Mount Revelstoke National Park Guide

August 17, 2025July 22, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

I visited Mount Revelstoke National Park for the first time in 2024 and had a great time exploring the park. Revelstoke is one of 6 National Park in close proximity in BC and Alberta. It’s one of the smaller National Parks in this area, but it offers some beautiful sights. I’ve also created guides for Yoho, Kootenay, and Banff National Parks, if you want to check out any of those.

Getting There

Mount Revelstoke National Park is located just outside of the town of Revelstoke (very popular for skiing and mountain biking) along Highway 1. If you’ve ever made the drive from Vancouver to the Rockies, you’ve likely driven right past it. If you’re like me, you never made the time to stop in the park along the way. While it’s a large park, it’s not hugely accessible. From the town of Revelstoke, you can take the winding Meadows in the Sky Parkway up to the top of the mountain, exploring trails and viewpoints along the way. It’s the only road in the park, so it’s pretty straight-forward.

Where to Stay

There are 3 main options for where to stay and they really depend on what type of experience you’re looking for. The easiest option is to get a hotel in the town of Revelstoke. There’s lots of cute shops and restaurants in town, so it’s a good option if you don’t want to camp or forget to plan in advance.

The other options are camping, either frontcountry or backcountry, both of which are discussed below. Camping reservations are released by Parks Canada on reservation.pc.gc.ca. These can be somewhat challenging because the entire season releases at once early in the year, often between January and March, depending on the park. It’s easier to get reservations on weekdays, but if you want to camp on a weekend, be prepared to book when the sites release.

Frontcountry Camping

There’s only one frontcountry campground in the National Park: Snowforest Campground. Frontcountry camping is essentially drive-in camping, so you can take everything that you can fit in your car and the sites are easily accessible. Snowforest Campground is located at the base of Revelstoke Mountain, so it’s very close to Revelstoke town. There’s 62 campsites available for booking, so it is a pretty small campground in comparison to Banff and Jasper National Parks. There are flush toilets and hot showers available.

Backcountry Camping

Backcountry camping is my favourite way to visit a park, but it’s very different than frontcountry. It requires hiking and carrying a backpack with everything you need for your trip. If you decide to backpack in Mount Revelstoke National Park, you will be in remote wilderness terrain and must be prepared to be self-sufficient. If that sounds like your cup of tea, there are 2 beautiful backcountry campsites to explore and both can be visited on the same trip.

Eva Lake – Eva Lake is the first of two campsites connecting trails along the top of Mount Revelstoke. It’s an 8km hike each way from the Balsam Lake parking lot to the campsite at Eva Lake. There are 4 tent pads and a 100 year old ranger cabin that can provide shelter for eating.

Jade Lake – Jade Lake is the second of two campsites connecting trails along the top of Mount Revelstoke. It’s a 10km hike each way from the Balsam Lake parking lot to the campsite at Jade Lake. Alternatively, if you’re hiking from Eva Lake, it’s a 5.5km trail. There are 4 tent pads. This campsite is located on the other side of a mountain pass, so it is the more challenging trail.

Backcountry Huts

In researching for this guide, I discovered that there is one backcountry cabin available for camping at Mount Revelstoke. It’s called Caribou Cabin and is only in use in the winter, from December to April. It’s a 9km hike up the mountain along the summit trail, or a 20km hike along the Meadows in the Sky Parkway, which is closed in the winter. It’s definitely a bit of work to access this one, but potentially an incredible experience!

Hiking

Compared to the larger National Parks, hiking is more limited in Mount Revelstoke, but there are still lots of good trail options around the park. Parks Canada has produced a comprehensive guide to the trails around the mountain, which you can view here. I’ve shared some of the highlights below.

