The first three pics are from Saturday, Canada Day. We drove up to Banff, had a spot of breakfast and then headed to Lake Minewanka. Just a nice little area with some walking trails. The first pic is my best shot so far of a big horned sheep. We spotted them walking across a bridge and they just walked right past us and up a hill.
We sat for a few minutes at the end of the rocks that Lena is on in the second picture, then headed into the trail were the third shot was taken in the middle of a wooden bridge. Then the batteries in my camera died...
The next day we were far more ambitious. Up at the crack of 8:30 am! We hit the road and headed west for B.C.
The first shot was taken about 20 km's or so inside the B.C border by a helpful tourist.
Our main destination was the Radium Hot Springs. There are springs of water that naturally flow to the surface at an unbelievable temperature of 44 degrees celsius. They have harnaced one of these springs and have it constantly filling a large public swimming pool. They cool the water down to 37 degrees before it flows into the pool. When you first get in, it literally almost burns it is so hot.
Beside it is another pool of natural hot spring water that is cooled even more to about 24 degrees. They make an announcement every 20 mins and encourage people to alternate pools to avoid overheating in the hot pool.
They also have a small 4 or 5 man pool in the corner called the Surprise Plunge. This is regular water at a temp of about 16 degrees. I couldn't get in past my ankles , but Lena braved it all the way in.
This is me in the hot pool. I really liked the temperature and found it really comfortable. Lena couldn't stay in more than a couple of minutes at a time.
This is the cool pool. The hot pool is on the other side of the building.
From there we went on south towards Cranbrook and found a little place called Fort Steele. It's the remains of an old 19th century mining and rail town and they have it set up as a historic site. There are people in period clothes walking the streets and put on dialogues and people working in the blacksmith shop, bakery, hotel, etc. I'll post pics of that another day.
Finally our drive home took us through this very imposing rock passage. We got out to take some shots of the waterfall beside it.
All in all, a great way to spend the weekend!
Ciao,
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