East Glacier to Vancouver BC - help with route

From East Glacier, US2 back to Browning and 464 to Babb is best. 49 has a steep sharp climb over a ridge, and 89 to St Marys is curvy and hilly.

89 to 2 and north is the flattest route. 17 to 6 goes to Waterton, which is supposed to be as scenic as Glacier. But the border crossing is smaller and may have limited hours. 6 and 22 run closer to the Rockies front range.

In a car, 541 and 40 is my preferred route to Canmore, since it runs through Kananaskis Country, where the mountain views rival Banff. There's good Provincial camping here. But 40 is the highest paved pass in Alberta, and closed to traffic in early summer.

Last time I drove the area, I stayed in the parks to Jasper, and tooks 16 and 5 into BC.

The main route to BC is Hwy 1 from Lake Louise over Kicking Horse Pass into Yoho. From the east the climb to the pass is minor, but the drop to the west is long. Also I've seen videos of construction work along the highway where it passes through a canyon near Golden.

93 to Radium Hotsprings in a good alternative. Grades are somewhat less and views still good. The final drop to the town, roughly starting the hot springs may be the steepest and narrowest. Pay attention to your brakes.

Hwy 1 through the other Glacier NP is scenic - a major route with good pull offs. When I crossed the other way, we stopped for short hikes about 4 times.

If taking the Radium route, use 93/95 to get to 3. If needed at this point you could easily cross back into the USA and take its route(s) across the Cascades.

3 has its highest pass west of Creston. Beyond that it can feel like a roller coaster, up and down all the way to Hope. A while back I saw an article about a truck mountain driving school based somewhere along this highway.

It was the least damaged of the routes to Vancouver, and I think, at the moment, the only one open to all traffic. Apparently commercial traffic has been taking 5A from Merritt to Princeton to get to 3, and that's been causing traffic problems and accidents.

My favorite part of 3 is where it passes through Manning Prov Park. That has good camping, hiking, and a mountain climb for your toad.

5 Merritt to Hope is just opening to commercial traffic, with many temporary patches. Who knows when that will be open to general traffic. 1 through the Fraser canyon used to be the main route to Vancouver. It too was damaged. They are still working on a couple of major bridge fixes. Check https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc/ for repair work photos.

The first time I crossed BC I took the northern route, though Lillooet and Whistler. Then it was still a gravel logging road, now it's paved, but still high with steep grades. It's open now to essential traffic with winter driving conditions being the main concern.

DriveBC is the main road information site. Keep an eye on conditions there, and don't be afraid to detour into the USA if needed. WA20 has mountain and lake views to rival BC (and gets a lot of discussion here).

choices are going to be very limited with that size of unit in BC. I have a 42 foot and it takes a bit of planing to find places to stay. If you have never been to banf or havent been laitly don't waist youre time trying to stay at lake louise . Stay at the tunnel mountian campground in banff (Village 2, or the trailer park. I always stay in village 2) then now have the ROAM buss service that takes you into town for free and is a couple bucks to get back to the campground. they have taken a lot of parking away in town so it makes things simple. there are also busses that run to canmore , and lake louis. I recomend taking the bus to Lake Louise and make a day trip of it. the parking there fills up early every morning and realy once you have spent the day there canoeing or what ever, you have done lake louise.

from there towards the coast is going to be the tricky part. Kamloops is about a 5.5 to 6 hour drive from banff, so your going to have to stop before then if you stay to your 250 mile limitand except for big resorts on the shewshap lakes thrre isn't a lot of good places for a unit that big. Between revelstoke and sicamose is crazy creek hot springs. in the mountians but has a railway line on one side and the highway on the other, but not bad we stayed there a few times and got a good sleep. oh I just remembered there is a new campground just out of revelstoke in the national park called snowforest.

from revelstoke or crazy creek its only a 5 to 5.5 hour drive to get to vancouver, but like was mentioned our main route to van was trashed. its just opening today to limited comercial trafic but the other three routs are twisty windy roads. so you can add two hours to your drive if you cant use the coq by summer. I am not familer with any large enough campgrounds between kamloops and cancouver as its only a 3 hour drive to get to vancouver for me. but in vancouver you realy have to decide what you want, I always stay out in fort Langly at Brae Island. fort langly is a neat old vilage with neat stores and such you can walk to from the campground , but it is easy to hop in the truck and drive anywhere else in the lower mainland/vancouver you want to see. I have also stayed in Tynehead RV Camp in Surrey, but very tight/narrow sites.

Steve

Let Google Maps give you the most direct route then drag the route to accommodate whatever you want to see & wherever you want to stay along the way.

Hi,

There are not a lot of choices for that route.

https://freecampsites.net/#!East+Glacier+Park,+Montana~Banff,+Alberta~Vancouver,+British+Columbia&query=routeSearch&routeDistance=25&routeIndex=0&roundtrip=false

I enjoy the campground at Lake Louise. Consider going to the high tea there.

Fill your fuel tank at one of the three stations in Lake Louise--it will be MUCH more expensive in British Columbia. (140.9 in Lake Louise vs 154.9 in Golden) That is priced in liters. Converted to US gallons and USD that is a difference of about 46 cents per us gallon.

Be aware that there was a great deal of flood damage about 3 weeks ago. There will be LOTS of construction going on.

All four highways were cut and so were both train lines.