After an awesome 4 days on the Rockwall Trail, we were ready for some rest and relaxation! We left the National Park and hit the first B&B we could find in the small town of Radium. The 3 of us crammed into a double room and immediately took turns showering and cleaning our gear. I only have a certain amount of backpacking clothes and we had another backpacking trip a few days later, so I took advantage of the B&B to try and clean as much as I could. There was no laundry services, so this meant washing my clothes in the tub and hanging everything up to dry. It worked decently well for most things, but I’m not sure where I went wrong with my hiking pants because I couldn’t get the odour out of the them no matter how hard I tried!

We stayed in Radium just long enough to scarf down an elk burger before heading back to the bush. Since we were in the Kootenays, we wanted to check out some of the nearby hot springs. Radium hot springs is probably the most well known because it’s a commercial hot spring located right in the park. I’d been once before as a teenager and Brandon isn’t a fan of commercial hot springs, so we opted to skip it, but if we had more time I would definitely check it out.

Instead we set our sights on Fairmont and Lussier. Fairmont is a small town south of Radium that appears to be named after the Fairmont Resort that dominates the entire community. I’m sure it’s a very nice resort, but we’re not that classy and had big plans to check out the resort run-off instead! I’d read online that the resort discharges the water over the hillside into the nearby river, around which a few natural pools have been developed.

Honestly, the whole thing is a bit dicey and it’s not really clear to me if you’re technically allowed in the area (that wasn’t stopping other people, but for that reason I’m not including directions). It involves a bit of walking down the river and it has become very eroded, so my guess is that the resort doesn’t want people climbing down there for liability reasons.

Purely from a scenic perspective, it does look really neat because it’s basically a waterfall cascading into connecting pools. But it is run-off from the resort and it’s not very hot anymore. It’s warm enough in the summer, but it’s definitely more bath water temperature than hot spring, and I think if you went in the cold season it wouldn’t really be hot enough to keep you warm. There were about a dozen other people around, so we hung out for a bit to say we did it and then packed up and moved on.

Our next stop was back into the woods as we’d decided to check out some rec sites in the area and visit Lussier Hot Springs. Lussier is pretty well known and it’s reasonably developed without being commercial. It’s actually located in Whiteswan Provincial Park, which has 5 first-come-first-serve campgrounds. It was the Friday of the Labour Day Weekend and we wanted to get a site before the long weekend crowds arrived, so we hit up the first campsite in the park, which is called Alces Lake.

We didn’t have any trouble getting a site, but it did get pretty full by the end of the night. Alces Lake is a lot smaller than Whiteswan Lake, so maybe that one is more popular, but Alces is beautiful too and we really loved it! Our campsite was right next to the lake and the hot springs parking lot had been pretty full when we drove by, so we opted to hang out at the lake for the afternoon, with the plan to go back to the hot springs around dinnertime in hopes it would clear out.

It was a great decision and we had a blast at the lake! The water was really warm and we spent the afternoon lounging in the water on our thermarests. I’ve had a slow leak in my thermarest for almost a year now, so I finally was able to look for the hole. I thought I found it near the mouthpiece and sealed it up, but it’s still leaking, so I may have to finally breakdown and buy a new one (which is disappointing because they’re so expensive!).

Waiting until 5pm was a great idea though! There were still a few people around when we got to the hot springs, but there was enough room for us and it gradually cleared out more while we were there. There’s a large parking lot walking down to the river and then there’s several man-made pools next to the river. None of them were too hot, but it was still warm enough outside that we didn’t want to hang out too long in the hot pool and spent most of our time in the middle pool. We went for a few cold dips in the river, but mostly just relaxed for 2 hours, which was lovely!

We returned back to the lake for supper and then enjoyed watching the sunset over the lake while Carolyn did my hair. Me and Brandon camped in my 3p North Face tent and Carolyn opted to just sleep in her car, which is her newest obsession.

We left the next morning after breakfast to head back to Kootenay National Park and then camped in Lake Louise for two nights, so it was a short visit to the Kootenays, but still a lot of fun! To be honest, I’m not really a big hot spring person – not because I don’t like hot springs – but because I find them to always be very stressful and busy. But Lussier wasn’t either of those things and it had a really nice vibe. I’d definitely recommend, especially with so many options for camping nearby! One day I hope to return and drive a bit farther down to Top of the World Provincial Park, which is also located nearby.