Mount Stephen Fossil Site

November 1, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 2 Comments

After a quick trip through Kootenay National Park, our Rocky Mountain road trip continued into Banff and Yoho National Parks. I’ve been to Banff a few times since the pandemic, so Banff was really more of a stopover on the way to Yoho, which was the highlight for the second half of our trip. Unfortunately, there aren’t as many frontcountry camping options in Yoho, and given that it was the long weekend, the only campsite we could get was in Lake Louise.

It was still cool though because the last time I camped in Banff, I stayed at the Tunnel Mountain campground, so at least I got to try something new! Camping in Banff is really unlike anywhere else I’ve ever camped. It’s so incredibly popular, not just in Canada, but all over the world, so it has some really unique campsites. I can’t think of anywhere else except the National Parks in the Rocky Mountains where there are multiple campgrounds boasting hundreds of car-camping sites. So we were able to get a site for 2 nights with minimal advance planning, which was good because even with almost 400 sites in this campground alone, it was sold out by the time the long weekend actually arrived!

The other wild thing about the campground is that it’s surrounded by an electric fence to make it completely bearproof! Even so, they still occasionally wander in, so you still have to be bear safe, but it’s a cool idea. We arrived in the late afternoon and took it easy for a few hours. Our friend, Jason, from the Rockwall Trail had finished his thru hike on his section of the GDT, so he met up with us to celebrate! We opted to check out the Station Restaurant, which is a restaurant that’s been set up in the old school Railway Station. It even has some tables in an old railway car! The food was delicious and we chowed down on our second elk burger of the trip before heading back for an early night.

We had to go to bed early because we had an early rise for our guided hike to Mount Stephen. Since I started dating Seth 12 years ago, I learned that there is an incredibly important fossil site in Yoho National Park called the Burgess Shale. Seth’s been dying to visit it for years, so when we planned a trip to Yoho, I couldn’t help but check out the guided hikes. There was still some availability, so I booked a visit, even though I had a lot of guilt over going without Seth. Bbut it was honestly so much fun, I’d be more than happy to go again with him in the future!

The Burgess Shale is a UNESCO world heritage site that is recognized around the world as one of the most well preserved, and oldest, examples of soft-bodied marine animals, dating back 508 million years to the middle Cambrian era. The entire site is protected, so the only way you can visit it is on a guided hike with either Parks Canada or the Geoscience Foundation. There’s two locations to choose from, either Walcott Quarry or Mount Stephen. Walcott Quarry is 22km round trip, while Mount Stephen is 8km. The catch is that both have over 800m of elevation, which makes Mount Stephen an incredibly steep and taxing hike, with a grade of ~20% for the majority of the hike.

I originally picked Mount Stephen because I thought Walcott Quarry was the more famous of the two sites, so I figured I’d save that one to do with Seth. Now that I have visited, I don’t think one is more famous than the other, but I think I made the right choice because I went with two other hikers, so we enjoyed the challenge of Mount Stephen.

Our tour was with Parks Canada. There was 10 people on the tour and we left from the visitor center in Field at 7am (hence the early wake-up call). Our guide seemed delighted with our group because everyone was pretty fit, so we made a really good pace on the hike. It’s honestly a top-notch tour and we learned so much historical and scientific information on the tour. The Mount Stephen site was discovered first and is credited to Charles Walcott in the early 1900’s, but we learned that Walcott is really the one who made the site famous, but didn’t really discover it.

It was likely first discovered by the local first nations groups, and then later by a surveyor for the railroad. It was just Walcott that really understood what he was looking at and drew attention to the site. Walcott collected over 65,000 fossils between the two sites and for many years, anyone could hike up to the site and take a fossil. That’s not the case now. You must be accompanied with a registered guide and if you try to sneak in otherwise, there’s several cameras that text your photo directly to the park warden, who will then come and escort you down with an automatic appearance in court. But with a guide you can enjoy the experience in peace!

It’s definitely a steep hike. It’s a slog the entire way up. You break out of the trees about 75% through the hike and we had a nice break along the ridge before continuing up another steep climb to the quarry. The quarry is a shale rock site literally located right on the side of the mountain. It has incredible views of Field and the surrounding mountains and I would have been willing to do the tour just for the views! But the fossils are really unreal. Like I said, they’re 508 million years old and incredibly well preserved. The most recognizable are the trilobites, but our group was more enamoured by the anomolocaris (replica pictured above on the left).