Short Summit Trails – If you have limited time in the park, my recommendation is to drive to the Balsam Lake parking lot at the top of Meadows in the Sky Parkway and explore some of the shorter trails. There are two short hikes from the parking lot around Balsam Lake and to Eagle lake. But the best trails are 1km further at the top of Upper Summit Road. You can either hike 1km to the top, or you can take the summit shuttle. From there, you can access the Fire Lookout, Koo Koo Sint, Heather Lake, and First Footsteps trails. These are great for viewing alpine wildflowers in late July/early August.

Short Lower Mountain Trails – If you don’t want to drive to the top of the mountain, there are lots of hiking trails along the lower part of the mountain that can be accessed from Snowforest Campground. This includes Inspiration Woods, Sorenson, and Nels Nelson, among other trails.

Eva/Jade Lakes – If you’re looking for more of a challenge and to really experience the alpine environment, you can day hike or backpack to Eva, Miller, and Jade Lakes. They are all located along the same trail, totaling ~24km if you want to do all three. If you are visiting for a day, I recommend hiking to Eva Lake and Miller Lake, but just hike to the top of the pass, saving ~5km of hiking to and from Jade Lake.

Mountain Trails – Another option for a challenging hike is to hike up the mountain from bottom to top along the Lindmark or Summit Trails.

Boardwalks – If you’re just passing through or are looking for an accessible trail, there are two boardwalk trails located along the highway: Giant Cedars and Skunk Cabbage boardwalks.

National Park Pass

Before visiting, make sure you get your National Park Pass. If you’re visiting in Summer 2025, these passes are free as part of the Canada Strong Pass. Traditionally, they are $10 per person, per day, or you can get the family pass for the whole year for $145, which is applicable to all National Parks. Park passes are needed to park your car and can be picked up from the Rogers Pass Discovery Centre, or from the Parks Canada Administration Office in Revelstoke (which has an automated machine for after-hours).

Hiking Signal Hill

March 12, 2025February 27, 2025 / Maria / Leave a comment

Since I finally took the time to write about Cape Spear, an iconic Newfoundland landmark and iconic day trip, I figured it’s time to finally write about Signal Hill as well. Signal Hill is a quintessential attraction in St. John’s. It can be seen from all over the city and it’s a significant historic and cultural national site, not to mention it has the best view of St. John’s to be found in the city.

Signal Hill is home to Cabot Tower and overlooks St. John’s harbour. There’s a military encampment that surrounds the hill and has been used for centuries to protect St. John’s from naval threats. You can walk around the hill and see all the old cannons, which still stand guard over the harbour. One of the more iconic defense strategies that’s been utilized at Signal Hill is stringing a large chain across the Narrows of the harbour to protect from both ships and submarines. Cabot Tower is also recognized for it’s significance in the advancement of communications, as it’s where Marconi sent the first trans-Atlantic communication from Newfoundland to Ireland (and I’m guessing this is where the name ‘Signal’ Hill comes from).

There’s a really nice visitor centre halfway up the hill, which is staffed by Parks Canada. They give fantastic tours in the summer. You can see the firing of the noon-day gun, or you can watch the Signal Hill Tattoo, which is a re-enactment of the military drills of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment in the late 1700’s. Right across the street, you can visit the Johnson Geo Centre and learn about the fascinating geoscience to be found on “the Rock”. Then drive to the top of the hill to visit Cabot Tower and see the cannons.

But the most popular use of Signal Hill by locals is for a scenic and short hike. It’s only ~4km to do the loop around the hill, but give yourself some time because there is a lot of stairs and you’ll want to take photos. The locals are a bit split on the best way to hike the trail. The largest section of stairs is at the top of the hill. Some people prefer to hike up the stairs for the workout, while others prefer to hike down them. While I love a good uphill hike, I always hike down them. I used to do this because I’m lazy, but now I do it because you get to enjoy the view looking out at the Atlantic Ocean when you hike down.

