Cool Chemainus River & Cowichan’s Country Music Festival

Our heat wave has returned with a vengeance as the temperatures have soared back up into the 90’s for the past few days. With that in mind, Paulette and I decided to go for our daily hike in the morning before it got too hot. We’d heard of a new trail about 25 minutes north of us that wound it’s way down to the Chemainus River. It’s one of the rivers we’ve never visited so we thought we’d give it a try.

After finding the parking area, we started walking down a logging road which led to a trail going down to the river. After 25 minutes of not knowing where we were actually going, we emerged from the heavily forested trail to a quiet, beautiful scene – the Chemainus River flowing crystal clear hard up against the steep, rocky cliffs of Mt. Sicker.

Rylie rushed right down to the river and had a good long drink of the nice, cool water. I couldn’t believe how clear the water was – it looked perfect for swimming. Did I say swimming? Sure enough, we heard a man yell “hello, there”!

If you look closely, on the right, you can see the head of a guy in swimming

We looked down the river to see a man who looked to be in his 60’s enjoying a swim in the cold water of the river. I’m not sure where he came from but I’m guessing he must be a local and this is his personal swimming hole. As he pulled himself up onto the rocks, I heard Paulette say “thank God, he’s wearing a bathing suit”.

We knew the hike back to the parking lot was going to a tough uphill slog most of the way so we took some time to sit alongside the river and just watch as time drifted by. It was just perfect sitting in the shade and we probably could have sat there all day. But, we had things to do at home and time was a wastin’.

Thankfully, the walk back up in the forest was mostly shaded and we managed to get back to the car in 30 minutes which wasn’t too bad given it was mostly uphill. We think there is a trail that leads further upriver but we couldn’t find it so I’ll have to do some checking online to see if there are any maps.

Cowichan Valley Country Music Festival starring Tim McGraw is this weekend

On the way back home we passed by the site of this weekend’s big Cowichan Valley Country Music Festival. It’s a holiday weekend here for BC Day and this concert has grown dramatically in size over the past few years. They are expecting over 30,000 attendees including hundreds, maybe thousands, of RV rigs parked in the spacious fields. To accommodate and organize the RV’s pouring in they limit the number of arrivals for a few days prior to the start. 

The concert kicks off with shows beginning July 31st

The biggest country music festival in BC used to be held in the small interior town of Merritt (Merritt Mountain Festival). That 6 day festival peaked in 2005 when 150,000 poured through the gates to take part in the festivities. After many years of success it was shutdown in 2012 due to too many festivities (i.e.rowdyism, drunkenness and smokin’). The RCMP had enough of these guys and probably had a lot to do with ending what turned into a real zoo.

 All of the RV Camping sties are completely sold out

I have a strange feeling that Cowichan’s festival may be headed in the same general direction as Merritt’s. In reading the festival website I ran across this: ““Our fenced beverage garden has been increased by 400% capacity so there’ll be no line ups, The reserved seating area will be open licence, so you can take a drink back to your seat.”  Hmm….somehow, that doesn’t sound too good of an idea to me. No problem, we won’t be going anywhere near there.

Thanks for visiting!