We chose to head out the holiday Monday instead. However due to the ferries we decided to head out on Sunday May 22nd of 2022. Our plan was to stay at the Halfway Hotsprings Campground for three nights and four days. These sites are first come first serve. I recommend you go on a week day, as it does get busy on those days. Can’t imagine how busy it is on weekends. This is how it went:
SUNDAY MAY 22TH
10:45PM - Duke Point to Tsawwassen Ferry
During this time on the ferry waiting, I was researching in my Backroad Mapbooks of where we could stay for the night as there was no way we were driving the whole way to Nakusp at night, not like we haven't done that before elsewhere, however we were already pretty tired and was hoping we would have gotten a good nights rest for the 6AM ferry the next day. We agreed to drive just before Hope to a Campground called Silver Lake Provinical Park. It was around 3:30AM when we arrived, we lucked out and there was a few spots left. It's $18/night fee to camp here and a pretty well maintained logging for 12 KMS to get to the rec sites. I saw motorbikes and cars here, so any reliable vehicle can come up here. Being that we didn't stay long the camp host didn't charge us, that was a bonus! The campground is really nice and the lake with the mountains in the back was a really peaceful way to start this roadtrip.
MONDAY MAY 23TH
830-9AM - GO TIME baby, we got maybe 4-5 hours of sleep, started our way to Hope from Silver Lake Campground for a much needed caffine stop at Tim Hortons. (So Canadian, I know.) From here we set out on the 1 Trans-Canada Hwy to Kamloops. There were a few road closures the way we were planning to go through from the 5 (Coquihalla Hwy), we actually appreciated the way we went heading to Naksup as we both have never went that way to Kamloops. We drove through alot of the devestation of the forest fires through Lytton, that was eerie. We were planning to head back this way as it was pretty flat the entire way, a tad bit longer but we wanted to stop at Alexandra Bridge however one of my friends told me it was temporarily closed and to confirm it was. We decided to head back a different way once we left Nakusp. We saw lots of wildlife through here, eagles, marmots, big horn sheep, that was pretty cool.
We arrived in Kamloops around noon. We were making killer time as we got a head start from not having to be on a ferry that morning and we didn't stop a lot other than for gas. We drove down through Vernon at 2pm, alot of chatting and singing like popstars to entertain us. Finally around 4:15pm the Cable Ferry came into view that runs across Arrow Lake between Fauquier and Needles. This doesn't cost any money and we got on really quickly, it was pretty cool how the ferry is operated. The ferry runs every 30 minutes, From Fauquier 5AM-10PM, From Needles 5:15AM-9:45PM. The crossing time is a dreadful 5 minutes (LOL.) The Ferry schedule is here.
We stopped in Nakusp to grab gas and the last bit of groceries, we did alot of the dry food shopping the week before and had a meal plan for what we were packing. This saves so much time, being semi-organized is really the way to be. Nakusp is a super cute little town, the settlement began in 1892 when it became part of the fur trade route. The word "Nakusp" is derived from a Sinixt word, though it's meaning is debated. One interpretation is that the name Nakusp comes from a meaning "the bay behind the long point," another is "closed in" or "safe." Before our way to Halfway there was this beautiful waterfall at a rest stop called Ione Falls, we snapped some pictures and off we went.
Going to Halfway River Hotsprings is a bit of a drive for sure (10-12KM), it requires good navigation and preferably a vehicle with good clearance and tires. We saw all sorts of vehicles, so I guess it depends how confident you are as a driver. Personally I would never take a car there, the potholes were crazy after the heavy snow they've had this past winter. We got lucky and there was no snow. The camp host usually comes out at the beginning of May, so we knew that was a good indicator the roads would be clear. Be sure to check Hotsprings Forum BC for weather updates and road conditions. There is a day use parking area or the campground down on the left, we arrived at 630pm and drove down to pick out a site, in which we personally thought was the best one. We were far enough away but still close to others and near an outhouse.
I was really amazed at how well Bob (the camp host,) keeps this rec site and springs. You can really tell he takes pride in it. I wish we could all practice LNT and follow it as he has had problems unforunatley with several people not keeping the area clean. The outhouses were clean and all 12 of the sites had picnic tables and firepitts. There is quite a handful of tent pads below the drive in spots for cars with fire pitts and picnic tables as well. As well as an overlfow of tenting areas once you head out towards the springs. There is no garbage cans, so you must PACK IN-PACK OUT what you bring with you. The fee to camp here is $15/night, A steal of a deal if you ask me. We stayed three so we spent $45, it was well worth the money. Bob did such a great job of accomdating whatever we needed, which resulted into him having some extra fuel for my jetboil that I forgot to bring.
830-9PM, after we had set up our camp spot, we headed down to the springs. I recommend you pack a bag as the hike down is anywhere from 10-20 minutes depending on your fitness level. There is a lot of stairs and it's a small grind heading back to the campground. We stayed down here the first night for 4 hours till 1AM. It was very relaxing, there are 4 pools to choose from. There is a change room which Bob built in 2016, it's really amazing that he built that. It wasn’t super busy compared to the May Long Weekend we had skipped out on. There was about 25 people per pool we heard over the weekend. There was maybe max 6 people in a pool or less that evening.
