Anxious to see Lake Louise...

July 3, 2009

We made a concerted effort to get up early this morning so we could be at Lake Louise before the throngs of tourists…

We were up (some of us under protest) at 6:30am, had bacon & eggs for breakfast and were on the road by 7:30am. Darryl drove all day today as I was very, VERY tired – not sure if it’s all the fresh mountain air or the fact that I’m only getting 5-6 hrs sleep each night or that I haven’t taken my thyroid medication in a week or perhaps a combination of all three?!

We arrived at Lake Louise around 8:30am and it was already PACKED with tourists. It is a stunning spot – there’s no arguing that. There were lots of critters – very friendly critters – around too. Darryl no sooner sat down on a bench overlooking the lake and had a chipmunk up on his backpack…which was still on his back!

Lots of Clarks Nutcrackers looking for handouts. Landing on car roofs as people parked and proclaiming loudly “FEED ME!!” Had we known how common, and how annoying, they are here, we wouldn’t have been so excited about getting photos of them a few days ago!

Lake Louise got too crowded, too fast, so we left and made our way to nearby Moraine Lake and we were much happier there – although not as big as Lake Louise and lacking the impressive chalet hotel on the bank, it is no less spectacular and in fact, we much preferred it. There were fewer tourists and a lovely café over looking the water where we had a morning snack in the company of a very forward Clarks Nutcracker before leaving for our next destination.

We detoured through the town of Lake Louise and didn’t find much there – we stopped at a strip mall and went through the Bow River Trading Company and a Candy Shoppe then made tracks for the Icefields Parkway.

Our first stop was Herbert Lake, which was right beside the highway and a good introduction for us to the emerald green glacier lakes in Banff Park – we stopped at several over the course of the day, each one seemingly more spectacular than the last.

At 12:30pm, we stopped at Bow Lake and saw our first glacier, the Crow Foot Glacier – even from a great distance, you can appreciate how massive they are. A short way down the parkway brought us to the Bow Glacier and then Waterfowl Lake.

Peyto Lake was a bit of a hike for us, 1000 ft uphill, but it too, was worth the effort although the viewing platform was overflowing with people and getting a clear shot of the lake for a panorama was difficult to say the least.

Darryl took up the challenge of the hike to Mistaya Canyon while I took a siesta in the sun in the car as my knee isn’t holding up to all the walking that well and after the hike in and out of Peyto Lake, I needed a rest. 45 minutes later a very sweaty Darryl returned to inform me that I should be glad I didn’t go with him as he even found the hike difficult, but worth it. He informed me that there is quite a canyon formed by the Mistaya River in addition to the lake and he took some spectacular photos. The mist from the fast flowing falls created a rainbow just above the rocks when the sun is shining just right. The other nice thing about that is that he has photos of something I don’t – so that makes it a little more special for him too.

Darryl was disappointed that we didn’t see any animals on our trip today – with the exception of the chipmunk and various birds. He was desperately hoping to see a moose, but would have settled for an elk, bear, or even a deer, but alas, likely due to the heat or perhaps that most animals have young now, none were down near the roads or glacial lakes.

At 3:30pm, we turned around to head back for Golden at Rampart Creek just north of Saskatchewan Crossing. We hustled it back as we had Very Important Dinner Plans with Aunt Helen. We had arranged to go out for supper at the Golden Rim Inn in hopes of watching mountain sheep from the windows while we dined. Well, there were no sheep, but the view made up for it and the food was excellent (and far too much!!).

After dinner, I also found a place on the main street of Golden where I can hop on a wireless internet connection to do the office work I haven’t been able to do the last couple of days, however, we are scheduled to leave Golden tomorrow and make our way to Canmore for Saturday night where we are supposed to have free high-speed internet in our hotel room, so I’ll play catch up there. I heard from a little bird that Lori got the new listings up on the website today, which helps me out a great deal. I still have some work to do, but it’s at least well started!

My mom reports from home that there is a chance of a half-nice day tomorrow. She must be ecstatic. I hadn’t had any news from her since yesterday morning, so I sent her an email asking if no news was good news or if perhaps she had built an ark and drifted off with the dogs and cats in search of higher ground. She has had to put up with rain solid since we left, which I know she didn’t sign up for when she agreed to house/dog/cat sit for us. I hope she gets some nice weather to enjoy the gazebo and the lounge chair!! She seems to be taking a real shine to Toby, which shouldn’t surprise me. Anyone who spends any length of time with him falls head over heels in love with him and his nutty antics.

- Paula

Golden Days - Day 1

We woke this morning to the smell of fresh-brewed coffee at 7am and after a quick bowl of cereal, Darryl, Aunt Helen and I were off to ``the mountain”.

Aunt Helen really enjoys taking people up the mountain to show off the incredible view and the resident grizzly bear, Boo.

At 9am, we headed up the winding mountain road to Kicking Horse Mountain Resort, which is a fairly new ski resort that also has a thriving summer clientele who come to see “Boo” at the Kicking Horse Bear Refuge or to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain for the views and the dining at the Eagle's Eye Restaurant.

