Kelowna (44) to Vancouver (45 - under 50)

As mentioned in the previous blog, Kelowna appeared to be a good place to explore, but as we did so much in Banff, schoolwork had to take priority because so little had been done there. Hence, no photos of Kelowna to show.

Following our descent from the Rockies, to say Grace was apprehensive about this next stage is an understatement. Kelowna sits at an elevation of about 1,400 feet above sea level, and during our stay in there we learnt that, despite having left the Canadian Rockies the road to Vancouver requires us to cross two mountain ranges. The first wasn't too far east of Kelowna and that had a peak of about 5,500 feet, or about a 4,000 ft climb!

However, Grace's concern wasn't about going up, the fact of the matter is we were going to be at 5,500 feet altitude and then we needed to cross another mountain range, what lay between? We know Vancouver lies at sea level...hmmm....and this morning it's cold and raining...hhmmmm

The incline turned out to be quite steep, however the climb was spread over a 23 kilometre distance - certainly, the Chev's fuel economy let me know that it was finding the going pretty hard as we dropped to 7 mpg. Sections of the highway (97C) were very steep, enough to take us from 6th gear down to 2nd for quite some distance.

The mist/fog off the hills reminded me of a
Harry Potter movie for some reason

However, the terrain seemed to plateau out once we reached the summit. We went slightly downhill for quite some way and when we finally joined the I5 that takes us through to Vancouver, we were still at about 2,500 ft height.

The second mountain range took us back to about the 5,500 ft mark again, but other than a few quite steep downhill sections, the road certainly wasn't as "exciting" as was the descent from the Canadian Rockies. Somewhat of an anticlimax, much to Grace's delight!