Mmmmmm - Mountains!

Monday, July 24, 2006

Nelson. B.C. is a lovely little town. After catching the ferry at Kootenay Bay to Balfour BC, to get us across Kokanee Lake we camp the night at Kokanee Provincial Park. That evening we treat ourselves to dinner at the Red Fish Café, “a date” and an opportunity to enjoy the town, Thai noodles and a seafood stew – wonderful. The next morning we set out early for Cody Caves.

The caves are twenty km off the highway UP a narrow, rough gravel road that twists and turns with switchbacks every 50 metres. Nothing is said about this in the guidebook and I worry about anyone towing a trailer or driving a big motor home. (Really, I’m worried about meeting them as they try to back down.) The drive is followed by a 1 km hike UP,UP,UP some more. When we arrive at the cave opening we quickly discover that our guide is Fraser Bonner - an ex MMR student from the late 80’s, and Dar taught his sisters! Darlene and I get a personalized tour through an exciting, rugged (“Just walk through the river here. You may have to lie down on this next passage.”) set of caves.

We emerge exhilarated, dirty and ready for a soak in the Ainworth Hot Springs – which are very hot but just the ticket for the bumps and aches we picked up in the caves. Surrounded by mountains and not too overdone, it was a treat. A fabulous day, driving along the Kootenay Lake. If we lived anywhere close we would buy a retirement, cottage/home here. Beautiful country, and not very developed.

We camped that night at Revelstoke so that we could hike the mountain the next day. A private campsite but well maintained, & with a pool, which is great when it’s 38°C, we find a lovely site surrounded by trees. The next day we head up the “Meadows In The Sky Parkway” and go hiking through alpine meadows and give ourselves a bit of heatstroke. High and hot are not a good combination.

The remedy for this is a late lunch at a lovely little restaurant in Revelstoke called The Woolsey Creek Café which we highly recommend to anyone passing through. (It sounds as though we’re eating out a lot. Not so! )

We push on, hoping to stay at Glacier National Park but everything is full and we wind up at a private campground in Golden. Not nice. The owner is making a bundle cramming people into small sites with few amenities. ( Note: On his brochure the owner has the chutzpah to show a small herd of Bighorn Sheep grazing – on the only grass available - in front of the camp. We think this is just oversell until we leave the next morning and turn into – a small herd of Bighorn Sheep! )

We learn from all this, though, and will stop earlier in the day from now on. (And doing so we find a lovely little spot in Lake Louise Campground..)

As we’ve been traveling through the mountains I’ve been frustrated by lovely views but lousy photos. It seemed that there was always a problem with the angle, the light, the foreground, the background, the whatever. It’s really the photographer of course. I go through periods where I simply cannot “see” a photo. Fortunately, that changed with the Ice Fields Parkway and now we have enough mountain photos to build our own postcard business. The ice fields have lost none of their majesty or mystery but a lot of their mass and we are again reminded that global warming is causing great shifts in the topography of this planet of ours. This topic is much on my mind as I’m currently reading “The Weather Makers” by Tim Flannery. This is a book that should be required reading for every concerned citizen on the planet. This man lays out the crisis of global warming clearly, with illustrations that even I can understand.

We spend Sunday and Monday in Lake Louise National Park. Sunday afternoon we drove south to Banff and quickly left. It really is no longer a town – just an oversized shopping mall with good scenics. On Monday we drove slowly up to the ice fields, stopping at every viewpoint and hiking spot that we could find. Banff can be forgiven, just because it anchors such a stupendous drive. At the ice fields, we do the obligatory walk, fill Dar’s water bottle with meltwater and turn around for home. On the road south, we drive through several storms. These have already visited our campsite and we resolve once again not to leave our camp chairs out in the open when we quit camp.

On Tuesday, we leave for Jasper.