We had an incredible night meeting new people, we had light shows, people were just lovely and full of life down there that night. We laughed a lot and got everyone to shut off any light and we all just stared at the stars in the pitch black, it was amazing. I had to say getting up those stairs after a couple puffs and drinks was entertaining for Dallis, my feet are pretty cut up from that evening lol.
TUESDAY MAY 24TH
We had plans to do a sunrise at the hotsprings but there was no way I was waking up at 430AM when our alarms went off, after we were up so late the night prior. We slept in till around 830-9AM and that was very much needed. We had an amazing breakfast, I feel like we ate like kings on this trip, it was so elaborate than just dehydrated food like I'm used to.
We headed down to the springs for a morning-afternoon soak and just checked out the area, in which we found the hidden pools that we knew were around the area. That will be listed on my "OnlyHikes" if you want easy access for where those ones are. (You can find that here.) We came back to have a fire and cooked up some dinner. I really wanted to head back down to the hidden pools for a peaceful evening with our little string lights and light music, so that's exactly what we did. We had an earlier night once we got back from the hot springs.
WEDNESDAY MAY 25TH
Dallis and I developed a little routine during our trip, we would get up start the fire, have breakfast and pack our day bag for the springs for a soak. Rough life right. It was a really nice way to wake up. I should mention we borrowed Dallis's parents 98 Jeep Cherokke which is self contained with totes, coolers and a bed. It was really nice not having to worry about weather with tents as we just slept in the jeep. It was probably one of the best sleeps I've ever had in awhile to be honest. All that fresh air and springing. We got really lucky with our weather and it was beautiful most of the time with a bit of light rain. We were always saying how thankful we were for that, as the forecast showed it was suppose to rain the whole time. This was a sad day because we knew our trip was coming to an end soon.
We had plans to check out St.Leons which is another Hot Springs a few metres before the logging road to Halfway, we decided because it was kind of a trek to get there we would really just relax and stay here the whole time as this was the main reason we came to Nakusp. Some might say that, 3 nights and 4 days was too long here but we felt we got to enjoy this place and not just for an hour. We really utilized what this area had to offer and explored things most wouldn't see if they just came for the day.
We capped soaking just once this day, as Dallis was pretty over hiking up the hill there for the past couple of days, twice a day. So I gave her a break and capped it for a 2 hour soak and we just enjoyed our campsite and explored some of the trails below, had a nice hammock lay and found a waterfall and a few cold pools down by the river.
We had a nice rest of our evening, sat by the fire, sang karoke and went to bed early as we were setting our alarms for 4:30AM to enjoy one last soak before heading home.
THURSDAY MAY 26TH
Now this is really the way to do these Hotsprings as they do get fairly busy being that they have become extremlely popular. We had them by ourselves for awhile. I recommend doing this at least one night like we did, it's well worth getting up for. We soaked and really enjoyed our last hour and a half here just relaxing, drinking coffee, eating fruitloops and trying not to think about our long drive home. We cleaned up and said goodbye to our little oasis and were on the road to the Galena to Shelter Bay Ferry. This is also not a ferry that charges you which is nice. We wanted to stop and see some things before hence why we woke up earlier and left around 730AM from the campsite at Halfway.
Our first stop was a 5 minute walk to Sutherland Falls in Revelstoke, this literally was a 5 minute walk not even. (0.3-mile out) Worth the stop as the falls plunge below into a gorgeous little pool. We took some photos, stretched our legs and headed into Revelstoke after to grab Tim Hortons. Yay for bagels!
After we drove straight to Sicamous Lookout, click here for directions and info about that on my other blog post. We stopped to grab gas in Sicamous and were off to Kamloops from here.
We took a few detours from heading to the Coquihalla as DriveBC and my Google Maps by-passed a major accident. It was only about a 15 minute detour from the original plan. We got to go through Logan Lake, which I had never been that way before. We were back on HWY 1 & 5 in no time. We sang and just drove, without stopping most of the way home. Our final destination before going home was heading to the Horseshoe Bay Ferry Lookout. I have tried to make this happen a few times but never had enough time, we got lucky and found it pretty easily and snapped a few photos with having 10 minutes to spare to get on the ferry. CLOSE ONE!
We got onto the 7:40PM ferry that day after a long 8 hours of driving. This was about 665 KM on the way back and a little more on the way there. So just under 2000 KMS from home. I'll give you a breakdown of what we spent.
FUEL: $500+
CAMPING FEE: $45
GROCERIES: $350+
TIM HORTONS: $30
ALCOHOL & ETC: 50+
ENJOYING LIFE: Priceless
I want to say in total we spent anywhere from 1500 for the two of us. I had around $800 saved and I had money to spare after.
I hope this gets you excited to visit a Hotspring or better yet these ones, or just the area in general. There is so much beauty out there and I bet tons to explore around Nakusp. I will surely be back.
Thanks for reading as always and GET OUT THERE!
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