Mount Revelstoke National Park — Attraction in Area B (Shelter Bay/Mica Creek)

You will drive up a winding, seemingly infinitesimal road to be welcomed by swarms of ravenous bastard horseflies that will furiously gouge your skin and lap your hot tasty slurpee saturated blood while scoffing at your pathetic plutonium-enriched Deep Woods Off or that overpriced useless ginseng-and-lavender-laced organic countermeasure you bought at the local vitamin shoppe and forgot in your car for two years but found now because you were so desperate that you emptied the entire car looking for it.

Whatever blood or unclaimed patch of skin-buffet you DO have left over is reserved for the wafting clouds of anemic mosquitoes - made puny from the lack of intravenous scraps left over from their larger, angrier, violent-er counterparts. It'd be easy to underestimate them when you're being bombarded by the endless legions of brain dead suicidal horseflies, but make no mistake - they're just as hungry and brainlessly suicidal in their quest to empty the contents of your now-leaky vessels into their bottomless guts in order to reproduce into thousands more clones of their wretched selves. The difference is that they're just silent while going about their disgusting business.

Despite this, the whole way down after reaching the summit you will be scratching your swollen, cratered skin and be thinking about how much the trip was absolutely worth it.

Pro tip: If you're coming from Banff/Yoho/wherever on the same day (or two?), you can use that same national park pass here as well to save a few bucks. Just keep driving by the guard gate as if you owned the place even if they try and stop you. No don't actually do that. You'll get shot with a bear tranquilizer or something.

Pro tip #2: The final excursion to the summit involves catching a free van ride to the top with a bunch of stinky sweaty rich people probably from Calgary or Kelowna, don't worry, they'll let you know.

It's nice up at the very top but if you're a big fat lazy jackwagon like me and not going to tromp around much, there's no amazing view or vantage point without some sort of thin-air-sucking hike first. The slight increase in altitude would also appear to make the horseflies even more thick and mad and reckless but I'm not a horseflytologist so I'm just speculating. You might want to skip it if you're already being eaten alive at a lower elevation.

Pro tip #3: The numerous vantage points on the drive up is where the magic is. Stop at every one and enjoy their relatively insect free beauty because you're not going to see views like this anywhere else in the area, no, not even at darling Lake Louise. (Unless your idea of a nice view is seeing phone screens raised in the air in front of you and the backs of tourist heads bobbing around ... hey maybe you're an Instragram-loving armchair lice inspector, I have no idea, I'm not judging, whatever makes you happy.)

Pro Tip (?) #4: Depending on where you're from, you might call horseflies "clegs", "gad-flies", "stouts", "breeze-flies", or some other fancy name that I looked at Wikpedia for just now.

Whatever. Like a bunch of jerks they ALL relish in irony, and the irony is that in Canada everything's supposed to be polite and pleasant and peaceful but make no mistake - they absolutely hate you and your terrier and your precious little children named Olivia and Mason and would kill you and all that you love if they only had bigger bodies and maybe some arms to hold you down with while slowly draining your life force and staring at you with their big, black, soulless murder-eyes.

Heck, they might even actually be friendly horseflies and I misjudged them; consult with an horseflytologist first if it somehow matters to you. Look, I don't know. All this is just speculation, their motives are unclear.

Pro Tip #5: I am not a professional. These are not 'pro' tips. They're not even really tips, they're just me spending a morning drinking coffee and indulging in some creative quiet time, procrastinating about cleaning the stairs that I said I...

An absolutely stunning place, the meadows in the sky parkway is a great twisty drive with viewpoints along the way and it brings you out to a panoramic view at the top. There are two small car parks at the top that fill up early - one for RVs and one for cars. It's popular because the summit is a short 1km hike from the car parks. The panoramic viewpoint is 100m from the road which you can park cars along one side of (but not the other). It is a beautiful view from here over the mountains and there is a nice bench. One problem we had was there is only one way onto the parkway and a booth with a single person controlled entry. We had a parks pass already but it seemed like many people didn't and decided this was a good time to have a discussion on the merits of the parks pass. Unfortunately there was no lane for drivers who already had a pass so although we were only 5 cars back it took about 15 minutes to get it. I think this is an oversight and could be managed better, but didn't...

The lady at the greeting building was a sweetheart and so helpful and the views were nice BUT be aware that you are no longer allowed to bring your dog (our visit was Aug 2021) even if they are to be kept in the car—their smell and possible barking can bring in grizzly bears. So in saying that you still have to pay the full amount of $20 to drive into the park but you only get to drive up a VERY windy 13 km and there’s really not much to see. You are not allowed to go up the 26 km to the summit with dogs and see all the wildflowers and heritage building and get to the prime hiking spots and scenic viewpoints. So that was really disappointing after driving 2 1/2 hours with our two chihuahuas. We were in and out of the park in less than 30 minutes as there are only 2 places to stop in the first 13 kms and...