Kootenay Lake

We had a great couple of days at our friend Kelly's family cabin.

There was paddling,

Swimming,

Rock jumping,

Beach clambering,

the discovery of some possible pictographs,

(Or maybe just iron stains?)

We even had a birthday piñata on the beach.

Piñata is bumblebee on top left

Leo, Margaret Ann and Lady the wonder dog brought back a big slab of rock Kelly found on the beach.

I spotted this Wood Frog hiding in a log:

About 1-1/2" long

We came down the steps to the cabin

And discovered this giant pinedrops plant.

All in all a lovely few days with good company, good food and good times.

Over the Gray Pass

The next morning we left our trailer at the provincial park and drove to Kootenay Lake where we'd been invited to stay with friends at their cabin north of Creston.

Unencumbered by our trailer, we decided to take the "shortcut" through the Gray Pass west of Kimberly rather than south through Creston.

Since we found this route through a 15 year-old Backroads Mapbook, we thought we should check in at the Kimberley tourist info to see about the road conditions.  She hadn't ever heard about it, but was able to confirm online via the Forest Service website that it was open. We were a bit worried when the only traffic going by was dirt bikes, but it turned out that though the road was rough and potholes it wasn't very treacherous ( and we did cross paths with several pickups later on.

Heading up the pass

Trusty Ram in the pass

Views from the top

When we got to the top of the pass someone was camped in the forest rec site with a trailer!  We certainly wouldn't have taken ours up there.

In the end it took as long to take the "shortcut" as the long way, but it was an adventure.

When we were almost all the way down we passed a truck and trailer stopped on the road with his hood up (probably overheated).  We suggested he probably didn't want to take his trailer up the pass.  We hope he found a place to turn around.

This road is part of the Trans Canada Trail so it's good we drove it since I wouldn't want to take a bike up those steep grades.

Mammal of the Day!

All through our vacation in the mountain parks, we were scanning the mountainsides for mountain goats but we never spotted any.

On our return trip though Kootenay National Park we spotted a flashing sign on the road warning of mountain goats.  Hah, we scoffed, Fat chance.  Then we rounded the corner and saw a woman parked on the roadside and wielding a camera with a very large scope.  I looked up to the bank on my right and there they were.

You didn't need a giant scope!

There were 5 or 6 goats and two little oned.

This one was tucked in behind a clay bank.

Kootenay National Park and Radium Hotsprings

Our next stop was Radium Hotsprings and Kootenay National Park.  Like Glacier National Park, the last time I'd visited was when I was a little kid, and Leo had never seen the park.

We stayed at Dry Gulch Provincial Park just South of Radium.  We really liked this campsite in open forest in the wide Columbia River Valley after the dark and rainy Glacier Park.  It's a small (20 sites) roadside campsite close to town and the park.

We only had a day in Radium so we did a driving tour of the park, stopping at trailheads and taking short hikes.

The first stop was at Olive Lake where we walked the boardwalk

and spotted this unusual sopallallie bush with orange berries.

We followed the Kootenay River

to McLeod Meadows where we followed a trail to the bridge crossing the river.

Our next stop was the Paint Pots. You follow Ochre Creek up to
the ochre beds where First Nations and later settlers mined the ochre.

It was quite a muddy business.

There were artifacts left from the mining business.

 You never know what you might find in a paint pot!

Marble Canyon was closed for reconstruction.  You can still hike there from the paint pots, but we didn't have time.

Quite a lot of the park has been burnt by wildfire.

We stopped at Flow Creek and walked down to the bridge over a beautiful little canyon.

We hope to come back another year and hike some of these trails.

Back at Radium we hiked up a short trail to the site of the former Radium Lodge, now demolished, for a view over the hot springs resort.

It's a modern facility but it's nestled nicely up against the cliffs and has a nice view of the surrounding mountains.

We planned to visit the hotsprings in the evening but decided instead to hang around our campsite.

Loop Trail

Our campsite in Glacier was called the Loop Brook Campsite named after the Loop, an engineering marvel constructed to reduce the incline of the railroad through Rogers Pass.

We checked out the 45 minute interpretive trail that winds around the remains of the Loop.

The campground entrance passes through 2 of these massive stone pillars

More pillars

The Loop passed over Loop Brook several times.

After failing to see any marmots on any of our mountain hikes we found a giant one scampering around one of the pillars in the creek valley. No photo, too speedy!

Lots of Russula mushrooms growing along this trail.

The loop was abandoned when the Connaught tunnel was built to bypass the avalanches in the pass.

Poop of the Day

We didn't see many birds or animals on the Great Glacier trail, but we did spot these.  Do you know what they are?

Great Glacier Trail

The weather was better on the second day.  We hiked up the Great Glacier Trail.  It followed the Illecillewaet River up to the bedrock below the Illecillewaet Glacier.

A view toward our destination

The trail goes by the ruins of Glacier House, the former National Park Lodge that was abandoned after the rail line was rerouted through the Connaught Tunnel to avoid avalanches.

Old boiler from Glacier House

Nearing our destination

The trail ended when we reached the bedrock, but you could continue up to the glacier.

We could see the Vaux Glacier on the left

The view was spectacular.  Though the Illecillewaet Glacier was hidden above us, we could see the Vaux Glacier across the valley and this waterfall:

Leo continued on up the mountain while I stayed behind,

but he eventually turned around before reaching the glacier.

It was too late in the year for most alpine flowers, but still lots of lovely rock garden foliage

and lots of very sweet blueberries.

Connie's reward!

We also tried out these western teaberries, new to us.  To our surprise they were tasty and sweet.

On our way back we took an alternate route and crossed the raging Illecillewaet River.