The movie Rambo: First Blood was shot in the town of Hope in British Columbia. This fact alone made me very interested in this town. So when a friend called me up one day and asked if I would be interested in a weekend trip there for some hiking and sightseeing I readily agreed.
Hope is a town of around 6000 people and lies at the confluence of two famous rivers of BC, Fraser River and Coquihalla River. Lying 154 kms east of Vancouver Hope forms the terminus of two important highways, the Coquihalla Highway and Crowsnest Highway. The reason why its called Hope has an interesting history behind it. Back in the 1850s there was intense competition behind Canadian and American traders near the 49th parallel. Canadians feared that Americans might push into their territory and settle down there so they were always on the look out for trade routes which did not go below the 49th parallel. Henry Peers discovered a route which did not dip below the 49th parallel and established Fort Hope on this route hoping that might be a route which would finally work. Hence the name.
I drove down to Hope from Kelowna on a Friday afternoon. My friend Ram joined me driving from Langley in the Lower Mainland. We spent the Friday evening just chilling in our hotel rooms and just catching up as it was around a year since we had last met. Next day, we drove down to E.C. Manning Park (Its name after Ernest Callaway Manning, Chief Forester of British Columbia from 1936 to 1941) for doing some hikes. We had the Mt Frosty hike but it was closed at that time so we requested the super friendly forest ranger in the visitor center there if she can help is pick up some hikes. Since we had come prepared for a long and moderate level hike we told her we are open to clubbing some shorter hikes together. She suggested us 3 hikes and made a plan for us to follow. It made total sense to us so we decided to do it. A special word of appreciation for that helpful Park ranger. She was enthusiastic and eager to help chart a plan for us. Thanking her profusely we left for the hike. It was around 10 am in the morning now. For the rest of the day we did 3 hikes in all. Poland Hike, Three falls Hike and Lighting Lake Hike. The last one of these was a loop running around a lake and did not have too much elevation gain. Poland and Three Falls were moderate and had some steep sections. The three falls in the name were beautiful and we stopped for a break at the last falls which is called the Derek Falls. After the lighting lakes hike we went back to our hotel and called it a day.
Next day, after waking up leisurely we went to do the Hope Visitor center to do the Rambo tour. This is a self guided tour where we can pick up a guide from the visitor centre and follow the markers and path by ourselves. The guy manning the booth at the visitor centre was hilarious. He gave us a brief history of the place and mentioned some facts of the Rambo series. But in between talking he randomly burst into a shout of Rambo! Rambo! Rambo! We laughed at first but as slowly joined in the shouts. It was fun. There was a lot of merch of the Rambo series and there was even a TV playing the movie on loop. To me it looked a bit like they were stressing on this Rambo connection a bit too much. Its been almost 30 years now since the movie released. But I was still interested in seeing the famous landmarks and also before this trip I watched the movie to jog my memory. The movie hit me differently than it did when I first watched it as a kid. We took the map and walked around the town looking for the famous scenes but it was bit of a letdown. There are no physical markers in the places to confirm if what we are looking at is indeed what we should be looking at. We wandered around for a while and then called it off, not going to the far off places. We did go to the bridge though where Rambo first enters the town in the movie.
After the tour, we drove nearby to a section where it was said the rare rhododendron flowers were in bloom. We spent some time here looking at the beautiful flowers and just strolling around before returning and checking out of the Hotel. On our way back to Langley we made a detour to Harrison Hot Springs and strolled around there a bit. It was packed with tourists and there was some kind boat race going on where we joined the spectators for a while. Ram had been here many times before and he took to the spot where the Hot springs actually gush out of the earth. There was an old structure built around it and the area reeked with the smell of Sulphur. I could hang around there much and left soon. But it was good to actually see the point of origin of hot springs. There is a lot history around this place of which I could gather some from the number of information boards around the place. We left soon and were back in Ram’s place by 9pm. Overall it was a pretty good weekend fun after a long time.