Radium Hot Springs to Calgary

By way of Kootenay National Park and Banff

We left Radium fairly early in the morning, and drove up highway 93 towards Banff. Very quickly we drove into the snow zone, and watched the fog grab the surround mountains. We drove down km of highway, seeing only to the forest at the side of the road.

Numa Falls

Our first stop (in the soft rain) was Numa Falls. The fog was starting to lift and we could see how beautiful the surrounding mountains were. Walking the length of the parking lot, I could hear and then see the falls.

The Vermilion River has been carving this valley for a long time, and the rock around the falls shows the history of this friction. These rock pictures remind me of the rock in antelope canyon in Arizona.

Paint Pots

Back on the road again, we weren't in the car very long before we came to the paint pots. I visited these as a child, so I was quite happy to see them again.

By now the clouds are definitely burning off and the views are spectacular. It really makes me wish I could get out to beautiful places like this more often.

Banff

We have been in small town British Columbia for the last two days so Banff was a bit of shock. Big stores from Vancouver were here (Lush, The Old Spaghetti Factory, Club Monaco) as well as the tourist traps, specialized in removing dollars from Tourists. There were a few "authentic" retail operations that seemed to represent an older day, but Banff was thoroughly commercial.

One happy consequence of being so tourist oriented, was great asian food. We found a small deli style restaurant specializing in Japanese food and I had a great Curry.

After a short walk around town (yup, just like Whistler - even the shop workers are imported from Australia), we drove over to the Cave and Basin to see what it's about. The traffic was a little slow going down the road and we soon found out why - elk were feeding at the side of the road. We pulled into the large parking lots and played tourist, taking photos of the local wildlife.