Kootenay National Park
Friday 14 June, 2024
Creek and mountains from parking lot for Marble Canyon.
We always want to see as many national parks as possible, and Kootenay and Yoho are beautiful places right next to Banff. They are back in British Columbia, on the Pacific side of the watershed. We took a day to drive down Highway 93 through Kootenay.
The obligatory park sign photo, at the Continental Divide, and at the Alberta-British Columbia border.
Flags of British Columbia, Canada, and Alberta, before a misty mountain.
With two days of heavy hiking with groups scheduled for the weekend, we didn't want to push our leg strength too much. We walked the short interpretive trail at lovely Marble Canyon. It is not really a canyon, but a gorge. It also is not actually marble, but Cathedral dolostone, which is an altered limestone, as some of the calcium in the calcite has been replaced with magnesium. This is not a true metamorphosis, so this is still sedimentary rock. [Source: Canadian Rockies Geology Road Tours by Ben Gadd] The interpretive signs showed how the waterfall had moved deeper into the gorge as it eroded rock away over thousands of years.
The Marble Canyon scenery was incredible.
Looking down through the gorge at the creek. The beautiful blue comes from the fine particles of rock that we see in glacial runoff. I'm sure that blue water is cold!
A natural bridge was carved out as the waterfall eroded the rock.
Eric took a picture of me on the trail.
Parks Canada places red Adirondack chairs at scenic viewpoints. Someone took our picture in these, the first red chairs we found.
The gorge with mountains above.
At last, we came to the waterfall. Photo by Eric.
My view of the waterfall.
Us at the waterfall.
A wonderful example of the sedimentary layers of the Canadian Rockies.
We stopped for an amazing earthcache along the road. Look at the waves in this rock!
These are sedimentary rocks, different types of limestone. They formed in flat layers, but the flat layers were distorted by heat and pressure as the Rockies rose.
Mountain goats right by the side of the road. Eric managed to capture both Mama and Baby looking at him.
While there's lot of great scenery and hiking in Kootenay, the main tourist attraction is Radium Hot Springs, a natural but developed hot spring operated by Parks Canada.
I wave to Eric from the Aquacourt.
After a relaxing soak at Radium Hot Springs, we checked into the unexciting Gateway Motel in the town of Radium Hot Springs. Eager for hot showers and the ability to charge all of our electronics, we were highly disappointed by the few outlets in the tiny room. We had to plug in splitters and run an extension cord across the floor.
I had thought we had had time for a sit-down dinner and a relaxing evening, but, once I had a decent internet connection, I discovered that we needed to meet our Saturday tour at 8:15, almost two hours' drive away in Yoho National Park. So, we had to grab some quick burritos and get to sleep early!
Day 8 distance driven: 96 mi/154 km, cumulative 1,494 mi/2,404 km
On to the incredible fossils of Yoho National Park.