Radium Hot Springs ~ 02/2010

2010 was a big travel year for us with many firsts including our first time visiting British Columbia for Valentines Day, to Radium Hot Springs. Yes, we travelled 5.5 hours for a Valentines Day retreat and it was worth every second of the drive…. I wasn’t kidding when I said a seed for road trips and exploring had been planted since driving across Canada during our move west to Alberta.

Radium Hot Springs is in the Easy Kootenay of BC and named after the hot springs in nearby Kootnenay National Park. A very small community with beautiful scenery and neat artistic points of interest like the House of 1000 Faces, the landmark home of woodcarver Rolf Heer who began with a few carvings on the exterior of his home and over the years the whole exterior became his carvings and the home was even featured on the TV show Weird Homes. To the our dismay and many others, it burned down in 2018, so we were fortunate to have seen this townsite icon during this visit.

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Another landmark site is in the drive itself as you pass through the Sinclair Canyon and the Redwall Fault. Literally a mountainous entryway in and out of Radium. A must see on highway 93!

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Panorama Mountain Resort is not far for the ski/snowboarding enthusiast in you. Located in the scenic District of Invermere, you are surrounded by the Purcells and Rocky Mountains. We did not go to Panorama Ski resort on this trip but we did visit at a later time on a company ski trip where my husband learned to ski for the first time at 33 (he’s hooked now). Instead, we took in the majestic sites of Invermere, nestled in the mountains and valleys.

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Our stay at Radium Resort was refreshing, cozy and therapeutic. Located on the grounds of a golf course, it offered beautiful views from our room. Massage services and a daily breakfast from the on-site restaurant and bar were very accommodating and it was just a short drive to the hot spring pools which was an experience in itself. There are 3 pools; an Olympic sized one for swimming (29°c), the larger, hot pool (102°c), tucked into the side of the mountain for a more natural soak and the plunge pool for those who can handle the waters hot temperature from the source for only a very short time.

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Looking back on this, our love for BC and return visit months later to Vancouver Island, became the catalyst of our move further west in 2012. The little piece of BC we experienced here was just the tip of the iceberg we would later but soon learn.