We had an hour to eat our lunch and freely explore in the quarry. Hundreds of thousands of fossils have been removed from the quarry and yet almost every single rock you look at has at least 1 fossil, if not dozens, on it. You can either walk through the quarry, examining larger fossils as you go, or you can sit down and get close up with all the unique little fossils. Our guide shared magnifying glasses and identification booklets and we all got lost back in time for an hour. Plus enjoy the pica that entertained me during my lunch pictured below!

We were incredibly lucky weather-wise. It was threatening rain on us all morning, which can make the fossils a bit hard to see and make the quarry quite slippery. But the rain held off until we were finally starting to pack up, and then we finished packing up in a hurry to slowly head back down. Apparently we were a bit faster than the average group, so we had a bit longer in the quarry and finished the entire hike in ~7 hours, but usually the guide allots for 8 hours to run the tour. She dropped us back at the visitor centre around 2pm.

We were all in awe the entire time and it was such a fun way to learn about natural history. I still have the guilt from going without Seth, but I can’t wait to return for Walcott Quarry. Unfortunately, it was Carolyn’s last day with us as she had to go back to work. She’d been planning to drive about halfway back to Vancouver, but with our early finish, she ending up powering the entire way back home that night. Me and Brandon enjoyed a delicious lunch at the Truffle Pig in Field instead and then returned to the Lake Louise campground to pack for our next adventure: Lake O’Hara!

Hot Springs in the Kootenays

October 25, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 1 Comment

After an awesome 4 days on the Rockwall Trail, we were ready for some rest and relaxation! We left the National Park and hit the first B&B we could find in the small town of Radium. The 3 of us crammed into a double room and immediately took turns showering and cleaning our gear. I only have a certain amount of backpacking clothes and we had another backpacking trip a few days later, so I took advantage of the B&B to try and clean as much as I could. There was no laundry services, so this meant washing my clothes in the tub and hanging everything up to dry. It worked decently well for most things, but I’m not sure where I went wrong with my hiking pants because I couldn’t get the odour out of the them no matter how hard I tried!

We stayed in Radium just long enough to scarf down an elk burger before heading back to the bush. Since we were in the Kootenays, we wanted to check out some of the nearby hot springs. Radium hot springs is probably the most well known because it’s a commercial hot spring located right in the park. I’d been once before as a teenager and Brandon isn’t a fan of commercial hot springs, so we opted to skip it, but if we had more time I would definitely check it out.

Instead we set our sights on Fairmont and Lussier. Fairmont is a small town south of Radium that appears to be named after the Fairmont Resort that dominates the entire community. I’m sure it’s a very nice resort, but we’re not that classy and had big plans to check out the resort run-off instead! I’d read online that the resort discharges the water over the hillside into the nearby river, around which a few natural pools have been developed.

Honestly, the whole thing is a bit dicey and it’s not really clear to me if you’re technically allowed in the area (that wasn’t stopping other people, but for that reason I’m not including directions). It involves a bit of walking down the river and it has become very eroded, so my guess is that the resort doesn’t want people climbing down there for liability reasons.

Purely from a scenic perspective, it does look really neat because it’s basically a waterfall cascading into connecting pools. But it is run-off from the resort and it’s not very hot anymore. It’s warm enough in the summer, but it’s definitely more bath water temperature than hot spring, and I think if you went in the cold season it wouldn’t really be hot enough to keep you warm. There were about a dozen other people around, so we hung out for a bit to say we did it and then packed up and moved on.

Our next stop was back into the woods as we’d decided to check out some rec sites in the area and visit Lussier Hot Springs. Lussier is pretty well known and it’s reasonably developed without being commercial. It’s actually located in Whiteswan Provincial Park, which has 5 first-come-first-serve campgrounds. It was the Friday of the Labour Day Weekend and we wanted to get a site before the long weekend crowds arrived, so we hit up the first campsite in the park, which is called Alces Lake.

We didn’t have any trouble getting a site, but it did get pretty full by the end of the night. Alces Lake is a lot smaller than Whiteswan Lake, so maybe that one is more popular, but Alces is beautiful too and we really loved it! Our campsite was right next to the lake and the hot springs parking lot had been pretty full when we drove by, so we opted to hang out at the lake for the afternoon, with the plan to go back to the hot springs around dinnertime in hopes it would clear out.

It was a great decision and we had a blast at the lake! The water was really warm and we spent the afternoon lounging in the water on our thermarests. I’ve had a slow leak in my thermarest for almost a year now, so I finally was able to look for the hole. I thought I found it near the mouthpiece and sealed it up, but it’s still leaking, so I may have to finally breakdown and buy a new one (which is disappointing because they’re so expensive!).

