Getting CRAY In Kootenay! What an incredibly awesome and quite frankly, strange, place this is. More on that below. Kootenay National Park can not be missed though guys. It is a total gem. Like all other National Parks, they are National Parks for a reason, and Kootenay does not disappoint in any way. If you like the spa and like to relax, this is the park for you. Yes, there’s a spa here. Pump. It. Up.

We spent two nights at a campsite right outside of the park. The campsite was ok. It was a public campground area, which was perfect for us because we needed all the hookups for the RV. Once we were exploring around in the park, we realized that there were a lot of good places to stay, but our spots were already booked for the two nights.

Tara Tip* State campgrounds are much more scenic than public campgrounds but have less accommodations. Public campground spots tend to be very close to one another. I usually always prefer to stay in a state campground when camping or road tripping. 

Huge baby. That was me for many parts of this journey. Literally could not take all these beware of bear in the area signs. Yikes. Then you hear it from the park rangers and it freaks you out even more. It was a situation I really didn’t want to jump right into to say the least. Somehow we got forced into going on this hike as a family. I was scared the whole way to our destination, which was STUNNING by the way. After I finished the trail called, Dog Lake Trail, I was SO happy I went because I would have missed out on such a great experience. It was a little sketchy because like I said in a previous post, Canadian wilderness is no joke at all, and there were not many people on the trail, like at all. When I finally saw another family I felt much better about everything though. It gave me some comfort knowing it wasn’t us just out there in the middle of it all.

Above is my husband, who decided to take a dip in the lake, and my father-in-law on the side. I decided not to stray too far in and away from the trail, if you know what I mean. Aren’t these views just gorgeous though? It was such a lovely hike and one that is well recommended. The trail was not too far in from the main entrance so it is a great trailhead to take if you don’t want to ride through the entire park.

The way back to our RV was like a peace of cake compared to how I felt on the way there. After I hike, I always feel great because I feel like I really accomplished something. Being out in nature does that to you and so does seeing something new and different. That’s what I love about traveling around.

Okay, the next stop was my favorite in this whole little adventure in Kootenay for many reasons, but the number one reason is because it was SPA time. Who doesn’t love a good spa? Radium Hot Springs is the real deal. Check it out for yourself and you’ll understand why!

This may look like a gigantic pool in the middle of the mountains, but it is so much more. You can find these hot springs in the south entrance of Kootenay National Park. There is a main spa right near the hot springs called, Pleiades Spa and Wellness. They have every kind of treatment, yoga class, and lots of healthy juices/meals to order. Keep in mind, there is an entrance fee to enter the pools, but you can stay as long as you would like. There are showers and lockers available at the facility too. After hiking through the wilderness, this was well worth the visit.

Not many people believed that this was a “real” animal, but indeed it is. I took this picture while I was waiting for our pizza. There were so many Sheep Dogs, it was bananas! They were all over the side of the road just hanging out with their buddies. Speaking of Bull Horn Sheep Dogs, there’s a pretty good coffee place in town called, Bull Horn Coffee. That’s where we decided to stop and grab some hot coffee before heading to our next adventure. It was some decent coffee, which is sometimes difficult to find when you are road tripping around. Coffee=happiness. Are you with me?

I have saved the best for last. Low and behold…the Wizard of Kootenay my friends. Yes, you heard me correctly, straight up wizard. This is where it gets a little strange like I said earlier in the post. I truly wish I took a picture of him, but it was so early in the morning and my phone was in the RV at the time. I did get to snap a picture of his house, which was pretty interesting in itself, don’t you think? He looks exactly like the last person on the wood carvings with the red hat. You can google search him and you should be able to see some photos. He is a pretty famous artist in the area and his carvings are quite amazing. What was kind of funny about the whole thing was that we were sitting eating breakfast at a restaurant in town (there are not that many). A man dressed up in a wizard outfit, who looked EXACTLY like a wizard would look, sat down at the table next to us. He must be a regular there because they knew exactly what he wanted to eat and they brought it to him almost immediately. After he left (his house was across the street), I saw his long, red hat and red cloak on top of the bushes as he was climbing down his ladder to the main area of his house/work I assume. It was just a very interesting sight to see that you don’t get to experience everyday, or do you? #wizardofkootenay

 

Okay Kootenay, it’s been a real adventure for sure! I didn’t even get to the part about our RV catching somewhat on fire, but that’s not that interesting, or is it!? That really did happen, but luckily no flames and major damage. Something was burning and you could smell it, so we had to turn off all of our power. It was this long and not so fun story to tell, but the good news was that everything ended up being okay, minus all of our cold food! We didn’t have too much longer until we were staying in hotels, so we pushed through. Onward and upward.

Next spot, Emerald Lake ❤