A friendly, fair, and attentive park operator can significantly improve the experience at any provincial or national park. They’re the cherry on top of the campground sundae, if you will; or the hair should the opposite be true. But can an operator be too friendly? This is the question I was left pondering after our two-night stay at Rosebery Provincial Park.
We returned to the Slocan Valley this past summer after a year’s hiatus. Our previous, and first, visit to this overshadowed gem in BC ended on a sour note. Though we enjoyed our stay in Slocan City, and fell in love with the area, we were unsuccessful in accessing any of the old mine ruins we’d come to explore.
Hoping to rectify that failure, we came back for another try with fresh research and targets in hand. Most of these required hiking from, or near, the ghost town of Sandin, so we sought a more centrally located campground near New Denver this time, hence our discovery of Rosebery Provincial Park.
Where to Find Rosebery Provincial Park
This delightful park is located six-ish kilometres north of New Denver in the … well I’m not sure what you’d call Rosebery. A hamlet, maybe? Whatever it is, it’s small. And, yes, both the community and the park are correctly spelled with only one ‘r’.
Found in the forest north of the highway, Rosebery Provincial Park is not an isolated wilderness escape. In fact, you’ll pass residences as you approach the park’s entrance. And at just 32 hectares, half of which comprise a campground, the park is also compact by BC standards. None of this should deter you.
Rosebery Provincial Park Campground Layout
For a small park, the campground within it packs quite the punch. There are only 35 campsites available, but they offer a wide variety of types that will appeal to any kind of camper. This includes 1 walk-in site, 6 pull-through sites, and 2 doubles sites. If, like me, you prefer an established itinerary for your trips, you’ll also be pleased to learn that 11 sites are reservable, a not-so-common perk at campgrounds of this size.
One of the most glaring things you’ll notice about Rosebery Provincial Park is that it looks practically new. The primary access road has been recently paved, all the campsites have fresh, voluminous gravel pads, and the pit toilets are exquisite (no small feat, that).
I legit thought we’d booked ourselves into a brand new park. I was mistaken, of course, as this provincial park was established in 1959. It did, however, receive a full makeover three years ago, a fact the friendly park attendant shared with us upon my inquiry.
The campground layout mimics that of a uterus and fallopian tubes. You didn’t see that analogy coming, did you? It’s true, though. There’s the entrance road that hosts eleven campsites. Proceeding up a hill, this road then hits a t-intersection providing access to an eleven site loop to the right and a thirteen site loop to the left.
Campsites at Rosebery Provincial Park
The campsites have some variability in dimension, but all are spacious and reasonably private. I’ve certainly seen greater separation at some provincial parks, but I wouldn’t characterize these as congested. The forest cover is mature, offering steady shade over much of the campground. Underbrush is sparse for the most part, so sightlines between sites are open.
Double sites have broad, shared access with a pad to the left and a pad to the right. Almost scrotal in nature. Okay! I’ll stop.
Pull-through sites have strips of gravel with a bulge and a swath of forest between each.
The lone walk-in site has a short gravel pathway from the paved parking enclave to the site itself. It’s not terribly special or secluded to be honest. If you must have a walk-in tenting experience, you’ll get it, but this easily could have just been a regular campsite with additional tree removal.
The remaining “normal” campsites are as you would expect. Gravel parking pads that expand around “living quarters”. Some are deeper than others, with longer driveways that’ll accommodate larger RVs. A couple include designated tent pads, though there is no enforcement keeping these available specifically for tent campers.
Our site, number 19, is what I’d describe as a typical campsite at Rosebery Provincial Park. It is spacious and surrounded by trees. I chose to reserve this site because it appeared to have no neighbouring site on one side. It didn’t. It also appeared to border Wilson Creek, which it did, although the creek is down a slope, something I constantly forget when viewing BC two-dimensional maps.
Campsite Ammenities
Ours was a great site with one glaring exception. A dirt trail within the park runs directly between site 19 and the creek. It is marked on the map, so I knew it was there, I just had no idea that this trail was so close to the campsite. Uncomfortably close. It wouldn’t have taken much effort to high-five hikers while sitting around the campfire. No, it’s not the busiest trail but I’d have preferred a little more … segregation.
Every campsite comes with a picnic table and a firepit. The tables are made of iron and wood with an extended top for cooking equipment. These are preferable to the old, concrete BC Parks behemoths that could not be moved. Firepits are round with a permanent grill on top. Both suited our requirements just fine.
Like many parks in the BC system, Rosebery Provincial Park offers no services on site. All are rustic; no power, no water, no sewer. As a result, you’re likely to encounter generator use. None were being used in the immediate vicinity of our site, thankfully, but there was at least one being used nearer the entrance.
The Pit Toilets of Rosebery Provincial Park
Lack of onsite services also means pit toilets are the flavour of the day for human waste. Not my preferred option and I admit some trepidation when booking this place for the end of our trip. I knew I’d be exhausted by this point, possibly a bit rank myself, and using a smelly pit toilet would surely have me yearning for home.
Thankfully, I was welcomed to Rosebery Provincial Park by new, luxury pit toilets that practically eliminated all my worries. We’ve encountered these modern vault toilets before, albeit rarely, and they are fantastic.
Spacious and airy, the wood walls themselves act as odour suppressors. With trees providing shade, they don’t bake in the sun. And being fairly new, they haven’t built up decades of disgust. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still prefer flush toilets, but these surpassed expectations for our late July visit.
