I was unprepared for the extraordinary majesty of the Bella Coola Valley.
The area’s tourist website describes the Valley as “an undiscovered natural paradise offering outdoor adventures in a spectacular setting.” Stark understatement, that. See www.bellacoola.ca and Photo Gallery snapshots for further evidence.
Yes, I knew it was supposed to be a nice place. And I knew that Tweedsmuir Provincial Park at the valley’s eastern edge was supposed to be a haven for all things wild including bears, cougars and wolves. But I didn’t expect to find mile after mile of steep, tall granite walls along virtually the entire 80km/50-mile length of the valley. It was positively Yosemite-like, though much longer, much broader… albeit with fewer waterfalls. And the serene valley floor – a bucolic landscape of family farms and fields amidst the forested acres – was nothing like the tourist-choked frenzy that whirls and spins and honks in Yosemite. Even the bears are more authentic in the Bella Coola Valley; both the black bears and the grizzlies are wild as wild can be, and they shy away from human contact.
Moreover, I hadn’t expected to find the stupendous alpine peaks jutting skyward from almost every direction. One of the biggest, most jagged of the peaks is aptly named Stupendous Mountain. Related, I had only one unexpected disappointment. And it was a big one. I couldn’t hike as I’d hoped. Because the “many great hikes and trails in the Valley” were simply too inaccessible for me.
I’d booked into Tweedsmuir Park Lodge – the only accommodations actually inside the park – with the expectation of having easy access to the parks’ trails, especially those in the sub-alpine and alpine elevations. Well, the park itself has a very limited trail network. And those trails along with the several trails elsewhere in the valley tend to be low-elevation hikes – which I didn’t want – and/or drive-for-miles-to-the-trailhead hikes – which I couldn’t do, as I’d left the Volvo in Port Hardy.
In fact, the most spectacular high-country adventures are accessible only by air. In the summer, helicopters fly well-heeled visitors to alpine elevations for hiking and fully supported overnight camping with guides, gourmet cooks, fine wines and Cuban cigars. In the winter, those same helicopters fly extreme skiers to some of the best heli-skiing venues in the world, with “unbelievable depths of stable powder and some of the largest verticals in North America.”
Tweedsmuir Park Lodge specializes in heli-hiking and heli-skiing… starting at $2,600 a day for the helicopter alone. The sack lunch is extra. Having said that, they’ll arrange a partial day-hike with heli-drop and heli-pick-up for under $2,000. Not too outrageous if a helicopter full of 4 hikers were to split the cost. My new friends Andre and Reeni, a Dutch couple I met over dinner at the Lodge, did take such a partial day-hike and proclaimed it ‘worth every penny.’
I opted to stay closer to sea level – and closer to my budget – with something completely different: a 4-hour guided ‘river drift’. (See 15th Post.)
And although I was disappointed by the limited access to good hiking, I was very pleasantly surprised by the high quality of hospitality provided to Lodge guests. This is no rustic outpost. It’s posh. There’s a spa with a full-time massage therapist and an outdoor hot tub with a jaw-droppingly gorgeous view of Stupendous Mountain. That’s where I spent a lot of time, studiously working my jaw back to its normal position.
Accommodations at the Lodge are first class. Guests stay in plush private cabins, most with spectacular views, and all with high thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets and herbal-citrus-eucalyptus shampoos and such. My cabin was ‘the Hillary cabin,’ named after it’s most famous guest: Sir Edmund himself, who’d been mountaineering in the area in the mid-50s shortly after his famous ascent of Everest. A book on his ascent is left at bedside, and his National Geographic cover portrait is framed on the wall. Nice. (See Photo Gallery.) Also on the wall is the photo shown on this blog page – a couple of crusty Bella Coola mountain climbers, circa 1930.
The real quality of the guest experience was most apparent in the dining room where an exceptionally fine, fresh, 3-course supper is served each evening by advance reservation. The $45 cost includes gratuity. But caveat emptor: drinks are extra. Reckless selections from the Lodge’s extraordinary wine list can easily make a heli-hiking adventure look cheap by comparison.
The dining room is casual-mountain-elegant. And the format – assigned seating at shared tables with other guests – makes for fabulous mealtime conversations, especially insofar as the majority of the Lodge’s guests are Europeans. As on the ferry, I met Dutch (Andre & Reeni), English (Mike & Violet), and Spanish (Emilio & Ana) travelers. No Canadians. I liked being in a Euro-centric dining environment again, as I was reminded of many memorable meals – both business and pleasure – that I’d enjoyed in the 4 years I’d lived/worked in Europe.
Ana and Emilio, newlyweds from Madrid, were my dinner companions on my final night at the Lodge. We successfully talked our way through a world of wonderful topics, having wisely agreed to rely on their good English instead of my poor Spanish. We also agreed to share another meal when our itineraries crossed again in the Tofino/Ucluelet region on the West Coast of Vancouver Island. Watch for details in a future Post.
