RELATIVES, RITES and ROUTES Day 21 September 29, 2009 Radium Hot Springs to Lake Louise, Alberta

We got away at our usual time and said goodbye to Radium Hot Springs. It is a quaint little town and has very good golfing or so I have been told.

We planned to head up 93 to Banff but decided that we would go to Lake Louise and stay there tonight. This will enable us to drive Hwy 1A (the scenic route) to Banff on Wednesday. We also want to hike to the falls in Johnston Canyon.

As you leave Radium you go through Sinclair Canyon. It makes for a dramatic park entrance just inside the west gate.

Shortly after entering the park we stopped to take pictures twice. The first was the Hot Springs.

The second was for this fellow who was walking down the side of the highway and decided to cross in front of us.

We said goodbye to the Ram and headed for our first stop which was Olive Lake. It is the first stop after climbing out of the Kootenay Valley which made it a natural stopping place for the early settlers in the area, including the original aborigines.

As soon as we left Olive Lake the terrain started to change as we started to climb. At the summit we came to a viewpoint of the Kootenay Valley with the Kootenay River flowing through it. It was pretty spectacular and again the camera came out.

The highway then dropped into the valley and we followed it for about half the trip. It was a nice drive as we followed the river with mountains on both sides of us.

At Kootenay Crossing or half way through we left the valley and climbed to a higher altitude and entered into an area that showed a lot of forest fire damage. Two fires, one in 2001 and the other in 2003, both started by lightening did most of the damage.

We made a quick stop at Numa Falls to take a few pictures. The falls isn't that big but the color of the water was a true glacial blue. I hope the camera can pick up the color.

Our next stop was the Paint Pots. This is where cold, iron rich mineral springs bubble up through small pools staining the earth a deep ochre. We hiked in to the Pots and saw how pools came to be.

We also learned that there was Ochre Mining in the very early 1900’s at this location. The Ochre was dug by hand, bagged and then shipped to Calgary where it was used as a pigment base for paints. The early aborigines also used it for dyes.

A short way down the road (3 kilometers) we stopped at Marble Canyon. It was a fairly energetic uphill hike but it was worth it. There were two actions of nature to look at with the canyon being the first. It was pretty amazing to see how the water had eroded away the softer rock to form the gorge. There were places where you could see where the falls were at different times as natural bridges have been carved out. At one time the water would have flowed over the rocks that are the top of the bridges.

Marble Canyon is in Vermillion Pass and in 2003 the Tokumm Creek Fire burned 170 square kilometers in 40 days. Historically, major fires burn through this area every 200-300 years. The fire is needed to renew life in the forest for both the animals and the plants. It has been 6 years and you can start to see the new growth as it takes hold.

We left the Canyon and just enjoyed the rest of the drive in Kootenay National Park. Kathy did snap a couple of pictures of Simpson Glacier which is right near the end of the park.

We exited Kootenay Park and British Columbia and entered into Alberta and Banff National Park. Once we entered the park the terrain changed considerably as the mountains immediately got higher, more rugged and barren. It is very pleasing to the eye.

We came to the junction of Hwy 93, Hwy 1 and 1A and we could either go to Banff or to Lake Louise. We had already decided that we were going to spend the night in Lake Louise so we headed that way. It wasn’t a very long of a drive so we stopped a couple of times for pictures.

We got to Lake Louise, did a little shopping and headed for the campsite. You can really notice a change in the weather and you see that it was snowing in the mountains. The forecast tomorrow is 6 degrees Celsius with a 40% change of snow. It could get interesting.