We are in Radium Hot Springs this morning, in Kootenay National Park, BC, at a nice hotel looking over a golf course. It is chilly in the mornings these days, and as we have been driving through the Rockies there has been a dusting of new snow on the mountaintops. It looks lovely. We had a soak in the hot spring pools on the way into town yesterday. They have been developed (in the 1950s) to be like swimming pools, but outdoors, so it is a very nice setting. All in all we preferred the undeveloped hot spring at Liard up near the BC Yukon border, but it is much less used so doesn’t require development to “protect” it. This would be a good place for a ski holiday, though… skiing at Panorama and then dipping into the hot spring pools.
The evening we were in Jasper we drove 50 miles looking for elk and didn't see any until we returned to the motel and there we saw 5 or 6 elk eating grass about 50 meters from where we parked the car! So, when you are in Jasper, the tourist information that says the best place to see elk is in town is TRUE.
Yesterday, Sept. 2nd, was a mostly sunny day and we drove the Jasper not-quite-to Banff highway, then turned off on Hwy 93 for Radium. When we started off in Jasper around 8am, we were treated to the sight of a half dozen elk feeding near the highway, and took a video of a male elk absolutely decimating a 5’ spruce sapling while scratching his head. By the time he walked away about 5 minutes later, all that remained of the tree was the trunk, stripped of bark, and a few green sprigs at the very top of the tree.
The views of the mountains, rivers, forests, wildlife and waterfalls the past 3 days of driving from Dawson Creek have been spectacular. It has been a varied weather from light showers to severe clear with cloudless blue skies. We haven’t had time to review our 1000+ pictures of the past days, but will get some posted for you to see. (We are spending our time taking the pictures not reviewing them.) Our new rechargeable batteries for the cameras are doing very well. We shoot 400 to 500 pictures before they have to be changed. So why go to the hotel to charge them??
We have had the past four nights in motels. As we are starting to hear weather forecasts which apply to our next session of camping nights, it sounds as though it will be getting down near freezing at nights, so I am hoping to hit the thrift shop at Radium to seek out some long-legged PJs. For some reason I thought that this was summer, and that we would be going toward warmer weather as we travelled south. Ha! Apparently it is getting down to freezing in Yellowstone Park as well, where we will be next week, so I definitely need to step up my night wear situation. I certainly hope we will get into warm weather sometime, or I have a plentitude of summer clothes that will have travelled unnecessarily. Tonight we will overnight in a motel in Fernie (this morning’s cold spot at 1 C, according to the news), and then on to Waterton National Park in Alberta, for the start of 4 camping nights).
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