Canada Bound: Day 12

Bears! Oh, my....

 Mike & I along the Continental Divide

Lake Louise

 Moraine Lake and The Valley of the Ten Peaks

We hiked up to this spot....what a view!

Banff National Park

Another view of Ten Peaks

Mountain Goats who needed a crossing guard!

Kootenay National Park

Olive Lake

The Passage back...

This was one of my favorite days of the trip and we will absolutely be coming back here at some point! The girls hung out with Grandma & Grandpa for the day (they just happened to be on vacation in the same area that week) while Mike and I went exploring. Oh, the things that we saw!

It was another day of staring out the windows at the beauty surrounding us, trying to figure out if I could actually take several hundred pictures in one day! The only reason that I didn't was because I was busy trying to take it all in myself! The day was perfect, by the way, with temps in the 80's in the valley and in the 60's in the mountains. Blue skies with puffy clouds, especially near the mountain peaks, greeted us everywhere we went. It was just great!

We traveled through Kootenay National Park first, seeing a momma black bear and her cub heading towards the woods, tons of deer, eagles, and then mountain goats on our way back out. When we reached the Continental Divide, it was also the boundary between British Columbia and Alberta, as well as the boundary between Kootenay and Banff National Parks. It was a really neat spot, and of course there was a geocache there...

Lake Louise and the Moraine Lake area were....well, they were even better in person than I had ever imagined. It's one of those times in your life where you almost have to pinch yourself to believe that it's real. I have so much that I could say but really, the pictures kind of speak for themselves.

On a side note, Mike and I actually picked up a pair of hitchhikers while on our way to Moraine Lake. Whoa, Nelly. Turns out they were visiting from Finland, and had just hiked several miles up and down the valley and just couldn't go any further...they were a cute couple and we had fun chatting with them.

We really didn't want to head back but we were meeting everyone for dinner so leave we must. On our return, there was another cache that Mike wanted to try for and I'm SO glad that we stopped. It was at Olive Lake, a natural spring fed lake that is absolutely breathtaking and we had the place all to ourselves. You could see all the way to the bottom, even in the middle, view tons of fish and it was FREEZING cold! The mountain backdrop behind it couldn't be beat either!

I have a lot more photos but I thought I would share my favorites-enjoy!