We made it ... BC!

It’s been a long while since out last update, (sorry!), so we are going to do two again.

The day after our last update was a long one and such a great one. We had bought a “summer pass” that was being offered, which got us each a ticket for the gondola up Sulphur Mountain, a one hour horseback ride through the valley around the Bow River, and tickets to the Banff Upper Hot Springs. We did the gondola first, which was another great memory for Katie, since she had been up there both with her Dad when she was 11, and her Mom and Mo when she was 18 (and where she encountered the infamous “Eduardo!” crying child!) The view from up there was so stunning. We got the gondola all to ourselves both ways, since there were no other couples around, just hoards of camera happy tourists who wanted to stick together, so that was awesome. We cruised around a side path while the crowds thinned out, and even got to watch a tiny little baby Golden Mantled Ground Squirrel putter around and nibble on whatever he could see. When we were done we went to the horse stables, where we were partnered with our horses and taken out to ride the trail. It was wicked! It was such an awesome way to see the area and it was just so fun to be on horses. Every so often we even got to gallop on them, which was such a blast. Chris’s horse was quite the restless one, so he had a hilarious adventure trying to keep it away from the fields where it really just wanted to hang out and eat grass all day. The cool thing was that the hour felt much longer, and to be honest our bums may not have been able to handle much more!

When we were done we ate some lunch at a rest stop up on Tunnel Mountain, where other than some runaway green peppers (man those things can roll!) we had a really nice lunch with a great view. We did a mini road trip to Canmore that afternoon, where Katie had fallen in love with the Rockies years before, and it was definitely a gorgeous town. We toured around in our car and admired houses that will never be in our price range, and did a walk along the river, then headed back to Banff to soak up the sunset in the Hot Springs. It was so glorious (not to mention free showers!). We went back to camp and devoured quesadillas, and relaxed by the fire before calling it a night. What a great day!

The next day we said goodbye to Banff and explored Kootenay National Park (we were officially in BC!). We did an awesome little hike through a canyon, checked out some crazy coloured lakes and looped through Radium, the town at the south end. It was a nice relaxed day, ending with a fire and some Scrabble. We left in the morning to start checking out BC’s south-east area. We drove up to Fernie Mountain to see the slopes, and checked out the town itself (which looked like a ghost town since they revolve around winter tourism it seems!). We ended up camping farther west than we expected, because the first three campgrounds we went to were full – apparently people were starting their long weekend early! (That, in fact, was when we even realized there was a long weekend ahead). We spent the evening chowing on mac and cheese fortified with cheese sausages and tomatoes, and planning our next few days. Research time is upon us … we had to start figuring out where we wanted to spend the winter!