So it was a good rainy day, and we're ready to hit the trails again. Since we missed hiking with Jill and Mike the day before, they asked if we wanted to try to meet for another hike.
We picked a location that was more centrally located and we headed east towards highway 93. This part of Canada contains four different national parks that are connected. So the thirty minute drive took us over the British Columbia province border into Kootenay National Park. We met at the parking lot for the hike to Stanley Glacier. A forest fire several years ago left blackened poles where tall trees once stood.
The trail description said the younger trees meant that there were views in all directions. But Jill and Denisa found that these young trees were still taller than they were. We also found plenty of buffalo berries ripe and ready for the bears on this trail. Other berries aren't ripe yet, so this is their food of choice right now.
Our destination is Stanley Glacier, high on the mountain in front of us.
As we hiked higher, that glacier never seemed to get any closer. We are in a very big valley surrounded by big rock walls, and they are making Mark and Mike look very small in the bottom left hand corner of the picture below. We also noticed that all the pictures we took toward the glacier and the clouds looked like we were shooting with black and white film.
When hiking among this many rocks at this altitude, we are now expecting to see a marmot. We weren't disappointed here at the Stanley Glacier trail, as the resident marmot was out greeting hikers.
The views were much prettier when we turned back towards the parking lot and the blue skies.
It was during this rocky hike that Mark caught the toe of his hiking boot on a rock. That happens often enough, but this time it ripped the entire toe of his boot apart.
Denisa wanted to check out another Kootenay National Park oddity, so we headed further into the park for our next stop. We crossed the bridge over another one of the mint green river that flow through this part of Canada.
Very soon the views changed from pretty pastel colors, to unusual oranges and yellows.
We are hiking toward the paint pots, used by the Indian tribes that lived here many years ago. In America we call them "native Americans," but in Canada they are called "first people." This naturally occurring colored mud was used by the first people to decorate their tipis, and to mark their faces in war paint. Today we are just using the mud to stain our hiking boots and pants. After that wonderful bridge to get us over the river, the national park leaves visitors on their own to make it across the wet trail of yellow mud. In the picture below, check out the job Mark did taping his ripped hiking boot together with duct tape. Pretty fancy!
The trail led us to the three main paint pots, where the first people could choose yellow war paint,
or green war paint.
After our trek through the paint pots, we spent some time at the river trying to get that gooey mud out of the tread of our hiking boots.
Just a few miles down the road, we stopped at the Continental Divide at 5,382 feet above sea level. This is the dividing point where water flows east or west to the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.
We took the long way home today, looking for wildlife on the Bow Valley Parkway. It's always good news to see a group of stopped vehicles on the side of the road here. Someone had spotted a black bear with his nose hidden in a bush eating as many buffalo berries as possible.
We also stopped in at Castle Mountain's view point, where the castle was being lit up by the afternoon sunlight on this beautiful blue-sky day.
We continued on to the Lake Louise Ski area, which becomes a gondola ride station in the summer. They advertise that this is the best way to see a grizzly, as the bears frequent the ski trails under the chair lift. We aren't going to pay the $50 per person for the ride, but we did use our binoculars to check out the runs from the bottom. No grizzlies today.
We bought lunch at the Bear's Den at the base of the mountain and had a great view of the mountain for our meal.
We were joined by a swallow, who perched on the glass wall right beside our table.
His head and neck are covered with tiny feathers that glowed in the sunlight.
We found that the Lake Louise Ski Lodge is a beautiful place to spend the rest of the afternoon, and their super-fast internet helped us get caught up on some blogging.
As we left the lodge, we saw a group of female hikers needing a ride back in to town after a long day of hiking. We gave them a ride and found they were on vacation from their home in Mexico City. Then one of them yelled, "Is that a bear?"
Sure enough, she had spotted a black bear on the side of the hill. Mark did a quick u-turn and got the car where all of us had a front row seat to the bear viewing. Our passengers from Mexico were excited to see their very first bear in the wild. They made comments like, "He's so cute!" and "He's smaller than I thought."
He was intent on cleaning off all the buffalo berry bushes close to the road, and it was fun to watch his technique up close.
We were surprised to see that he even ate from bushes with orange berries that weren't ripe yet.
On this lonely stretch of road there were only two cars stopped to watch. We have often seen ten to twenty cars trying to jockey for position at some bear sightings, and that can get messy. But today we could move the car as the bear moved.
Very soon the ranger's pickup showed up, making sure that everyone had stayed in their cars and the bear was safe as well. As our bear headed up the hill and out of sight, we had been blessed again today.
Some would say that it was good karma for giving a ride to tired hikers, but we are constantly blessed as we wander God's wonders.
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