Link to the original/old blog post.
It has been a wonderful, busy, tiring, exhilarating, thrilling, exhausting week. So much has happened since my last post I can’t possibly do it justice, but I can try!
So the day after my super funtastic day in Revelstoke, I drove through Golden to the Radium Hot springs in Kootenay NP (BC, Canada). The drive was long and rainy (again), but the soak in the hot springs made it all better. It was a pretty slick setup run by Parks Canada since the hot springs is actually part of the park. The large hot pool was about 3 feet deep all around with a nice sitting shelf all around the edge and at the “island” in the middle. The pool itself was the size of a regular public swimming pool rather than a hot tub – so plenty of room for all the people without feeling crowded. I camped near the hotsprings and headed out at the crack of dawn the next morning to drive through Kootenay NP to the Stanley Glacier trailhead. I saw a MOOSE on the drive. He was just chilling out in the road. I got a good look at him but I wasn’t fast enough to get a picture before he ran off into the bushes.
I got up so early because I had reserved a spot in a guided hike to Stanley Glacier and the Burgess Shale fossil beds that started at 8 am. The hike was 7 miles and 1200 feet elevation gain, so not super hard but definitely not easy either. The guided aspect was really fun and I learned a lot about the ancient history, geology and fossils of the area. At the turn-around area for the hike, we spent time looking and finding lots of fossils. Finding 500 million year old fossils was pretty mindblowing.
That same evening, Bastien flew into Calgary and took the airport shuttle to Banff. He was there waiting for me when I finished my fossils/glacier hike. We walked around a bit, had dinner, and checked into the campgound. The campground was the ugliest place ever, at least the original site we were assigned. It was a strip of asphalt lined with other rigs with a 5ft strip of grass next to it lined with chainlink fencing and overlooking the next line of RV studded asphalt.
I was a bit horrified by it and, if it had just been me, I would have just dealt with it. But this was my husband’s first night with me on this epic trip and he only had a few days with me on this part. I wanted something better for him on his first night. So, we went back to the entrance booth and asked if there were any spots open that would be more “scenic”. Fortunately, they were really cool about it and found a different area with openings. It was a little more expensive, but totally worth it.
The next day was a DOOSEY! We spent an easy morning and did a walk to the hoodoos in Banff (underwhelming if you have seen Utah, but still pretty). But, we were saving our energy for the Via Ferrata. Oh, man. This was the best thing ever and totally worth the pain of the next two days recovering. The Via Ferrata is a mountaineering/rock climbing fixed-route trail with cables and established foot and hand holds to make it totally safe and incredibly fun. It was easy until the last bit…then fatigue and altitude made it increasingly difficult. Worth every ounce of energy! It was one of the best things about this trip so far. Even the name of our particular tour sounded bad-ass…we were Ridgewalkers!
After the Via Ferrata – we were both pretty tired and sore, and we kept saying we would take an easy day to recover…but then there was just too much to see and do! Every day we said, “tomorrow, tomorrow we will take it easy” but we never did.