After another night of sleeping in the back of the van at a rest stop like toast in a toaster, we took a breather from the road for long enough to do some laundry in Revelstoke at a laundromat we saw the night before while searching town for a place to stay. It gave me a minute to download and organize photos from the trip. With all the places we have been the pictures have piled up quickly. That's one of the biggest challenges for me on our trips. It's often go go go every day and the amount of data we pile up between photos, videos and workout data we accumulate can be overwhelming if you leave it all for after you return home. Thankfully, our memory cards are big and we normally don't have any issue running out of space. Remembering where the photos were taken is always the difficult thing for me if I don't download every few days. And you always have to stay on top of charging all the batteries between cameras and devices.
After the laundry was completed and folded back into our storage bins, we headed up the mountain in Mount Revelstoke National Park. It was still dreary outside with light rain on and off all morning thus far.
Another day starting off with trying to dry our socks on the vents in the van
Views getting better as we climb the mountain and look down over Revelstoke, BC and the Columbia River.
The clouds parted for us as we climbed the twisting Meadows in the Sky Parkway up the mountain, giving us views of town and the Columbia River. One cool thing to note here is that this mountain was the site of major ski jumping competitions off natural jumps in the early 1900s. The hill and jump were big, leading to several world records being set. In 1933, Bob Lymburne jumped a record 287 feet before the hills were abandoned for many years because they were considered too dangerous. After being revived in 1948, the hills finally closed in 1974 after the popularity of ski jumping in Canada had declined.
We took a hike to the top of Mt. Revelstoke where there is a fire lookout tower. The trail was peaceful as there were few visitors in the park with the gloomy weather. Mushrooms were everywhere.
Looks like a sesame seed bun. Makes me hungry...
Fire lookout tower atop Mt. Revelstoke
Inside the tower
View from the tower. Can't see much through the fog today.
Heather Lake
After driving back down the mountain, Hwy 1 continues through Mt. Revelstoke National Park where a few other short hiking trails provide time in the woods and breaks from the car.
Boardwalk on the Skunk Cabbage Trail
Giant Cedars Trail
Sent this picture to our yoga buddy back home
Definitely giant cedars
National parks are super close together in this part of Canada. You leave Mt. Revelstoke National Park and quickly enter into another national park.
Glacier National Park is only about 10 miles to the east. Hwy 1 passes through the park, but most of this park is remote mountains with limited access. We found a few short hikes to take up most of our afternoon.
Rainbow on Hwy 1 in Glacier National Park
Avalanche tunnel
Not a sign I am used to seeing in Tennessee
Hemlock Grove Boardwalk Trail
Manicured trail taking us down to Bear Creek Falls
Bear Creek Falls in the evening light
Better be ready for stairs and plenty of climbing if you visit Bear Creek Falls
We left Glacier late in the afternoon and continued east on Hwy 1.
Yoho National Park borders the road to your left as you drive to Golden. We then went south on Hwy 95 to Radium Hot Springs where we camped for the night at Redstreak Campground just inside
Kootenay National Park. We were pretty pumped to get a hot shower in the campground and have a dry night where we could sit outside and have dinner.
The next morning, we were treated to bighorn sheep wandering the campground as we left. We hiked through Sinclair Canyon and then attempted to visit the Radium Hot Springs, but it was not open. I was really disappointed that all the hot springs we saw on this trip had a building built around them. It looked more like a hotel pool than a hot spring. I want to sit in a hot pool of water in the woods. Maybe one day I'll find one to enjoy.
Bighorn Sheep in Redstreak Campground
View from the Sinclair Canyon Trail
Above the clouds at the top of Sinclair Canyon
Sinclair Canyon is very narrow in places
Further into the park, we found more beautiful mountain views and then hit the hiking trails again after lunch. We wanted to see the Paint Pots and Marble Canyon. The trailhead at Marble Canyon was closed, but luckily there was a trail connecting it with Paint Pots. Roundtrip, the hike was just under six miles long. That was a normal hike for us, but we were tired at this point and didn't have a lot of time as we had quite a bit of driving to do to reach our next camping destination tonight. The hike to the Paint Pots was slightly uphill, but pretty short. The ground was colored bright orange in many places, with other shades of yellow, red and brown seen as we reached the end of the trail.
Crossing the Kootenay River on the way to the Paint Pots
Colors on the trail
Small pond in the Paint Pots area
We were still kind of on the fence about going all the way to Marble Canyon, but at the turnaround there was a little goatpath of a trail that shaved off a little mileage. The trail looked too fun to pass on. We followed moose tracks all the way through the trail, but never saw any wildlife. Again, mushrooms were everywhere. Marble Canyon was worth every step of the hike. It was one of the most beautiful things we saw on our entire trip. Bridges criss-cross the Kootenay River which flows through the deep and narrow canyon. The water color is amazing as the river is glacier-fed and flowing across super clean marble rocks. I have never seen anything like it. The pictures don't do it any justice at all. As a bonus, there was hardly anybody there with the main trailhead being closed. Most people weren't going to hike 3 miles over from the Paint Pots. We saw just two people while we were there. We could have stayed there all day.
Tiny trail cutting from the Paint Pots over toward Marble Canyon
When trees attack...
Bottom of Marble Canyon
One of many bridges crossing Marble Canyon with a natural arch bridge in the foreground
Top of Marble Canyon
After completing our second hike of the day, we hit the road. We saw more of Kootenay before rejoining Hwy 1 west of Banff. We passed back through Banff and enjoyed the views of Mt. Rundle one more time before continuing west to Canmore, where we turned south on Hwy 742. The string of parks continues on 742, though most of these parks are provincial parks. It is one after another starting with Bow Valley Provincial Park-Kananaskis Country. We then went through Spray Valley Provincial Park, Peter Loughhead Provincial Park and Picklejar Provincial Recreation Area before finally leaving the mountains. Those provincial parks are pretty remote for the most part, but we saw many hiking trailheads. Hwy 742 would be a beautiful road ride. We saw many bighorn sheep along the road.
One more view of Banff
Goat Pond in Bow Valley Provincial Park-Kananaskis Country
Hwy 742
We attempted to reach Waterton Lakes National Park before dark. It's pretty far south in Alberta. Again, the drive took longer than expected and we ran out of daylight before reaching the park. We ended up at Tim Hortons for a snack in the small town of Pincher Creek. We had to hit up Timmy's at least once while in Canada. It's mandatory I think before you can cross back over the border. We couldn't see much entering the park, but the skies were clear and thousands of stars were visible. The campground was full, but they had a large parking lot with picnic tables where we were able to park and rearrange the van for another night of sleeping like toast. We were joined by many other van campers who also missed out on a campsite. I took full advantage of the picnic tables and laid out under the stars for a while. I've seen super clear night skies on some of our trips west, but this one topped them all. The depth of the sky played tricks on my eyes. It was nothing short of amazing. You can't help but ponder the universe when looking at a sky like that. It makes you realize just how tiny you really are.
No comments:
Post a Comment