Skip to content

Day Trips

Day-trip: Nelson to Fletcher Falls and Ainsworth Hotsprings

I’ve decided that I should be adding more posts of regular trips that my family embarks on around the Kootenays themselves, since most of the EV “adventure” posts have so far been about longer journeys outside of our region.  I also will be adding a Page in the near future that will serve as a database of local trips that includes real data that I have collected so the growing collection of EV owners in our region have real data to work from!

Anyways – Marley’s mom is here visiting from Hamilton, Ontario this week, and with the beautiful fall weather, we thought a day-trip up the lake to see Fletcher Falls, with a soak in the Ainsworth Hot Springs on the way home, was just the ticket for her last day in BC.

Read More »Day-trip: Nelson to Fletcher Falls and Ainsworth Hotsprings

Day Trip to Larch Ridge near Rossland

When I was coming back to the Kootenays from Kelowna in early October in my electric vehicle (a Nissan Leaf), I travelled through the Strawberry Pass on my way to Rossland and noticed that the larches were all a brilliant golden yellow.  There is a set of trails in an area just north of Rossland known as Larch Ridge, and I wanted to take my family to show them before all the needles fell, so we decided to go the weekend right after I got home.

Read More »Day Trip to Larch Ridge near Rossland

Skiing and a Christmas Tree

For a video update on winter driving, go to the bottom… (original post follows)

Ski season started recently in the Kootenays!    I love skiing so this is one of my favourite times of the year.  There are a few ski hills close to Nelson, so in the fall I plugged the data into my spreadsheet model to see which trips were viable:

EV energy usage model by trip

EV energy usage model by trip

Read More »Skiing and a Christmas Tree

Driving up to winter at Kokanee Glacier Park

The weather has been cold and clear in Nelson for the last week now.  From our home, we get a tantalizing view of the mountain peaks covered in snow, and we woke up this morning wanting to get a better view.  We had not been all the way up to Kokanee Glacier Park before, so we looked it up on the provincial parks website.

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge – ok maybe the peaks are just barely peaking up above the ridge!

“Hmm, 20 km out to Kokanee Creek park, then 16 km of dirt road up the Kokanee Creek valley from Kootenay Lake, and the parking lot is at 1,570 m!”  It was -3 C at our house, so it would only get colder going up.  Driving slow up a bumpy dirt road with the heat on, and gaining just over 1,000m was going to do a number on the battery.Read More »Driving up to winter at Kokanee Glacier Park