For RVers, there is no dump station in the park. I’m not sure where one can be found in the New Denver area but I’m sure they exist. I’ll leave the research up to you on this one.
Potable Water
Drinking water is available from a handpump located near the entrance to the park. This too is an upgraded installation, and it provides clean, cool, delicious fresh water. My only quibble is that this is the only water supply for the entire campground.
Yes, 35 campsites is a small campground, but the majority of sites are uphill from where the pump is located. It’s not an insignificant walk from some sites, like say 19 where we were staying. You may prefer to have a large bucket or container to fill rather than accessing water as needed like we do at campgrounds with multiple water taps available.
Park Entrance
That main entrance area is fairly simple. There’s a handful of parking spots and a covered information board. FCFS campers can self-register while those with reservations can proceed to your sites and the attendant will confirm check-in during evening rounds.
Stairs and a trail offer shortcuts to the two loops from this registration area. I found it was just as easy to walk along the road from our site on the right ovary. Those in the left ovary would find the trail quicker.
There’s also a connection to the Lower Butter Trail from the west end of the campground. The trail appears to be wide and well-groomed at the campground but I didn’t explore further.
A Playground!
The most surprising amenity at Rosebery Provincial Park is a playground. This was added during the recent upgrades and is truly unexpected in a park of this size. Hell, there are parks ten times this size without playgrounds.
It’s a metal and plastic climbing structure with slides. There’s a single spring-type riding toy as well. Parking is available, presumably for locals to come and use the playground, and a pit toilet is right there. A lovely addition that takes this little park above the norm.
Near the crest of the entrance road, a garbage station is present for waste and recycling. A couple of food storage bins are also located here for those that need this service. There is no suffering of fools when it comes to bears in BC, so lock up your foodstuffs in a vehicle or one of these caches.
Wilson Creek
Wilson Creek, which borders the south side of the park, needs mentioning. We love having a mountain stream around to explore from our campsite and had high hopes for doing just that when we booked at Rosebery Provincial Park.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to explore along this creek. As mentioned above, our site and those in our loop are elevated above the creek. You could certainly get to it with relative ease, but the slopes meant there was limited dry land to walk up or down the creek-side at late July water levels.
It’s nonetheless a lovely creek with decent views upstream and downstream. One fellow camper spent a good amount of time relaxing on a rock with her feet in the cool water as we attempted to assess what rockhounding we could do.
A couple of the campsites nearer the entrance, which are closer to creek elevations, could be described as backing onto the river. A perk if you can snag one, but not something I’d put too much effort into.
Firewood and the Friendly Park Attendant
This brings me to firewood and with that, addressing the question I asked in the opening of this review.
We lucked out with there being no fire bans during the entirety of our trip and so we decided to enjoy a campfire on the final night of our adventure. This requires firewood which can be purchased from the campground attendant. $10 gets you a beat-up, blue storage bin’s worth of wood. Not great value but enough to last us until bedtime. Getting this wood, however, was another matter entirely.
As mentioned already, firewood is purchased from the campground attendant who comes by each evening in a pickup truck. We awaited her arrival, money in hand, for quite some time after finishing our meal. Eventually, we walked over to that t-intersection to see if the attendant was even in the park and saw the truck by the entrance parking.
We returned to our site to wait some more. Still, nobody came. Frustration was setting in but we could now see the truck at a site near the crest of the hill which ignited some hope we would soon be attended to.
Again, we waited. And waited. And waited. I even walked over to where the truck was parked to see what was up. Perhaps a camper was in distress. Nope, the attendant was simply socializing with the campers on this site. And not just talking out the truck window, she was fully on the campsite chatting away with the folks seated at their picnic table.
I returned to our site, aggravated now, but expecting her to come around shortly. Surely, there was some urgency to get firewood to people who might need it to say, cook their food?
Finally, having expressed my frustration with great bravado to my son, the truck moseyed its way to the front of our campsite. It was now an hour and a half after we’d first made visual contact with it at the campground entrance. Absolutely baffling that it took this long.
When the friendly attendant approached us, she proceeded to chat with us just as she had the other campers. Not for as long; I’m not that chatty. But easily fifteen minutes or so, selling us some wood as the conversation progressed.
Sure, she was kind and informative and any number of other positive descriptors. She even admitted that this friendly, talkative parks employee persona was a new initiative by BC Parks to better the camping experience. Great! Just don’t take 1.5 hours to get firewood to my campsite in a 35-site campground.
Am I wrong for feeling this way? I guess the lesson here is to be better prepared with firewood. Buy it a day ahead, or more, to prevent unnecessary consternation with unexpected waits.
So, to answer my question, yes a park attendant can be too friendly. Exasperatingly so! But I suppose there are worse things in the world. Harrumph!
Conclusion and Rating
With that, I’ll bring my review to a close. As unserviced camping goes, Rosebery Provincial Park is one of the best experiences I’ve had. I happily give it 4.4 Baby Dill Pickles out of 5.
The recent upgrades have undoubtedly enhanced the camping experience at Rosebery Provincial Park. It’s a quaint, little park that served our needs in spades (tardy firewood delivery notwithstanding).
Sure, I’d love it if the park was a little further away from civilization. Yeah, flush toilets would still be nicer, but you won’t find better pit toilets than these. A better rockhounding experience along the creek would have tickled my fancy. And, personally, the friendly park attendant could dial it back just a wee bit. But none of that would prevent me from visiting Rosebery Provincial Park again or recommending it to you.
If you’re even camping in the Slocan Valley, and you really should, be sure to put this little gem on your itinerary.