Jan 15, 2012 - John's 60th Birthday at Nipika

It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating our friend John's 50th birthday. But apparently 10 years have gone somewhere because John invited us to join him, Ena and a group of friends at Nipika Resort to celebrate his 60th birthday. We'd never been to Nipika but heard great things about it. The resort is 14km up a logging road off of Highway 93 just East of Radium Hot Springs and is essentially a private nordic ski resort with 50km of groomed trails and a number of log cabins for accommodation. There is also a lit skating rink,...

Jul 9, 2011 - Radium Hot Springs,BC

Left Jasper at 11:15AM. Headed south on the Icefields Parkway (Rt 93). It cost $20 to drive this road. It goes through Jasper National Park and Banff National Park. It is listed as one of most or the most scenic drive in North America. Mountains, glaciers, lakes and waterfalls are everywhere. Plus the Columbia Icefield which covers 241 sq. miles. You can even climb aboard a massive Brewster Ice Explorer and take a 90 min. cruise on the surface of Athabasca Glacier. In Castle Junction,AB instead of taking Rt 1 east to Banff, Calgary and then...

Jun 9, 2011 - Radium Hot Springs

We’re on our way – officially in Canada – on the way to Alaska. The border crossing took 2 hours!!! They had only one lane for trucks and RV’s. Pretty serious bringing an RV (with everything you own!) into Canada. We were asked lots of questions and then told to pull over for a further inspection. Because it was an under construction area, it was difficult to even park. The RV in front of us was being completely searched – yech!!! We went inside and they re-verified our passports, etc and were released – YEAH!!!! No search – we’ve all had...

Jun 2, 2011 - British Columbia, Canada

We crossed the border at Roosville (HWY 93) with no problem at all. We had to surrender our apples. I offered an onion but they told me I could keep it. Thank goodness they didn't take our gum too. Our next stop was Cranbrook to find a bank to exchange currency and replace our apples. We stopped at the Canadian Super Store. It was odd that it was on the same block as Walmart. It seemed like a upgraded Walmart. It costs a dollar for a shopping cart and you pay for your bags. I like the bring your own bag idea, the plastic bags are taking...

May 16, 2011 - Radium Hot Springs

May 15, 2011 We pretty much wore ourselves out yesterday afternoon trying to get all the chores done. We were more than ready for bed and actually headed in that direction earlier than usual. This morning we were moving a little slower than normal, but are still finishing up a few last minute things before departure time. Gene has been emptying and flushing tanks--not a hard job, but takes some time. After my shower, I noticed a little water pooling on the floor. It seems one of the screws holding the shower enclosure to the base was...

Aug 18, 2010 - A heat wave!

The smoke haze from yesterday was better today so we started our hike to Stanley Glacier. It was 47° at 9:00 when we started out. Again we hiked UP to the glacier. We really need to expand our vocabulary - "up" occurs much too often! The Stanley Glacier trail is the most popular half-day hike in Kootenay National Park. Even though this was a weekday, there were 49 people using the trail. Jim counted them, of course. Part of the hike is through an area burned by a forest fire but now recovering. It was interesting landscape. Although the day...

Aug 17, 2010 - A lazy, hazy day

British Columbia is on fire. There are currently 104 active fires. BC has spent $117 million battling 1448 wildfires that have charred a total of 1031 square miles of woodland since April. None of the active fires are close to us but the haze from the fires has made it this far. We had planned to hike to Stanley Glacier today but rain was expected for tonight so we thought it might clear out some of the haze, making the hike more enjoyable. Instead of hiking, we toured the area and went to nearby Invemere to play miniature golf. It was an...

Aug 16, 2010 - Ochre

Kootenay National Park is long and narrow. We headed to the far end and started back, checking out sights on the way. One of our short hikes was to the Paint Pots. The Paint Pots are pools of water formed by gradual deposition of iron salts around the rim. About 100 years ago, the colorful earth out of these ochre pools were collected by the Kootenay people. They formed small balls of it, dried the balls in fire, pounded the balls into powder, mixed the powder with bear grease, and used it as a red paint. Later Europeans decided this was...

Aug 15, 2010 - A rainbow of lakes

In our travels, we realized we have seen about every shade of lake possible so we decided to post them. We started the national parks part of our journey with Yellowstone National Park. Then we went to Grand Teton National Park, Glacier National Park of the US, Waterton National Park, Banff National Park, Jasper National Park, Yoho National Park and Glacier National Park of Canada. Today we moved to Radium Hot Springs in British Columbia so that we have access to the last one on our list - Kootenay National Park. As we moved further south,...

Jul 11, 2010 - Radium Hot Spring & Home

We are longing for home today! Darwin was up at his usually time and Linda stayed in bed a little longer. Once we were up and going we had a nice bread feast and then headed for the Radium Hot Springs for a soak in the hot pool. We arrived around 10:00a.m. and soaked in the nice warm pool for about an hour. We were hoping the radium in the natural springs would heal our tired and sore bones and joints for all the hiking we have done! Hahahah. It did feel rather good. We took a picture of the pool area and then headed back for the trailer....

Jul 8, 2010 - Ice Fields Parkway

Hello all, Another hot one today but not bad if you are moving at 70mph. The 150 miles from Jasper to Lake Louise is without a doubt the prettiest stretch of road in North America. I took a few pics today maybe tomorrow I can figure out how to send them out to you. Head into Montana tomorrow and go over the Going to the Sun Highway through Glacier Nat. Park. Can't imagine it can be any better than what I saw today. It will be nice to get into America and not have to pay $6.00 for a bottle of local brew like Kokenee brewed just down the road...

Jul 6, 2010 - Hike to Bow Glacier Falls & drive to Icefield

We had a nice relaxing morning today. We started our day about 8:30 and headed half way to Jasper to do a hike and some sight seeing. Our first stop was to Bow Glacier Falls for a nice hike. We thought it was only a two mile hike round trip but it was a six mile hike. It was a great hike only one real steep stop but the climb is always worth it! On our hike we could see the Wapti Ice Field, which was a Glacier on the mountain in front of us, we could see these little black dots heading up to the peak of the glacier. Those black dots were...