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There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

kelownanow.com

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Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#71

Post by nathancahill »

javajosh wrote: post #57
beebs93 wrote: post #34

One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope, British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can communicate via its SMS feature. For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official relevant…

That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going on a long hike in a remote area.

You can buy them used for cheaper, and pay $15/mo when you need it (backpacking trips, etc) and pause the service the rest of the time. The preset messages are unlimited across all plans.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#72

Post by Mikeb85 »

ironmagma wrote: post #59
Mikeb85 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Terrible analogy. You're not required to take a road test every 48 hours to continue driving. Edit - might be 72 hours. Regardless... I've done a road test once in my life...

I drive quite a lot and haven’t been required to take a Covid test after several years of driving during Covid. Bottom line: if you’re crossing an international border, you’re gonna have to do some stuff.

Whooosh...

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#73

Post by qbasic_forever »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #16

As of a few seconds ago, this is the best route Google Maps can find to go from Vancouver to Kelowna: https://archive.md/we9X5 You have to go pretty far into the US on this route. Edit: Incidentally, asking for directions from Vancouver to Edmonton currently causes Google Maps to fail and give you a route that's closed: https://archive.md/7lLu4

If someone is actually planning to drive a route like that, be absolutely sure to check the conditions of the mountain passes in the US that you will cross. The linked route has you going over highway 2 and steven's pass, which right now is projected to get a ton of snow: https://wsdot.com/travel/real-time/mountainpasses/Stevens Typically travel over these passes requires snow chains in your car, and at times they can be entirely shut until snow removal can occur.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#74

Post by beebs93 »

javajosh wrote: post #57
beebs93 wrote: post #34

One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope, British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can communicate via its SMS feature. For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official relevant…

That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going on a long hike in a remote area.

They frequently go camping with their family in the interior of BC so they always have one for emergencies. I agree they can be pricey, but it obviously paid for itself just in this situation alone :)

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#75

Post by jeffbee »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #16

As of a few seconds ago, this is the best route Google Maps can find to go from Vancouver to Kelowna: https://archive.md/we9X5 You have to go pretty far into the US on this route. Edit: Incidentally, asking for directions from Vancouver to Edmonton currently causes Google Maps to fail and give you a route that's closed: https://archive.md/7lLu4

This does not seem dramatically longer than the route one often has to take in California to go around the Sierra Nevada when it can't be crossed.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#76

Post by ashtonkem »

javajosh wrote: post #57
beebs93 wrote: post #34

One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope, British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can communicate via its SMS feature. For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official relevant…

That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going on a long hike in a remote area.

You don’t have to be particularly intense to find value in a full fledged GPS. We just do a lot of day hikes and a few overnighters, and the 64st ($300-400) has been immensely valuable. Considering that the inreach eliminates the need for a separate rescue beacon, that’s a cost and weight savings. If you’re even more marginally intense than I, one of these is less a toy and more a life saving necessity.

Dedicated GPS units are faster, more reliable, and easier to keep going in the field than your phone. You’ll never have them display a blank square because you lost LTE and it didn’t buffer that map segment. A lot of them will also record your hikes for overlay onto Google Earth later, which is nice. I personally have a large number of the local hot springs recorded into mine, which is very important when they’re off road and off trail.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#77

Post by Tiktaalik »

rubylark wrote: post #29

A different article[1] I read with a similar headline has this claim: > To leave the Lower Mainland of BC, you would have to use Highway 99, Highway 1, or the Coquihalla. I'm not at all familiar with the area. Are there really only 3 roads between Vancouver and the rest of Canada without going through Washington? That seems like such a low number. [1] https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/highway-closures-flooding-mu...

Open up the google maps of BC and turn on satellite view and you'll see why. The whole province is all mountain with the only roads snaking through the few river valleys and mountain passes.

Big province, but remarkably little actual habitable land.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#78

Post by luggage_problem »

javajosh wrote: post #57
beebs93 wrote: post #34

One of my family members has been stuck just east of Hope, British Columbia[1] for almost two days now. There is currently no cell service, but luckily they have a Garmin inReach so we can communicate via its SMS feature. For anybody with friends/family in the area, the BC subreddit megathread[2] on this is a good starting place to get information on evacuations, power outage status, road closures, official relevant…

That garmin is a cool toy, but pricey ($400 for the device plus $50/mo for unlimited text service). What does your family member do that they have one? It seems like the kind of thing a park ranger would have, or that someone might rent before going on a long hike in a remote area.

I know a decent number of folks in the Washington ski/climb/do-things-in-remote-areas scene who have em, though more common is the type that doesn't let you sms and doesn't have a monthly fee (basically a please help or I'm not getting home button). That said most of my friends with inreaches don't have the unlimited sms plan, and just budget the limited number for check-ins.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#79

Post by jeffbee »

ghaff wrote: post #67
klyrs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say "that's Google for you" but really it's whatever variant of Dijkstra's algorithm they (and other map services) use. If somebody puts the roads on a map, there will be network conditions that suggest they might be useful... whether or not they actually exist in a usable condition.

I've never had Google try to take me anywhere really ridiculous and I've played with its routing algorithm in places like Death Valley and it does seem to avoid "interesting" shortcuts if there's a more reasonable alternative. But once you get below well-traveled paved roads, you probably want some local knowledge because there's not a lot of mapping data that differentiated between a well-graded, good condition dirt…

I have a suspicion that gmaps infers roads from photographs, and some of the roads are not roads at all.

Re: There is currently no way to drive between Vancouver and the rest of Canada

#80

Post by mattmanser »

dleslie wrote: post #20
Dedime wrote: post #7

I surprised you didn't link Kelowna's finest newspaper, Castanet: https://www.castanet.net/news/BC/351544/Mudslides-close-all-... I love them because their reporting is terrible and the site itself is straight out of the 90's. They used to run polls that were easy to manipulate, according to a ex-coworker of mine. It's like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Nonetheless, everybody in Kelowna acts like Castanet is…

Castanet is gloriously imperfect. I hope they never change and never fade away. It's exactly what it looks like: a hodge-podged effort by some local folks with little experience and ability among them, besides an earnest desire to report local news with a local perspective, that has stood the test of time (it launched in 2000!).

So, an outsider's perspective:

1. It loads super quick

2. The list of articles is clear and easy to scan

3. There aren't a shit ton of adverts

4. There are no bloody popups, cookie notices, donate banners, etc.

5. The entire page doesn't load, me start reading then suddenly completely greyed out with an overlay because of badly implemented 4

6. No auto-playing videos that are impossible to find to stop

If this is 90s web design that's "a train wreck in slow motion" and "gloriously imperfect", can we all go back to the 90s please?

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