Day 9

Day 9, Sunday, October 1, 2012

Headed back towards Lake Louise, not on the Bow Valley Parkway this time. Took the turnoff to Highway 93 to Kootenay National Park.

Here's a picture of the wildlife overpasses they are constructing on all the highways up here.  Nice looking and they seem to be working.

Stopped at the continental divide and took my picture.

Heidi pronounced it too cold to get out of the car for her picture. Then headed toward Marble Canyon. We hiked in to the first bridge where you could see the falls and were confronted with endless flights of stairs heading up to the natural arch. We decided that we had seen natural arches before and would spare our knees that stair climb and save ourselves for the paint pots, which were the next stop.

Arrived at the paint pots, we discovered that the trail was closed because all the bridges were washed out. Pretty disappointing, because that was the one thing we had not seen on this trip.

So we continued on and discovered two deer by the side of the road. They apparently had a sense of how close was too close—we got some pictures and then I attempted to move a little closer and they took off.

Then arrived at Radium Hot Springs, the end of Kootenay National Park. The entrance to the town is quite spectacular—the narrow two-lane road passes through huge walls of rock, the kind that would prompt a “mind your head” sign were you walking. Wasn't able to get a picture because we had several vehicles hot on our bumper.

We stopped in the park for a picnic and were hoping to get ice cream at Screamers for dessert, but unfortunately they were closed for the season. So we proceeded on down to the Fairmont Hot Springs Resort to find that our room was not ready yet. When we mentioned our disappointment at finding Screamers closed, the guy at the desk said that there was an excellent ice cream shop down at the entrance to the resort. So we proceeded down there and, yes, it was excellent.

Our two-day stay at the Fairmont was planned as R&R from all our hiking and driving. We were anticipating massages at the spa, perhaps a facial. Unfortunately, the spa is closed on Monday and Tuesday, I assume another casualty of off season. I wasn't advised of this when I booked. So we did some laundry and headed for the hot springs. Will have to content ourselves with taking the waters.

Their Mountain Flowers Restaurant here has proved to be very good and not as frightfully expensive as one might expect in a resort.

The wi-fi in the room is frightfully slow. I may try the lobby to see if it is better there, but no uploading photos from the room.