Waiting until 5pm was a great idea though! There were still a few people around when we got to the hot springs, but there was enough room for us and it gradually cleared out more while we were there. There’s a large parking lot walking down to the river and then there’s several man-made pools next to the river. None of them were too hot, but it was still warm enough outside that we didn’t want to hang out too long in the hot pool and spent most of our time in the middle pool. We went for a few cold dips in the river, but mostly just relaxed for 2 hours, which was lovely!

We returned back to the lake for supper and then enjoyed watching the sunset over the lake while Carolyn did my hair. Me and Brandon camped in my 3p North Face tent and Carolyn opted to just sleep in her car, which is her newest obsession.

We left the next morning after breakfast to head back to Kootenay National Park and then camped in Lake Louise for two nights, so it was a short visit to the Kootenays, but still a lot of fun! To be honest, I’m not really a big hot spring person – not because I don’t like hot springs – but because I find them to always be very stressful and busy. But Lussier wasn’t either of those things and it had a really nice vibe. I’d definitely recommend, especially with so many options for camping nearby! One day I hope to return and drive a bit farther down to Top of the World Provincial Park, which is also located nearby.

Kootenay National Park Guide

October 18, 2023July 11, 2024 / Maria / 3 Comments

Let’s start off with a disclaimer – there’s a lot to do in Kootenay National Park – I’ve still only done a fraction of what there is in the park, but after spending a week there, I feel like I got a good idea of what a lot of the attractions are. There’s still lots for me to return and explore, but here’s some of my learnings after 1 week.

Getting There

Kootenay National Park is characterized by Highway 93. It runs through the entirety of the park and it’s from this highway that you access all the attractions. Put simply, you can either enter through BC or through Alberta. If you’re coming from Calgary (as we were), the obvious option is to drive Highway 1 through Banff and then take the exit for Highway 93. If you’re coming from BC, it’s the same distance from Golden to either park entrance, so it all depends on which direction you’d like to drive. You can access the park through Radium, which in my opinion is the nicer direction because that’s the official park entrance and you can get your park pass there. But there’s nothing wrong with entering through Banff National Park. Leave lots of time for your drive either way because there’s so much to see in the park!

Where to Stay

Where to stay depends on what kind of sleeping experience you’re looking for. If you’d like to stay in a hotel, I’d recommend Radium. It’s right on the doorstep of the park and has lots of options for cheaper accommodations. You could also stay in Lake Louise or Banff, but be prepared to shell out a lot more money for these options.

If you’d like to camp, then there will be a lot more options available to you and you’ll be able to stay directly in the park. But you have to be prepared to book sites when they release around March because all of the National Parks are popular and they book up fast. See the next sections for more information on your camping options.

Frontcountry Camping

If you’re new to camping, then frontcountry camping is what you’re looking for. These are drive in sites, so you can store lots of things in your car and they’re a bit easier to get to than backcountry sites. There are 3 frontcountry sites in Kootenay National Park – all can be booked through the Parks Canada reservation site, check early in the year for the date that sites will be released.

Redsteak Campground – This is the largest campground in the park and therefore the easiest to get into. it’s located very close to Radium. It has 242 sites and is usually open from late April to early October.

McLeod Meadows Campground – This site is located in the valley, along the banks of the river in the middle of the park. It has 88 sites and is usually open from early June to early September.

Marble Canyon Campground – Marble Canyon is a large attraction on its own and this site is located in the sub-alpine with nice mountain views. It has 60 sites and is usually open from late June to early September.

Full disclosure, I haven’t actually stayed at any of these sites, but I would like to try for McLeod or Marble one day!

Backcountry Camping

Backcountry camping is my preferred method of camping, but it is a whole different beast than frontcountry. It revolves around hiking and you have to carry everything you need on your back, so you should only attempt backcountry if you’re aiming to complete a hike.

As far as backcountry camping goes, there are limited options in Kootenay. All of these sites are on the Rockwall Trail (a 54km hiking trail), with the exception of Verdant Creek (which is now closed). Though you don’t have to commit to doing the entire Rockwall Trail if you want to visit some of these sites, many have alternative entrances.

Helmet-Ochre Junction Campground – A small campground along Helmet Creek. It’s a 6km walk to the campsite. It’s a good stopping point along the Rockwall Trail or for a 1-nighter if you just want to visit Paint Pots or Helmet Falls. It’s pretty easy hiking to this site, good for beginners.

Helmet Falls Campground – A larger campground located at the base of Helmet Falls. It’s a 14km hike to the site and is most commonly used along the Rockwall Trail, though you could stop here for 1 night if you just want to visit the Falls. Alternatively, you could camp here for 2 nights and do a day hike up through the pass to the start of the Rockwall and back.

