Chapter Three - Revelstoke to Radium
As Ritchie and I run on tea, we stopped for some lunch and some tea in Golden, which is a cool little ski-hill town on the way to Lake Louise. We found food and tea at a nice little cafe and book shop called Bacchus- I had some really good middle eastern lentil soup and jasmine tea.
The plan for Day Two was to make it to Radium Hot Springs via Lake Louise; kind of the whole point of the trip. Gaby had checked the weather report on the internet at Poppi's and we discovered we hadn't packed sufficient clothing for the -12°C it was forecast to be at Lake Louise. Luckily, when we arrived (having first crossed into Alberta, across the mountain/pacific time zone border) there Phelps told us that it was actually only -1°C so we weren't that close to death when we got out to take some photos of the lake. Gaby was pretty disappointed because the lake was still frozen and didn't really look like the beautiful clear blue lake and emerald mountains that she had seen on her Lake Louise brochure, but it was still pretty beautiful. After documenting the lake itself we took a wander back to the carpark and had a look through some of the shops there, selling the usual tourist trinkets. Since we were in proper mountain country there was some pretty impressive scenery around this area - I think I saw all the mountains on the Toblerone ads.
Back in the car then and on to Radium, which we reached around dinner time. I was keen on staying in Radium since it is a hot springs town and had a hot springs pool so we ate pretty quickly at the Horsethief Creek Bar and Eatery then went for a bathe at the springs. The springs pool consisted of an outdoor pool nestled among rocky hills that contained spring water (plus chlorine) at a comfortable 40°C. Forty degrees is actually pretty hot for a swimming pool so it was more of just a sit rather than a swim but it was a cool experience overall. Ritchie had to hire trunks too, which was funny.
Feeling refreshed, we went back to our motel to watch some hockey and decide our route to New Denver.
A lane for trucks to use in the event their brakes fail
A highly frozen, not blue at all Lake Louise
Room 3, Crystal Springs Motel, Radium, our home from home for the night
Radium's native big-horned sheep
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