If you start at the top, which I think most tourists probably do, you begin by hiking down the stairs and around the coast. The trail follows some pretty narrow cliff edges along the Narrows into the harbour, before you arrive at the Battery. There is one chain section, but it’s not intimidating. You don’t need to pull yourself up or anything, it’s just a narrow trail, so there’s a chain to act as a rail. The Battery is an old and historic neighbourhood of the city along the edge of the harbour. It’s filled with colourful historic homes, also known as jelly bean houses. Once you exit the trail, you walk up through the Battery. This part can be a bit tricky – if you want, you can just follow the road, but there is a staircase shortcut hidden among the houses, so watch for the signs as you go up, because it’s a more scenic way to travel.

From this trail, you hike back up towards the duck pond across from the Geo Centre. There’s a nice lookout of the harbour, and some storyboards with more historic information about the city’s military history. From here, a lot of people will opt to hike up the road, but if you know where to look, there’s a trail that continues along the back of Gibbet Hill towards the Visitors Centre. From there, you an hike up the hillside to the cannons before reaching Cabot Tower and the end of the hike.

Like I said, a lot of people will start at the top, but my preference is to park across the street from the Geo Centre at the duck pond. I don’t like ending on a big hill, so this way, you do a good chunk of uphill first, then all the downhill, then a bit more uphill to get back from the Battery. It’s a good balance. But you really can’t go wrong. It’s taken me years to properly learn where all the trails are, so just make an adventure of it. Be careful around the cliffsides, but anywhere you end up will be beautiful!

Another option for climbing up to the top is to cross the road and walk up the trail at Georges Pond. It’s a longer route, but allows you to see the view from Cuckold’s Cove. You hike out past Georges Pond until you come to a junction. If you continued straight, you’d find yourself hiking into the historic village of Quidi Vidi, but take the right turn to head up to Ladies Lookout at the top of Signal Hill. It gives you a nice view of Cuckholds Cove, and if you look down from the first viewpoint, you might be lucky enough to see the Cuckhold’s Cove eagle in her nest.

I moved to BC 11 years ago and I haven’t made a single trip home where I didn’t go to Signal Hill. I won’t hike it in the winter if there’s snow, because it gets really slippery, but I will always hike it at least once in the summer. It takes me about an hour, but as a tourist, I’d give yourself 2 hours to really enjoy it! It’s an iconic piece of St. John’s history and well worth the visit!

Jade Lake Backpacking Trip

December 18, 2024December 20, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

After a rainy night at Eva Lake, we packed our bags to continue on to Jade Lake. There’s a short hike back to a junction where you can do a detour down to Miller Lake. Every lake in this park is gorgeous and it’s definitely worth the extra 1km to hike to Miller Lake. The clouds were starting to lift and we got some cool views of the vibrant blue water before heading onwards. I really wanted to swim in Eva and Miller Lakes, but I was pretty chilled from the rain, so I’ll have to return and swim in those lakes one day!

The trail to Jade Lake is absolutely phenomenal. It’s ~7km from Eva to Jade, including the side trail to Miller. Once leaving Miller Lake, you hike back to the junction and then continue up to the alpine by crossing the edge of Miller Lake along the mountainside. After a bit of uphill, you reach the alpine and cross through numerous meadows filled with wildflowers. Then there’s a steeper uphill and you eventually reach the top of the pass. I’m not sure the technical name of the pass, but we called it Jade Pass.

From Jade Pass, there are amazing views of the alpine and surrounding mountains looking down on Jade Lake. I’m sure this park is really beautiful on a clear, blue sky day, but I honestly feel lucky that we got to visit it on a cloudy day. The clouds were large and dynamic, constantly moving around the landscape, revealing the mountain range beyond. It was a very cool experience. We stopped for lunch at the top of the pass to enjoy the view. There were quite a few more day hikers around since it was a Saturday, but we didn’t see anyone heading down to the lake.

