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The smallest national park in the region, MOUNT REVELSTOKE NATIONAL PARK is a somewhat arbitrary creation, put together at the request of local people in 1914 to protect the Clachnacudainn Range of the Columbia Mountains. The lines on the map mean little, for the thrilling scenery in the 16km of no-man's-land between Glacier and Revelstoke is largely the same as that within the parks. The mountains here are especially steep, their slopes often scythed clear of trees by avalanches. The views from the Trans-Canada, as it peeks out of countless tunnels, are of forests and snowcapped peaks aplenty and, far below, the railway and the Illecillewaet River crashing through a twisting, steep-sided gorge. The main access to the park interior is the very busy Summit Road , or Summit Parkway (generally open June-Oct), which strikes north from the Trans-Canada at the town of Revelstoke and winds 26km almost to the top of Mount Revelstoke (1938m) through forest and alpine meadows noted for glorious displays of wild flowers (best during July and Aug). You can also walk this stretch on the Summit Trail (10km one-way; 4hr) from the car park at the base of Summit Road. Recent damage to the delicate ecosystem has prompted park authorities to rethink, and often the last 1.5km of the road is closed to cars, leaving the choice of a walk or regular shuttle bus to the summit from a car park at Balsam Lake. Most of the longer of the park's ten official trails start from the top of Summit Road; serious backpackers prefer to head to Eagle Lake , off Summit Road, rather than take the more popular Miller Lake Trail (6km one-way). The award-winning Giant Cedars Trail is a wooded one-kilometre jaunt with ten interpretive exhibits off the road on the park's eastern edge, its boardwalks negotiating a tract of ancient forest crammed with 800-year-old western red cedars and rough-barked western hemlock (the trailhead begins at the Giant Cedars Picnic Area). You could also try the Skunk Cabbage Boardwalk (1.2km), an easy trail through temperate forest and wetland inhabited by muskrat, beaver, numerous birds and the eponymous skunk cabbage. Meadows in the Sky Trail , by contrast, is a quick one-kilometre paved loop through alpine meadows at the top of Summit Road. Look out for the so-called Icebox, a shaded rock cleft that contains what is reputedly the world's smallest glacier. The Footloose in the Columbias booklet, available from Glacier's Rogers Pass visitor centre, has further trail information.
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