Sunday 29^th July

On to Radium Hot Springs in the beautiful Kootenay National Park. The scenery was amazing even though the sky was quite hazy with smoke from bushfires throughout the state.  It was a sight for sore eyes to see the wild Bighorn sheep wandering around in a herd through the town. Watching them eat one person’s plums off his tree I’m not sure the locals would have been too happy about their ‘guests’?  

Further into town we saw a beautiful white tailed deer with velvet antlers grazing on the side of the road – what was this place? Turns out the best wildlife sightings are in town?

Poor old Ron has been struggling with the names of all these wildlife. I must admit the mountain goats and bighorn sheep do look related but he’s calling the sheep, goats, the goats, sheep and the beavers, otters and vice versa.  He’ll get there.

Driving through the different national parks it has been much easier and MUCH cheaper to have bought a Discovery Pass from Parks Canada which is valid for ALL national parks in the country for a year. Also means you can bypass some of the lines and drive right through.

Even though the weather was quite warm it was still very relaxing and invigorating to have a soak in the actual Hot Springs at Radium.  They are pretty good value and managed by Parks Canada.  You soak in pools with views of the Kootenay mountains around you. The car park was packed and we thought it would be super crowded but it wasn’t, so not sure what all the cars were for.

We slept at the Redstreak Campground tonight which is up the mountain from Radium Hot Springs and has beautiful views. Bighorn sheep and deer were wandering around at dusk too.

Monday 30^th July

Drove on through Kootenay National Park stopping along the way at some lovely spots. I think if you stopped at everything nice around here you’d be driving around for months!  Spotted Olive Lake which hardly rates a mention in guidebooks and no one else was there but it was really pretty and the water was an  impossible clear turquoise! There was a short walk to where a spring bubbled out of the ground that supplied the lake and you could watch the trout swimming around.

Olive lake

30th July

Marble Canyon was another stop.  Very pretty and worth walking all the way to the top – a lot of people seem to stop at the site at the bottom with it’s super blue water but keep going and check it all out.

Just past Castle Mountain we stopped at a random picnic spot for lunch. No particular sights or markings but the views were spectacular. Made a coffee with our handy car kettle.

We were heading for Lake Louise- one of the ‘must see’ lakes of the Rockies and we had to go through there anyway.  But the traffic and crowds around the village had to be seen to be believed.   Some locals at Golden had said that the place was crazy and they thought it was no more beautiful than other places – just had had more promotion. I think that includes lots of pictures on Instagram. I was starting to think there might be something in that as similar views were everywhere.

After being waved on several kilometres through an overflowing parking lot to a site where you had to catch a shuttle to get back to the Lake because of overcrowding we figured we’d skip Lake Louise.  So I can’t tell you about that one.

Started driving up the famous Icefields Parkway. Famous for it’s beautiful views and many glaciers. Just watch out for crazy drivers who don’t seem to appreciate that 1. They’re on a scenic drive and 2. There’s a chance of seeing wildlife and not killing it if you slow down below 110k/h!

As evening approached we didn’t expect to get into a campground on this famous road at this time of year with everything overflowing so were stoked to find this magic little campsite with a couple of sites free.  It included endless firewood, firepit , picnic table, 360 degree views of Rocky mountains and a crystal clear stream in front of us. Couldn’t believe our luck!