You couldn’t have asked for a better first day. The morning meeting was held in the sunshine, the roads (with the exception of one) were incredible, the cars beautiful, and the people? Oh my the people are so much fun.
It’s been a year since I was in Ontario and while traditionally I only meet with our Maple Mille friends annually this year the anticipation seems stronger. For most of the participants, this is the first and only driving event they’ve attended in 2020. The chance to see friends, properly distanced, to drive cars and enjoy roads…the driving meeting felt like Christmas morning.
We headed out from Lindsay Ontario and headed out on smaller backroads for the day, avoiding a lot of the usual towns we’ve passed through in the past. It was a quieter day, only hitting the towns of Kinmount, Dorsett and Dwight. The rest of the day was simply ribbons of highway between trees just starting to change their colours. A lack of bakeries or shops wasn’t going to deter this group from a good time, our arrival at a lake-side resort for the night was filled with nothing but smiles. Dining, watching the sun set across the lake, was simply icing on the cake.
Tomorrow? We get to do it all over again.
Elliot Alder was out in his AMC Eagle to capture some fantastic images for us. A preview of day one photos is available below:
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While, it may not have been the mountain views that I had planned for day 3, but that didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits. At the morning meeting, as I described the mountain view that should have appeared behind me, one of the open-top-car participants interrupted me to say “at least it isn’t raining!” It was true, there were definitely upsides to the day!
Today’s route took us from Fernie ski resort, to Golden using Hwy 93/95 and a few tastes of some fantastic twisties. We enjoyed Wardner-Fort Steele road, near (funny enough) Fort Steele, and Westside road into Invermere. For the straighter sections of highway, the route book did it’s best to entertain with history and stories. A running joke became the number of views it was pointing out and explaining, that we simply had to imagine were there.
Finally, to end the day we climbed up the road to Kicking Horse resort, before climbing into the gondola for lunch at the summit. A number of guests caught a view of Boo, the resident grizzly bear who lives below the gondola.
Our Hard Luck award winner was Wendy Porter, who’s recent Lancia purchase decided it didn’t want to attend the event…the morning-of. While the Hagerty Fall Classic should have had the excitement of driving a new classic car purchase, Wendy will have to wait until the next CCA event in order to feel that joy.
Our Spirit of the Classic award, presented by Hagerty, will be split this year by two guests. Sometimes we simply can’t decide between two entrants, and the answer is to have a second award made so that they can share the honour.
Brynn Fram is a long-time CCA participant, who only recently earned her “N” drivers license. While she’s participated many times as her father Rob’s co-driver, this year she was able to attend the event as ‘the driver’. Her enthusiasm all weekend couldn’t be hidden by any mask, and parking lot parties were spent asking for thoughts about what she should choose for her first classic car. Brynn is clearly hooked on classic car adventuring, and her enthusiasm had us all dying for the next leg of the event to start.
Our second recipient for the 2020 Spirit of the Classic was our Hard Luck winner, Wendy Porter. You would think the disappointment of her Lancia woes would have put a damper on her weekend, but absolutely not. She led the pack in her ‘driving bubble’, served up ‘misery margaritas’ to the other participants, and wore a genuine smile all weekend. Was she driving her ideal car? Nope. Did the challenge of a Lotus Seven, tiny clutch engagement, and ankle-burning draft phase her? Not one little bit. Even the downpour of rain, just five minutes from home, was another adventure to be laughed about. If anyone understands turning adversity into adventure, it was Wendy!
A sample of Day 3 images by Andrew Holliday can be seen in the gallery below.
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Glorious roads, vast mountain views, winery lunches…day two was planned as careful as possible. Whelp, not this year! Okay, okay, the roads were awesome. But on the sections that straightened out and left our small British car friends wanting, there was supposed to be epic views of the Rocky Mountains. Instead, we spent the day enveloped in smoke from the west coast forest fires. The winery lunch suggestion, that I told everyone about at the driver’s meeting? That was replaced by cafe’s and restaurants in town…but possibly worked out even better. I found a new favourite cafe in Castlegar, and received contact details for a restaurant that would be incredible for a future event.
My grande finale finish for the day, parking at our Mountain resort, with Fernie Ski Resort in the background, isn’t going to have the same photographic “pop” as I planned. You could see about three trees passed our accommodation, before the smoke hid everything.
Did it matter? Not one bit. I arrived to the hotel to discover a wide circle of camping chairs, masks, and lively conversation. So what if they couldn’t see the view I had planned for them, the entrants were simply enjoying a chance to spend time with each other and share the tales of the day.
Sometimes things don’t go according to plan…but isn’t that part of the adventure?
A sample of Day 2, with incredible photography by Andrew Holliday, can be seen in the gallery below.
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In a world where terms like “new normal” are becoming, well, the new normal…it’s so refreshing to return to what has been for years our normal. Yesterday 46 classic car enthusiasts gathered in a Vernon parking lot for the first driver’s meeting of the 2020 Hagerty Fall Classic. The majority of us are returning Hagerty Fall Classic entrants, veterans of this fall adventure that is normally held in Washington and Oregon. A handful, however, are experiencing a CCA event for the first time, or a fall event instead of the Hagerty Spring Thaw.
“I can’t believe how excellent the weather is,” one entrant told me as they reminisced about that time they had to drive their Mini Moke through a freak snow storm on our Spring event. “I had no idea this town was so incredible, I’ve never been here,” said another. “These roads are excellent,” I overheard, “why haven’t we done these on Spring Thaw?!”
While the 2020 Pandemic has certainly been challenging, if you look for it…it’s also brought opportunity. Smaller group sizes means we can travel to towns we normally can’t stay in. Hotel managers, excited to see their first ‘large’ group for the year, can’t wait to help. Parking lot party out back? “Nah, you need to park all the cars right up front and have your party with views of our historic main street.” Normally a town like Rossland would be our “eastern edge” for a Hagerty Spring Thaw, as we’d have to head back towards Vancouver for our finish. On a pandemic Hagery Fall Classic? Rossland is just our first night. We’re going east, and we’re going further east than any CCA B.C. event has gone before. And the weather? Well, it’s not pandemic related but we’ll happily take the excellent weather we’re forcasted!
It’s difficult to see the smiles, with all of us hidden behind a mask. But I’m learning to watch the eyes. You may be able to hide an ear-to-ear grin after a particularly great day of driving, but you can’t hide the eyes. The sparkle and excitement at the end of our first day was evident in each of our entrants. Twisty roads were fun, visiting some historic towns was interesting…but by far the thing we’re enjoying most is simply being back on the road, in our classic cars, doing what (for us) has been normal every September. The joy is palatable. We’ve still got two days to go.
Click the gallery below for some excellent preview photos by Andrew Holliday Photography.
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