Leaving Invermere for Golden

Up and at ‘em early this morning – earliest start for us yet. I think we were both up, dressed & down for the continental breakfast before 7am and we were on the road shortly after 7:30am. Good thing too – as what would have been an hour and forty five minute trip driving straight through, took us 8 with detours and stops for wildlife spottings!

Today was my turn to drive and my knee is starting to give me a lot of grief earlier and earlier in the days now as it’s not getting any rest between either driving or walking every day. Oh well, it can rest when I get home. As long as I can keep moving for the next week or so!

At 8am we were driving along side the Columbia River Valley – which we were beside off and on most of our drive throughout the day – what an incredible sight it was in the rising sun this morning. Vast and lush with colour in front of the mountain backdrop.

By 8:30, we were in the town of Radium, waiting for the local info centre to open so we could buy our pass to get into Kootenay National Park, where we were planning a stop at Radium Hot Springs. The info centre didn’t open until 9, so we wandered off to see if we could find a road down into the valley for a better view of the Columbia valley. We found a service road that led to a lumber yard and train tracks and followed it for some time. We saw white tailed deer, a hawk we weren’t able to ID as it was in the shadows of a trees some distance away and a snake that Darryl startled when he stepped out of the car on one of our stops.

At 10:15am, we entered Kootenay National Park and passed through an immense and impressive rock cut right away, which we had to stop and take lots of photos of, of course.

From there, we stopped at the Radium Hot Springs Pools and wandered the grounds there for a while taking photos. It looks much as a last remembered it, except that when I was there 23 years ago, there were no fences on the steep hill above the hot pools and that is where we saw goats and snow (it was March last time I was here). We didn’t take the time to go for a dip in the pools, kinda wish we had, but another time, We were anxious to get further into the park and hoped to spot all manner of wildlife.

At 11:30am we came to Olive Lake – I’m not sure how it got it’s name, but I suspect it might have something to do with it’s colour. In the early morning light, the water was crystal clear and the palest green colour. It was stunning. We walked around the lake and took photos for a while, reading warnings of recent bear sightings in the area with a mix of fear and excitement, but we didn’t see any.

We stopped for lunch, such as it was (Doritos and coke) on the banks of the Columbia River. As we were leaving the car to walk around the rest area on the banks of the river, Darryl and I were discussing the prospects for lunch, and he asked me “Did you lock it?” (referring to the car), and I, thinking we were still talking about lunch, replied “We don’t have any chocolate.” I’m going to blame it on low blood sugar, but Darryl says I need to get my ears checked again. It was an honest mistake – when you’re hungry “lock it” could conceivably sound like “chocolate”, right?? We had a pretty good chuckle over that.

I dipped my toes in the Columbia River and immediately pulled them back out – it was as bitterly cold as it was beautiful in icy blue tones.

We continued on our way deeper into the park, spotting the occasional white tail deer in the brush along the roadside. Ahead, we could see several cars pulled off the road and Darryl told me to slow down and stop – it was a sure sign that there was something happening – and wouldn’t you know it, he was right! There were 2 black bears grazing on the side of the road!

At 1pm we turned around at Kootney Crossing – our plans for today were only to take the road into the park halfway – later this week we will travel the other half coming from the other side.

As soon as we had cell service, we called my Aunt Helen to let her know we were on our way and we headed back through Radium and turned north to make our way to Golden.

En route, my mom had asked me to make a couple of stops for her, which I would have made on my own anyways. I have 2 uncles buried in a cemetery near Briscoe. One I never met; my Uncle Ken, who passed away long before I was born, and my Uncle Vern, who passed away in 2001.

We had been told that the cemetery was south of Briscoe and that if we got to Briscoe, we had gone too far, so we drove up to Briscoe without seeing the log cabin church and cemetery. So we back-tracked and drove the stretch again, detouring down several side roads in case it might be down there…no luck. Finally, Darryl told me to stop at the Briscoe general store and ask for directions. As he went in, his cell phone rang, it was my Aunt Helen calling! While I talked to her and got directions, Darryl went into the store and asked the clerk, and an elderly patron who asked him who we were looking for at the cemetery, where it was, Darryl told him “My wife’s Uncle, Vern Bryant,” and he said “I knew Vern!”; small world, huh?!

At 1:30pm, we finally found the cemetery and the graves of my two uncles. It was hard to find even with the correct directions – the driveway is very overgrown and steep down before a long gentle slope up to the century old log church at the crest of a gentle sloping hill.

At 3:30pm, we made it into Spillemacheen, where my Aunt Helen & Uncle Vern used to live. They had a farm there where my uncle had cattle and he also led guided big game hunts in the mountains. We found their old house and took some photos of it and the mountain in the “back yard” with the bear cave near the top. Of course, it’s not actually a bear cave, but that’s what I called it when I was little and visited with them on a previous trip.

We took a road nearby for a detour and found ourselves in Bugaboo Conservation Area, which was a pleasant surprise. There were many, many areas where we hoped to spot moose, but saw nothing but sparrows, ducks, kingbirds and finally a pair of osprey although they just passed through and landed in trees too far for us to take photos.

We left Spillemacheen and continued north going through various small towns along the way, always with the Columbia River Valley on our left side. In Herrogate, we started spotting what was to be the first of many, many nesting osprey – so many so that eventually we stopped stopping to take photos of them and just pointed them out to each other and carried on. Although there was one we did stop and take photos of as the light was excellent and it was close to the road.

A couple of small falcons or kestrels rounded out the days wildlife sightings.

We arrived in Golden at 5:30pm and Aunt Helen and her friend Karen had a wonderful roast beef and corn on the cob supper ready for us. The four of us sat down to supper and a nice long chat to catch up as I haven’t seen my Aunt since we got married.

Dinner was wonderful and relaxing with excellent company. We stayed up far too late chatting, catching up and looking at photos from the day and got to bed for the night far too late.