The questions we would ask us.

Alder or Larch — the big vans. Five travel seats with factory belts, four berths inside, standing height, and we fit and inspect your child restraints with you at handover. The electric three are strictly two seats and we will not pretend otherwise: book the wrong one and you will be told, at pickup, by us.

Because that is the truth of a cargo van conversion. The PV5 Cargo comes with two seats, and a bench you build into the back is not a passenger seat — it needs engineered anchorages, a crash-load path into the structure, a government-certified belt system and an inspection. We will not carry anyone on furniture we did not certify. So: two travel seats, and everything else happens once you are parked. A certified rear bench is on our roadmap and we will say so the day it is real.

One, at camp. The table drops into a 1450 × 765 mm child bed and it is the best thing in the van. On the road, a child can only ride in the front passenger seat with a forward-facing restraint or booster that both Kia and the restraint maker permit — and a rear-facing infant cannot go there at all with an active frontal airbag. If your kid is not that size yet, take the big van; we would rather lose the night than argue about it at a rest stop.

No. Three of the five are — Cedar, Basalt and Tide, Kia PV5 Cargo, all-electric. Alder and Larch are Sprinters running a 2.0-litre turbodiesel, and they exist because two things we could not do electrically: carry five people with belts, and give you standing height inside. The electric options in that size cost $76k–$95k with half the range and none of the payload, so we made the boring call and wrote it down rather than hiding it in a filter.

For the two-person trip, which is most of what we book. Silent overnight with the fridge running, no idling at 6 am, no diesel smell in a 4.7 m box, and a North Shore base where 90% of trips are under 300 km return. The electric vans are not better, they are better for that. The Electric page has the numbers and the gaps.

No, and we do not claim they are. The Sprinters are purchased as completed conversions from a certified Canadian builder. What is ours is the selection, the payload we weigh them at, the kit inside them, and the fact that we will tell you what they cannot do. The electric three are ours, drawn here, built here.

From inside, in the electric vans. There is an opening in the roof over the dinette and a telescoping ladder that lives along the bench wall. You climb out of your sleeping bag, not out of the van into the rain. It is the single feature we are proudest of and the one still pending sign-off from Kia and our insurer — if that answer changes, the tent moves to an external ladder and we will say so on this page. The big vans have no tent: you are already standing inside.

Not in the electric three. A 4.7 m van does not have a bathroom, and a toilet you never want to empty in a cupboard is a bad feature. Every electric van has a portable cassette available for $20 a night, and every campground on our routes has facilities. The Sprinters have a wet bath.

Neither van. The electric rigs are about 2.24 m with the tent closed and the Sprinters about 2.74 m; parkades cap out at 2.0–2.1 m. Street parking, surface lots and campground gravel are fine. We publish the height on every van page because the alternative is a customer finding out at 11 pm.

No. The electric vans are front-wheel drive with 143 mm of ground clearance, which is a driveway and a campground road, not a forest-service trail. The Sprinters have AWD but no low range, so gravel, snow and muddy pull-throughs are fine and ruts are not. We rent four-season, gravel-road capable vans. Nobody gets a winch.

In the electric vans: 40 L fresh, pumped, with a real tap at the tailgate, and 20 L of grey in a removable tank. Two people, two nights, no refill, with enough left to wash dishes. Every provincial park on our routes has a tap; fill up whenever you pass one and you will never think about it.

Same as an empty petrol tank, except the recovery truck brings a charge instead of jerry cans and it takes longer. Realistically it happens to people who skip the plan, so we give you the plan: a laminated route card per trip, the tested loaded range in your hand — not the brochure number — and a hard rule that you charge before the last stretch of any valley. Our number works at midnight.

Not on vehicle-to-load. V2L needs the vehicle in ready mode, and the continuous Canadian wattage is something we are still confirming in writing with Kia — so the hob is sized conservatively at 1000–1200 W, and we will print the real number the day we have tested it. For overnight fans and lights without the van awake, take the 1 kWh power station for $15 a night.

Handover is at ~90%, which covers a Porteau weekend with no charging at all. Beyond that: BC Hydro and commercial fast chargers in Squamish, Function Junction, Whistler and Pemberton; NACS at Superchargers on the corridor. The gaps are real — there is no charging between Squamish and Lillooet, none at Joffre, and none east of Lund. Every route page lists them.

Yes, and it is the reason we named the company the way we did. No idle at 6 am to run the heat, no generator anyone else has to hear, no diesel smell in a 4.7 m box with the door closed. In a campground where everyone else fires up a generator for the coffee machine, this van is a good neighbour. The Sprinters are not silent — the diesel heater ticks. That is the trade, and it buys you −10 °C and five seats.

Yes, within BC and Alberta, on both van types. Beyond that talk to us first — the range math changes on the electric vans and the fuel math changes on the diesel ones, and we would rather redesign the trip than argue about it later.

North Vancouver, 16:00–18:00 Thursday to Sunday. You get a 40-minute walkthrough: the kitchen, the sleep, the water, the charge card or the fuel nozzle, and where the grey tank lives. Bring a second driver if you have one. Return by 11:00, swept out, grey tank empty, battery at 70% or fuel tank full.

Not yet. It is a 4.7 to 5.9 m van with a 2.24 to 2.74 m roof and we would rather you learn to drive it here, from us, than meet it at a trailhead. If you want a route-specific handoff, ask — for three-night-plus bookings in September we get flexible.

Yes, both types, with a caveat that costs money. BC Ferries treats anything over 2.13 m as over-height, so the electric vans at 2.24 m and the Sprinters at 2.74 m both need it declared — and the Sprinters sit within centimetres of the 6.1 m over-length line, which is why we measure length with the rack and ladder on, per van, rather than quoting the brochure. Book the vehicle reservation with the plate we give you at confirmation, especially summer weekends to Langdale.