“I live in Western Montana, so outdoor adventures are fairly easy to come by with Glacier Park, Yellowstone Park, Flathead Lake, and all the mountain ranges, rivers and prairies in between. But I did have one special adventure last fall and that was a 2,000-mile round-trip to Bella Bella in British Columbia with my wife and two other couples in a 35-foot rented RV for 10 days. The trip came about when my client, who is member of a Harley group, told me that ‘the most beautiful road trip’ he’d ever taken with his group was to Bella Bella (bella means beautiful in Italian) which involves a 24-hour ferry ride from Bella Coola through several inlets and waterways to Bella Bella.

“We left after Labor Day. We had no timetable and no agenda except to reach Bella Bella and return home within 10 days. We let the road, weather, moods, availability of campsites, and probable equipment failures dictate our agenda. Traveling towards Bella Bella, we discovered some marvelous wine country north of the border in the Okanagan Valley (Canadian wine? Who knew? This discovery did “slow” our trip a bit). We found quaint and full-blown summer and ski resort towns and met lots of very friendly, helpful people. However, the last 60 miles from Williams Lake, B.C. into Bella Coola where you board the ferry to Bella Bella is where the real adventure starts.

“At Williams Lake, you turn on to Highway 20 which is not a highway at all, but a washboard dusty dirt road. Picture six people in a 35’ RV towing 3 scooters bouncing on this dusty dirt road, with dishes falling and the din so loud that you have to yell at each other. But what nobody told us, (and also there are no warning signs), is that 6 miles out of Bella Coola, the road literally drops from about 3,000 feet to sea level at a 18 percent grade, and it turns into a hairpin-curved washboard road with absolutely no guardrails and at times one lane with a sheer cliff drop-off into oblivion. This is the only road into Bella Coola, and the locals have named it “The Hill.” Some tourists who have driven The Hill into Bella Coola have refused to drive back and have had to be taken out by boat or float plane. We traveled no more than 10 mph and had to stop twice to cool the RV brakes. It took us an hour-and-a-half to go 6 miles basically straight down. Once in Bella Coola (people couldn’t believe we came down The Hill in an RV trailering scooters), we found a campground right on the Bella Coola River surrounded by majestic, rugged, glacier-packed mountains with waterfalls (Montana mountains on steroids)! We immediately saw a grizzly bear and bald eagles feeding on salmon directly across from our campsite. As it turns out, Bella Coola has some of the best grizzly bear-watching country in the world. We hiked and took scooter rides all over the area and discovered a fresh fish market on a back road literally in the middle of nowhere (only locals know where it is). We took the ferry from Bella Coola to Bella Bella, and sure enough, at one point, we had the entire ferry to ourselves. We saw breaching whales, salmon, porpoises, and loads of unbelievably beautiful jellyfish.

“After returning to Bella Coola, we happened upon a car with Montana license plates, so we stopped to talk. Come to find out, the guy was from Missoula and had moved to Bella Coola with his wife and small child to start a charter fishing boat business. Since they were just starting out, we decided to give them some business. So we charted the entire 50-foot boat for a day and caught crab, prawns, salmon and saw breaching whales. We also stopped at a hot springs on one of the inlet’s remote islands and totally relaxed in one of the most beautiful, peaceful places on earth! The weather was perfect that day, and the scenery was literally indescribably stunning.

“We had a lot more memorable experiences, but this trip was a true adventure because we had no preconceived itinerary which resulted in many unexpected experiences generating countless stories to tell for years, and we’re still friends.”