Canadian Rockies Day 7

Rained hard overnight and tent was a little wet, but everyone got a good night's sleep. Left camp around 9:30 for Inverness, BC, where we rafted Toby Creek  through Kootenay River Runners. Saw young black bear on the drive in. Rafted with guide, Danny, and the kids loved the Class III rapids - especially "The Cheese Grater." Blake fell into the raft once, but no one fell out. There was a father and son in our raft, too, named Bryce and Hunter from Calgary (originally New Zealand). Raft ride was around an hour and we could've gone longer. Very fun.

Saw mother moose and calf on our way to the raft put-in.

After rafting we went to Radium Hot Springs and soaked in the hot pool (supposedly 104 degrees, but felt to us around 100). It was the warmest pool by far that we'd ever been in. While we soaked we watched a skit about the history of the hot springs. The kids swam in the cool pool (84 degrees) too.

We ate ice cream cones at the hot springs, then headed back toward our campground. It had started to rain, so we stopped at a lodge for fish and chips (grown-ups) and pizza (kids). We were pleasantly surprised by the tasty food and figured it would be better than cooking in the rain.

We stopped by the Spiral Tunnels near our campground. We learned that the railroad grade was too steep, so they designed a spiral track through the mountains to increase safety. Kinda cool.

When we got back to camp, we found that Yoho had a huge thunderstorm. Our tent had moved (!) and was soaked inside and out. Fortunately we had taken most of our stuff with us, but all of our bedding was wet. We took it all to a lodge in Field to use their dryers. It took 45 minutes and three twonies ($6) to dry everything enough to (hopefully) survive the night.