Canada

Our first trip for the summer was to drive north to Canada and experience the Selkirk Loop. I've wanted to do this for years, and we decided to do it this summer for an extended weekend. We drove up on a Thursday and stopped first at Gardner Caves right near the border on the Washington side. This cave was discovered in 1903.
When we were done with the tour and were back outside Gavin asked Breck, "Were you scared?" Breck quickly replied, "No. There's no bad guys in there." We all laughed...Breck's response was so funny...so matter of factly.
After we toured that we drove to Ainsworth, Canada to check into our hotel...the Ainsworth Hot Springs Resort. It has an amazing view of the Kootenay Lake. They built a pool right next to the hot springs. Every night we swam in the pool and hot springs! On Friday we drove through all the little mountain towns and explored. We were amazed at all the waterfalls we saw that day....probably 20. They were EVERYWHERE. We decided to stop off and check out Sandon Historic Mining town. As we were driving in the mountains to reach it we stopped to see this cute little guy right by the road having a little snack. It was amazing! It was the first time for all of us to see a bear. He was a cute bear cub. However, I must admit I was a bit nervous that there was a protective momma bear nearby.....if so she never showed herself.

Well there were old train cars and buildings that consisted of this mining town. Craig was intrigued by the sign near a road for Idaho Peak (7480 ft. elevation)where you can see 360 degrees of view of mountain peaks...amazing views. Being in a spontaneous mood we took the trail up the mountain. This is what the narrow roads looked like....yeah I was freaking out because the crumbling road was on my side going up this mountain. I tried to keep my doubts to myself.

Well we couldn't make it to the top because the roads weren't clear from the winters' snow yet!

So Craig magically turned around on this crazy mountain road and we went back down. On our way back down we saw the rump of an adult brown bear! We spooked it and just saw it's behind as it booked it down the into the trees. Two bears in one morning was exciting. As a side note, we later found out that Idaho peak usually opens in July. We had a good laugh at ourselves. However, when Craig was there the LAST week of July with his Young Men for high adventure it was still closed due to snow. I guess making it to the top of this peak wasn't meant to be.

Initially, when I planned this family trip I wanted to go hiking and see glaciers with the kids. Unfortunately, those hikes were pretty indepth and not a short family hike. And again, due to the high snow fall June wasn't a good time to do this anyway. But we were able to get a nice little hour hike in. I'm telling you this is BEATUIFUL country....our whole drive during that weekend was gorgeous.

Here's a photo of a small glacier we saw on our hike.