I’ve driven through Mount Revelstoke National Park many times, but I’ve never actually done any of the attractions in the park. It’s a pretty large park, but a lot of the wilderness is inaccessible. I think most visitors drive up the Meadows in the Sky Parkway to the top of the mountain and do some short hikes through the meadows, without exploring deeper into the backcountry.

Eva and Jade Lakes entered my radar over the past few years when I’ve been booking permits in the Rockies, and I impulsively decided to purchase tenting permits for 2 nights in August at the start of the season. You can visit both Eva and Jade Lakes as a day trip, but it’s just over 20km, so it makes for a big day. There were a fair amount of day hikers in the park when the weather was nice, but I think most people either just visit Eva Lake, or only hike as far as the top of the pass on the way to Jade Lake (not wanting to hike up and down the pass to the lake on the same day). 

If you have the time, I’d definitely recommend going overnight. There’s only 4 tent pad sites at each lake, so it’s a really special experience when the crowds thin out and you have the National Park mostly to yourself for the evening. My permits were for Eva Lake on a Friday Night and Jade Lake on Saturday Night.

This did make for a very big trip out of Vancouver though. Brandon and I took Friday off and left Vancouver right after work on Thursday. Leaving on Thursday helped a lot with the traffic and it was pretty smooth sailing leaving the city. We stopped once for a pee break and made it to Costco in Kamloops just before closing to fill up the gas tank. It would be nice to book a hotel in Kamloops, but we’ve entered our BC Rec Sites era and decided to hit up one of the many free provincial rec sites instead! 

The Harper Lake Rec Site suited our needs best and we drove in a long gravel road in the dark to get to the site. I could imagine that this might be a bit of a party site on the weekends, but it was completely empty on a Thursday night and we quickly set up the tent and went to bed. We were pleasantly surprised with the view in the morning – there’s a gorgeous lake with a little dock – but we didn’t have much time to enjoy it. We took off again early to get to Revelstoke to start our hike.

We stopped in the town of Revelstoke to pick up some sandwiches for lunch, and then drove to the top of Meadows in the Sky Parkway. Another reason I’m glad we started on Friday is that we were easily able to find parking. There’s not very much space in the top parking lot and when we returned to the car on Sunday, there was a steady stream of cars parking along the edge of the road. We arrived around noon and didn’t have any trouble.

But there was another contributing factor to the lack of crowds. As we climbed up the mountain, it slowly started to rain, and by the time we parked the car, it had escalated to a full on torrential downpour. I’ve never been less excited to start a hike. I don’t mind hiking out in the rain, but it’s a real bummer starting a hike in the rain. If we hadn’t driven 6 hours to get there, I may have said, “let’s try again next year”. We reminded ourselves that it was supposed to be much nicer the next two days, and slowly prepared ourselves for the hike.

We ate lunch in the car to postpone the inevitable, and then finally set forth in our full rain gear. My rain gear worked great, as did my boots, but it’s not a particularly enjoyable experience. It’s ~1km uphill from the parking lot to the top of the mountain, where there are a ton of other alpine meadow trails to enjoy (the “Meadows in the Sky” Parkway is very aptly named). The rain did lighten up after a while, but it was still extremely cloudy and we didn’t see any views. This resulted in us making pretty quick time along the 7km trail to Eva Lake and we arrived in the mid afternoon. 

I’m so glad I picked Eva Lake for our first night! While we didn’t get to enjoy any of the views from Eva Lake, this campsite does have a small Ranger cabin that is over 100 years old. This was an absolute godsend on a rainy day! We had brought a tarp, but it was so lovely to be able to hang out in the cabin all evening rather than have to tough it out in the cold. 

Like I said, there’s only 4 tent sites, and with the rain, the lake was pretty empty. There was one solo female camper from Salmon Arm already there when we arrived, as well as a small family. A group of 3 women showed up later in the evening and we all hung out in the cabin getting to know each other and hoping the rain would let up. We hung everything up to dry, but it was so humid everything remained pretty damp. It never really stopped raining, but it made for a cozy evening and reminded me a lot of the trip Brandon and I made to Lake O’Hara last year, where we spent the better part of the day sheltering in the O’Hara store while it poured and poured. 

Fortunately, things improved the following morning. It was still completely clouded in when we woke up, but the rain had finally moved on overnight. We didn’t have too much hiking ahead of us, so we had a lazy start and enjoyed our breakfast by the lake. The clouds were moving around a lot and creating cool shapes. We got a few glimpses of the mountains overshadowing the lake, but never got a view of the mountains looking out from the lake. From other photos, it looks like it’s an amazing view, so something to come back for another time! But we did enjoy the 1km walk that’s available around the edge of the Lake. Check back next week to hear about the second part of our trip to Jade Lake!