Riding up to see the bear, you take an open chair lift, which Aunt Helen wasn’t feeling quite up to, so Darryl and I left her in the café at the bottom of the hill while we took the chair lift up the hill.
We had been told that the best time to see the bear is in the morning when he is most active, and he did not disappoint!

After the 1 hour guided info session about, and with, the bear, we took the chair lift back down the mountain and met up with Aunt Helen who joined us in the gondola ride to the very top of the mountain for breath-taking vistas and lunch at the Eagle's Eye restaurant.


Lunch was excellent and surpassed only by the view and the company. Although Aunt Helen claims to be getting a little forgetful, she certainly remembers a great deal and has a lot of really wonderful stories to share about the area and about our family. She is obviously very proud of her children and grand children – and the area in which they live.

She mentioned to us on the gondola ride up that she used to plant trees for the forestry 30 years ago and pointed out the mountains where she did that.

After lunch, we made our way back down the gondola, which is about a 20 minute ride, watching mountain bikers take to the hill (full body armour is a requirement!). It must be a thrill for them, but it sure looked terrifying to me!

We dropped Aunt Helen off at home and Darryl and I left for Yoho National Park for the afternoon where we searched in vain for a moose (Darryl wants to see one before the end of our trip and zoo’s don’t count!).

Our stops included a place called “Natural Bridge”, Emerald Lake & Takakkaw Falls (the highest falls in Canada, I think?) and then a quick stop in the cute village of Field in the park for a new park pass and finally back here for dinner, but before we arrived back, just outside of Golden, we were treated to a close encounter with a battle worn big horn sheep on the side of the transcanada who cared little of cars and people with big cameras while he made himself comfortable for a little late day sun bathing.

Dinner and a cold beer later and I’m nearly ready to call it a night. I had planned to go to bed early tonite as we have another big day on the road planned for tomorrow, but here it is 1:19am and I’m still typing away like an idiot (according to Darryl, at least), but I did take a break for a hour to flip through some old photo albums Aunt Helen dug out. I was delighted to see photos of my dad as a young boy – the youngest I have seen of him, I think!

Until tomorrow…

- Paula

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.

June 30, 2009

The day started with an early continental breakfast at the hotel, then on the road by 9am – so much for the early start!! All of our best intentions to stay on our home time schedule have gone completely out the window – mostly due to all the late nights visiting here. What my family here doesn’t seem to realize, is that when it’s midnight for them, it’s feeling like 2am for us and we’re bagged!! This is something that gives my cousin Coreen’s husband, Terry, much delight. When I started yawning at 10pm, the ribbing started and lasted well into the night!

Today marked another milestone for us as we made our first Timmy’s stop of the trip for what turned out to be one of the most horrible cups of coffee I’ve every had from there, and so, it will also be our last stop at Timmy’s on the trip.

Our plan for this morning is to make our way to the mountain skiing village of Kimberly, which is modeled after a Bavarian alpine village. We took Hwy 93/95 to Ta Ta Creek, then went southwest on 95A to Kimberly.

This is a big day for wildlife spotting – just in the am alone, we saw:

9:15am soaring bald eagle
9:29am bald eagle hunting in Kootenay River
9:49am 2 turkey vultures
9:50am white tailed deer
9:54am nesting bald eagles
10:00am 2 kingfishers
10:12am great blue heron
10:30am bald eagle
10:40am red tailed hawk
10:42am white tailed deer
10:56am mule deer (buck)

11:00am we arrived in the village of Kimberly and it was as quaint as we expect it would be. Most of the town looks like any other but they have two cobblestone streets (The `Platzl`) that are closed to automobile traffic and are lined on both sides with Bavarian style buildings, shoppes and restaurants. Darryl and I wandered the streets and browsed in the shoppes for a couple of hours before sitting down to lunch on a patio at the Gausthaus am Platzl restaurant where Darryl had a glass of their Bavarian pilsner beer (Warsteiner) with his lunch of pulled pork & brie sandwich and I had garlic sautéed prawns with rice and a Corona.

It was another sunny, warm, gorgeous day – absolutely perfect patio dining weather, and we were loathe to bring it to an end, so when our waitress suggested homemade strudel and coffee after lunch, we were more than happy to take her up on the offer. Darryl had strawberry rhubarb strudel and I had the more traditional apple – both were delicious.

By 2:30, we had made our way to Elizabethville and the Elizabethville falls. A short hike off the road took us to a scenic lookout over the basin at the bottom of the falls.

By 3:10pm, we had completed the loop and were back in Cranbrook where we began that morning.

Out afternoon wildlife spottings included:

3:22pm white tailed deer
3:51pm osprey fishing
4:30pm osprey on nest at Wasa Lake

At 5pm, we arrived in the area called Canal Flats, which is known for its variety of wildlife, but I think someone sent out a memo we were coming and told all the animals to hide, as we saw none. Even still, with no animals, the scenery was incredible – the colour of the water was unbelievable. Shortly after, we got our first glimpse of the Columbia River and then were at our hotel by 6pm for the night.