" Dream. Commit. Succeed. "

Where to start… Describing in words our trek in Mt. Assiniboine Park just can’t do justice to the beauty of this place. I had been thinking of going on this trek for a few years, but moving around hasn’t made it easy for me to book enough time to just make it happen. This year, with BC Parks limiting booking for residents of BC, it has opened up a lot of spots for camping in the park. I was lucky enough to get a spot and booked 2 months in advance, which allowed us to plan for our great roadtrip to make our way there.

Leaving Fernie, we had 2 nights left before we needed to be ready for our Assiniboine trip. Our goal was to spend some time exploring the Hot Springs between Cranbrook and Radium Hot Spring, then hike in Kootenay Park before driving through Banff and Canmore.

With Covid restrictions, a lot of the regular hotsprings were closed or limited to guests already booked with close-by accomodation. We decided to go explore Fairmont Hotspring and found the Indigenous old baths and hotsprings opened to public. We spent a bit of time here before heading up to Windermere Lake. We found a small campground in the area where we were able to book a spot ahead of time and spent the evening around the fire with 2 French Canadians currently living in Alberta.

After leaving Creston, our plan was to drive directly to Fernie where we were going to spend the next 2 nights. Luckily, I have some family in Fernie, which means we were able to get our first real shower in a week of travelling (cheers for family and free accommodation with hot shower!). We took some time to reset and relax, explore the town and splurge on some great local food.

We spent quite a bit of time walking by the river directly in town, relaxing our legs after our first big hike. We also decided to head up to the Island Lodge, which takes you in alpine to start a series of trail. If you have been following me for a while, you might remember that I have been here back in 2016 during the winter. Mindful of our legs and need for rest, we settled on a short and easy hike (…) and headed up for 10.5km, 4hrs, 595m elevation gain on Mt. Baldy trail.

After leaving the Nakusp, we drove all the way to Nelson. We spent a bit of time discovering the downtown area and sampling the local food and coffee. We took a long stroll along the paths following the water and leading to the beach, just past the marina. We slept on a logging road a few km out of downtown and woke up early for our next day, as we had planned on doing a big hike in Kokanee Glacier Park.

We did the Gibson Lake Trail to Kaslo Lake hike and it was so worth it! My main concern was the road to get to the trailhead – luckily it had been graded not long ago and had been maintained very well, and conditions were dry at the time of our visit. With my Honda Odyssey, I try to avoid taking too many risks with the roads. This road is 4WD recommended, but from reading all of the reviews and comments online, I felt confident that we could make it all the way… so we tried… and we did! I drove very slowly and carefully, which added quite a bit of time to our driving time that day, but it was good. There was one spot towards the top where I worried I could hit the bottom, but we made it through okay on the way up. Driving down, I did hit in this particular spot, but driving very carefully I made it back down just fine. We saw a few other 2WD with low clearance stopped on the side in various places, where people figured out they couldn’t make it and decided to hike up the rest of the way.. Just take your time, and in doubt, turn around!