Tumbling Creek Campground – A larger campground located where Tumbling Creek meets the Rockwall. It’s a great place to stop on a thru hike of the Rockwall Trail, or you can do a 10km hike on the Tumbling Creek Trail. It’s a fairly gentle climb up to the campground. I haven’t done the Tumbling Creek Trail, but if I was to enter the Rockwall this way, I would plan to stay for 2 nights and day hike along the Rockwall.

Numa Creek Campground – A larger campground located on Numa Creek. It’s a great place to stop on a thru hike of the Rockwall Trail, or you can do a 6.5km hike on the Numa Creek Trail. It’s an easy trail to the campsite, but Tumbling Creek is closer to the Rockwall if you’re planning on day hiking there. As a thru hike, I recommend staying at Numa, but as a day hike, I’d recommend Tumbling.

Floe Lake Campground – The most popular campsite in the park. This campground is located right on beautiful Floe Lake. It’s a 10.5km hike up to Floe Lake with considerable elevation gain. It’s the most challenging hike on the list, but the most rewarding. A perfect end if you’re doing the entire Rockwall Trail.

Verdant Creek Campground – This site was extensively damaged in the 2017 wildfires and is no longer recommended. It was previously used as an alternative access to Egypt Lake in Banff National Park.

Hiking

The Rockwall Trail – One of the biggest attractions in the park. This 54km trail is extremely popular and travels along gorgeous alpine terrain. Recommended as a 3-4 night thru hike.

Stanley Glacier – Another popular attraction in the park, this 11km trail can be done as a day hike and covers a lot of elevation gain. You can hike it on your own, or if you’re a fossil enthusiast, pay for a guided hike with Parks Canada!

Cobb Lakes Trail – A shorter trail on the west side of the park, day hike 5km and back to picturesque Cobb Lake for the day.

Dog Lake Trail – A fairly easy 7km trail that leaves from McLeod Meadows campground, with beautiful views of the surrounding valley.

Simpson River Trail – A flat and easy trail along the Simpson river, customized to your preferred length. The trail continues all the way to Mount Assiniboine if you’d like to hike 12km to Sunrise Creek Campground and continue on further.

Ball Pass Trail – I wouldn’t recommend this trail unless you’re backpacking and continuing on to Sunshine Village, in which case, this beautiful trail covers a lot of elevation gain and kilometres. Stay at the Ball Pass Campground or infamous Egypt Lake.

Arnica Lake – A very scenic trail that hikes down to Viewpoint Lake and then back up to Arnica Lake. It’s 10km in total and is very popular in the Fall when the larches turn yellow. (technically this trail is in Banff, but it’s so close to the border)

Boom Lake – Another trail in Banff, but Boom lake is a scenic 10km trail with moderate elevation gain to a gorgeous lake.

Roadside Attractions

Since I spent most of my time in Kootenay National Park on the Rockwall Trail, I was more keen to explore all the roadside attractions rather than do more hiking. We spent a full day driving the 100km of road between to the two park entrances and there were tons of attractions to keep us busy all day! Starting from Radium, here are my recommendations:

Sinclair Canyon – Towering canyon walls as you enter the park. Stop for some photos and walk along the pedestrian sidewalk through the canyon.

Radium Hot Springs – Gorgeous commercial hot spring and pool just within the park boundary. Perfect in the winter or on a cloudy day. Walkable from Redstreak Campground.

Olive Lake – Short walk to turquoise waters and a fish conservation area located in Sinclair Pass.

Kootenay Valley Viewpoint – Rest stop with panoramic views of the Kootenay Mountains and Kootenay River across the valley.

Kootenay River Day Use Area – Rest stop with a few picnic tables and an excellent view of the river.

Numa Falls – Short walk to a bridge under which the rushing Numa Falls are channeled to the Vermillion River.

Paint Pots – 1km walk each way to see the red ochre soil that makes up the traditional paint pots.

Marble Canyon – Go back in time along the 1.5km loop trail to see how Tokkum Creek has formed the canyon over thousands of years.

Continental Divide Rest Stop – Photo op where the Rockies collide, separating BC from Alberta, and the flow of water to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.

Vista Viewpoint – Technically in Banff National Park, but the last stop along Highway 93 with beautiful views of Arnica Lake.

National Park Pass

Before visiting, make sure you get your park pass either at the entrance in Radium, or when you drive through Banff National Park. You will need it to park everywhere inside the park. It’s $10 per person, per day, or you can get the family pass for the whole year for $145, which is applicable to all National Parks in Canada.