Castle Mountain to Jasper

We left Castle Mountain bound for Cranbrook – not a destination per se, but a good stopping off point to break up our driving days. We had some insider knowledge of places to visit on the way and we enjoyed the drive with some very pretty scenery and sightings of bald eagles.

The next day we drove north through the Columbia Valley to Radium Hot Springs. With the Purcell Mountains on our left and the Canadian Rockies on our right, it was a day of absolutely beautiful scenery. Logan is doing all the driving so at times he makes random turns off the highway to see where it leads us. One such turn led us to Invermere. Invermere is a sweet little community on the shore of Lake Windermere, famous for having the world’s longest ice skating path. There were so many different ways that people of all ages were enjoying the frozen lake (skating, walking, riding bikes with studded tyres, playing hockey…) and it didn’t take the kids long to make up their own game of ice-petanque.

The upside of it being unseasonably mild is that being outside is relatively easy, especially when the sun is shining – the lowest we’ve seen the car thermometer is -10C but it is usually between -2 and -5C. It means that when we have travelling days, we can pop in and out of the car without needing to be fully rugged up. Our kid who wears shorts 365 days a year in New Zealand appears to only need to add a hat, puffer jacket and snow boots to hang out in this Canadian winter!

Invermere was such a pretty place, we went back in the evening for another play on the ice.

It has been lovely seeing all the Christmas lights as we have travelled around. The fire station in Radium Hot Springs was particularly cool!

With a full day at Radium Hot Springs, we had time for a hike in Kootenay National Park. There had been some snowfall overnight so it was fun to make “first tracks” in the snow. We were glad for our snowboots in the deeper spots and our microspikes in the icy patches!

This hike also started our fascination with the footprints in the snow of animals who had wandered through an area some unknown time before us. Snowshoe rabbit prints are the most frequent but we’ve also seen sheep, deer, some sort of cat (lynx or cougar) and many we haven’t identified.

Our hike ended at the carpark of the hot springs for which Radium Hot Springs is named, so it was lovely to finish up with a soak in the thermally heated water. The pool looked busy from above but once you were actually in the water, the steam meant you could only see a few metres in front of you, therefore hiding most of the others in the pool! At one stage, visibility dropped to barely a metre! It was interesting to see the way the steam had frozen to the trees on the surrounding rock outcrop, giving them a coral-like appearance. Having a wet head in sub-zero temperatures led fairly quickly to ice cream-headaches but they were easily abated by dipping your head into the warm water again.

Our drive to Jasper the following day continued through Kootenay National Park and over to the other side of the Rockies. It was one of our favourite days so far as the scenery and views were breathtaking! It took us way longer than we had intended as there was “just one more” beautiful stop to make – and that was without stopping at all along the Icefields Parkway (as we will be driving back down that way next week).

I also made a bit of a miscalculation and we hiked an extra 3kms through the snow in the forest between 2 attractions when we could have just driven along the road! It suddenly dawned on me about halfway along that we were in fact not walking in towards the canyon but walking towards the trailhead that would then take us to the canyon. I let on to Logan but kept it from the kids…who actually found it really funny to find themselves arriving at a carpark after a 50 minute Mum-paced hike in the snow! The kids needed to be coaxed to actually walk to Marble Canyon after that but it was absolutely gorgeous and we all agreed that it was well worth our little adventure to get there. We were also very thankful that Logan was happy to hitch back down the road to get the car!

In 2011, some folks who worked at one of Canada’s national parks came up with the idea of placing 18 sets of matching red chairs at some of the lesser-known but stunning locations within the park. 22 years later, there are now over 400 chairs placed at peaceful, breath-taking locations across the Parks Canada locations. Some of them are easy to find and others require a bit more effort. Zara was thrilled to find this pair hiding up behind some trees off to the side of a track!

A bit about the kids’ learning whilst we are away: the NZ school year doesn’t start until February so if the kids were at home right now they would be on their 6 week summer holiday. Lucas is 13 so next year he would be Year 9, and Zara is 9 years old so she would be Year 5. As Lucas is at a school where students are selected and the roll is capped, we have to pay a portion of the fees to hold his place. This has meant that he has enrolled in his Year 9 subjects and that online school work will be available (but not compulsory) for him to do. Whilst Logan and I are happy for him not to do any formal school work, we will see how he’s feeling about it once his friends go back to school and be guided by him how much he does or doesn’t want to do. Zara will not be doing any formal schooling whilst we’re away. That being said, every day there are many, many, many learning experiences for the kids, Logan and me.

This particular spot was a real “learning highlight”, and led to many conversations over the next few days about which way the water was flowing.

Lucas has an incredible thirst, knowledge and memory for facts about the world. This video that was taken in 1 shot and was entirely scripted by him, shows a little insight into the way he processes new information and stores it until he needs it next!

We arrived in Jasper in the dark – the daylight hours getting away from us again. The amazing “HI Jasper” (Hostelling International) was the kids’ first experience of a hostel and they quickly declared it as our best accommodation ever – as kids who love NZ hiking huts, this felt like a giant hut…with the benefit of all the mod cons! The hostel was purpose-built 4 years ago and can sleep up to 157 (but was far from capacity when we were there). We had a family room with an ensuite bathroom and loads of storage. It is a really wonderful space, buzzing with happy staff and travellers and a very relaxed vibe. On top of that, it was a joy to make dinner with more than just a kettle and a microwave!!! (we hadn’t had proper cooking facilities since we’d left home 2 weeks before!). The kids could hardly wait until our “rest day” so they could spend the day exploring all the spaces and chilling in the media room, games room and eating nooks…