Jade Lake is stunning and absolutely worth the hike down from the pass, but I can understand why a lot of day hikers don’t do it. It adds another 2km each way, as well as 200m of elevation gain. No one wants to hike down there, just to have to turn around and hike back up. Before we left, I hiked up a little further to a nearby peak for some extra photos, before shouldering my pack again for the hike to the valley. You’re in the alpine for most of the hike down, so it’s very barren, but the views are incredible. We saw a few pikas and marmots along the way, so we intentionally kept a slow pace to just enjoy the experience.

Just before you reach the lake, you enter back into the sub-alpine and continue through the trees. There’s 4 tent sites at Jade Lake and I personally think we ended up with the best site, which overlooks the lake. However, the real star of the show at Jade Lake is the outhouse. The outhouse is elevated and built right on the rock overlooking the mountains. There’s no door, so you can sit on the toilet and enjoy the view to your heart’s content!

But my first order of business was to finally go for a swim! The lake was cold (of course), but it was a lot warmer than I was expecting for an alpine lake. I was able to stay in for a while and really enjoyed a good swim. Brandon did his customary dip and returned to the tent, but since there was no one else around, I did a quick skinny dip before drying off.

https://flic.kr/p/2qozar5

The main lake where the campsite is, is actually called Upper Jade Lake. There’s a lower lake a few hundred metres away, but there’s no trail to access it. You can almost see it from the campsite and we were feeling adventurous, so we decided to go on a little bushwacking adventure. We approached from the north side of the creek running between the two lakes. It’s a little boggy in some areas, but we were able to find our way down relatively easy. It’s a nice view, but we didn’t stay long because it was very buggy and we hadn’t brought the thermacell!

We returned to the upper lake and had our supper along the lake shore (with thermacell this time). It was a really nice evening, but we decided to head to bed early to get a headstart on the return trip. It got pretty cold and dewy overnight and the moon was very bright, so we didn’t see many stars.

We got up around 6am, just as the sun was rising over the mountains, which turned the mountain behind the lake golden. It was really beautiful and we were the only people awake to enjoy it. In fact, when we started hiking just before 8am, we were still the only people up. It is a pretty big climb to the top of the pass, so I’m glad we got up early. The sun was hidden behind a few clouds and it stayed that way the entire time we were climbing, which was awesome. It took us about an hour and the sun finally peaked out just as we reached the top of the pass.

The real benefit of getting up so early though was the wildlife. We saw a few marmots and pikas the previous day, but the area was absolutely crawling with them on our final morning! I guess they get up and enjoy the views early when it’s cool and before the crowds show up. We spent a lot of time watching them around the rocks.

We had the pass entirely to ourselves, as well as the hike back through the alpine to Miller Lake. We didn’t encounter a single person until a few kilometres past the junction to Eva Lake. I wonder if the gate to the parkway opens at a specific time, because as soon as we passed the first group of hikers, it was a steady stream of people the rest of the day. Arguably, it was the nicest day of our trip, so we got to enjoy the nice views along the trail that we’d completely missed on the way in.

It was 10.5km back to the parking lot from Jade Lake and we didn’t take any breaks. We continued at a pretty solid pace because we still had to drive all the way back to Vancouver on the same day. It’s not really ideal, but there was enough time for it. We got back to the car around noon and the parking lot looked very different from when we had started in the pouring rain.

We were a bit too early for the good restaurants in Revelstoke, so we decided to have lunch in Salmon Arm so that we could get bison burgers. They were just okay, but we made a stop to Fruit World in Sicamous along the way (which we discovered on our trip last year). We stocked up on fresh fruits and veggies and enjoyed an ice cream cone. Otherwise, it was a long drive back to Vancouver. But in my opinion, it was worth it and I would totally do the same trip again.

I’m glad we had the ranger cabin at Eva Lake on our rainy day, if I could do the trip again in nice weather, I would probably reverse it and do Eva Lake on the second day so that I could have a shorter distance to hike on the way out. The permits are released really early in the year (March) for the entire season, so you have to be on the ball with bookings if you want to go on a weekend. But if you get the chance, this is a beautiful hike in what is in my opinion, a bit of an under-hyped National Park.