The boys were kind this morning, in part thanks to Sally-Heath. They let me sleep in until 6 – it’s my morning to feed and walk. It’s beginning to brighten, so I put the boys back to bed and made a coffee, sat on the porch. No mosquitoes! Must be too cool for them.
It’s just after 7am. I just watched an episode of Sunrise Planet Earth. Not on TV – there isn’t any. It was live from the front porch of our cabin. As I sat there alone for about an hour, just listening and watching, it was just incredible. The sounds – gurgling of the brook that feeds the pond, about 100m away, the birds – how many different kinds are there! – the many wonderful different sounds they make. The train whistle far off in the distance – how far away is that whistle? – how does its’ sound make it all the way here?. The unidentifiable sounds, some man-made, some – who knows? The hummingbird that, after servicing the flowers at the end of the porch, came over and checked me out – hovering so close I was concerned for my eyes, should it think they needed servicing. Then the deer – was it one, or several different ones, one at a time. Hard to tell!
The sunrise. We’re in the shadow of a mountain to the east, so I never saw the sun, but what I did see was the early morning sun, the one that slips under the clouds to the east, illuminates the tops of the mountains to the west and north. It was just incredible – then, as slowly as they were lit, the light faded – the clouds had won. But only temporarily – after maybe 30 minutes, Mr. Sun was back on those mountains, making them shine as majestically as they are.
Every once in a while some outside thoughts tried to wiggle into my head – plans, politics, religion, whatever – but I managed to quiet those and just allow the wonder of our world envelop me. (of course, I had the digital camera ready for photo ops!)
Sally-Heath made a wonderful ham and egg breaky. We got on the road shortly after – we’re pretty efficient at getting ready now, and hardly ever forget anything (not since I forgot the leashes!). The plan for today is a simple one – drive south to Radium Hot Springs, the entrance to Kootenay National Park – and drive through the park, making a few stops to observe and do some hikes that Sally-Heath has picked out. This should be an easy drive and trip. (anything will be easy after Jasper!)
Kootenay NP borders on Banff NP and is south and west of Banff NP. It’s a long narrow park that basically has one road, route 93, through the length of it – there are very few places to drive other than on this main road. There are many turnouts for various features, like lakes and canyons. There are a lot of hikes, opportunities for backpacking, and there seem to be a lot of bicycle backpackers. It is very scenic, but very different from the exceptionally grand scale of Jasper and upper Banff that we have already seen.
We chose to do this in one day, because it seemed much shorter than Jasper – in other words, it seemed easily doable in a day. And really, it was. We made it a little tougher by taking our time getting there and getting started in the park – it was noon when we finally started. That’s a good thing – we weren’t rushed, we did what we wanted to do, and it was a great morning. The drive to Radium Hot Springs was quick and easy, with a reasonable number of trains to watch – and the same wonderful mountainous scenery that we saw on the way to Golden when we first arrived. Very little traffic.
When we got to Radium Hot Springs, our first stop (after watering the dogs) was the visitor center, which is in town, not in the park. But this was without a doubt the best visitor center we have visited! It is small, well staffed, has computers for internet connection and a hardwire connection for folks like me with laptops – I took advantage to upload yesterdays photos and blog. The staff was very helpful, and the literature was what we needed. It was busy! Seemed more concerned with helping visitors than selling touristy crap.
After that it was time to eat – Sally-Heath had a vegetable sub and milk shake, and I had a sundae. The story here is just that the place had a very specific menu of ice cream products – such as the sundaes, which were defined as soft serve ice cream with a topping. But they also had a good selection of regular ice cream flavors. So I ordered two scoops of ice cream, two different flavors, with hot fudge. It took them a while to get there head around this, and come up with a price – I thought for a moment they would refuse – but they did it, and it was great.
Then we gassed up and headed for the park. We stopped at all the remarkable sites, and they were great. Right at the entrance the road goes though a short blasted out section of a hill, and the top of the hill overhangs the road! It really looks like it could come crashing down at any time. Scary! After that it’s pretty calm. I won’t detail each thing we did, but one thing we didn’t do was hike the 2.2km to Dog Lake. We really wanted to, but just as we got to the trail, a summer storm came rolling through, and it just didn’t seem prudent at the time.
(S-H; We walked a trail called “Paint Pots” this is a former First Nations area that has an abundance of “ochre” - actually iron hydroxide. I use ochre paint frequently when I am painting. This walk was very interesting to me. It described both the First Nations use and the later commercial mining of the pigment. The mining was stopped when the area became a park.)
Later we were taking the easy 30 minute walk to see Marble Canyon, which turned out to be a very interesting slot canyon. The hike goes up and across the canyon, which at the top is only about 10-20 m wide. The water rushing down the canyon is impressive, and it is cold. There are places where the air is extremely cool when you cross the canyon. But again, the second storm of the day caught us before we got to the end of this hike. We got wet going back to the car. I had a lot of pictures, but didn’t get to see the very top of the canyon.
We wanted to hike up to Stanley Glacier, but that same storm was raging, and it was quite a little thunder bumper with really good winds. So we had to pass on that as well. Just as well – by this time it was around 6pm, and time to head back home, which was still about 1.5-2 hours away. The drive back is the same road we have taken several times already to Banff and Jasper (from Golden). We trade off driving, and get to the pub for dinner around 8. Two orders of ribs, which were great, and some shiraz, which wasn’t great, later and we’re headed home. (S-H: We already had one Canadian Shiraz at the “White Tooth” dinner in Golden. It was quite good. This Shiraz however was drinkable but not recognizable as a Shiraz. The ribs were succulent !)
It was a great day. We took a moderate plan and made a long haul out of it, but it was fun, and we had a good time. Tomorrow we have an even easier plan – after all, it is Sunday! Goodnight!
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