Since we had spent a day and a half at Radical Diesel hanging out with decent cell reception, we’d tried to make plans. But, because we weren’t quite sure what was going on with the truck, we couldn’t make reservations. This area of Canada has a clump of national parks, and while they’re not directly in a line, we planned a route that would allow us to see Banff, Kootenay, Glacier, Yoho, and Jasper. The Canadian National Parks system in this part of Canada seems to have been created to preserve land made accessible by Canada’s Rt. 1, better known as the Trans-Canada Highway, and this highway and a few off-shoots are the parks’ access roads - which makes the parks very accessible. Banff even has entry kiosks on Rt. 1 as you enter the park so you can purchase your park pass if you don’t have the system access pass. Because we had purchased the access pass at Waterton, we were able to bypass the kiosks and directly enter the park. The campgrounds in this part of Banff are reservation only, and you must reserve at least two days prior to when you want to stay, so we had planned to stop and see some sights in Banff, and then head on to Kootenay, where all the campgrounds have at least some first come first served sites. However, Banff was much more like the major US National Parks, crawling with people and slow moving cars. We took in the view from the highway, and kept driving, knowing we’ll pass nearby again after Yoho and we can decide then if we want to stop to see anything.
We got off Rt. 1 onto Rt.93, which is the Kootenay NP access road. Large pulloffs with plenty of parking are every few miles, so it’s easy to find a trail head or scenic point. We went to the McLeod Meadows Campground, which is right on the Kootenay River, has a good hiking trail right by the campground, and is close to Radium Hot Springs, which we wanted to see. Three loops are FCFS, so we found a spot in the loop nearest the river and the trail head, although when we took the dogs for a walk we found that the other two loops were almost deserted. After we walked the dogs, we hiked to Dog Lake, which was about 4 miles round trip, up and over a hill across the river to the lake.
We got off Rt. 1 onto Rt.93, which is the Kootenay NP access road. Large pulloffs with plenty of parking are every few miles, so it’s easy to find a trail head or scenic point. We went to the McLeod Meadows Campground, which is right on the Kootenay River, has a good hiking trail right by the campground, and is close to Radium Hot Springs, which we wanted to see. Three loops are FCFS, so we found a spot in the loop nearest the river and the trail head, although when we took the dogs for a walk we found that the other two loops were almost deserted. After we walked the dogs, we hiked to Dog Lake, which was about 4 miles round trip, up and over a hill across the river to the lake.
The next day, we drove into Radium Hot Springs, which is a fairly substantial town with lots of gas stations, a nice grocery store, and bunches of hotels, restaurants, and other tourist oriented businesses. Someone in Calgary had recommended checking out the Fairmont Hot Springs before going to Radium, so we drove about 20 miles south and did that. Fairmont Hot Springs is part of a resort with a hotel, ski area, and a bunch of outfitters for horseback riding, kayaking, rafting, and anything else you might want to do outdoors. We only did the hot springs, which is two large pools with one about body temperature, and the other about 10 degrees F warmer. I was pleasantly surprised by how clean the pools were, because there were a lot of people in the pools, and they were advertised as no chemicals added. We discovered the reason for this when we got out; hot spring water is constantly flowing from the spring through the pools, and every night they completely empty the pools and let them refill overnight. We were told by someone who goes there regularly that the locals like to go hang out by the stream where the pools drain every night to see the giant temporary waterfall. The original hot springs are up the hill, with a small building with three private baths, and the natural pools.
We left Fairmont and went back to Radium Hot Springs. We saw some big horned sheep on the road, and then went through the canyon to the Hot Springs building. We decided not to do any more hot spring soaking, and were glad we had gone to Fairmont since one of the Radium pools was closed. We also don’t know if Radium drains and refills them every day, although the Radium pools also looked very clean. We returned to the campground and prepared to leave the next morning for Canada’s Glacier National Park.
