July 4th - 2016 - Road trip to Fernie

July 3rd - Fernie

Our last day here at Fort Steele RV Resort, and Ray's back is better after resting it, so we decided to take the 1 hours drive to Fernie. Ray wanted to take some pictures of the "Rocky Mountains" and today the weather is in our favour. 

For our anniversary, I wanted to take the chairlift to the top of the mountain, so we did. The ticket price included lunch either at the Lost Boys Cafe at top or down below at Kelsey's Pub and Grill. You know what we chose! We decided to do the chairlift first as the forecast is for thundershowers later this afternoon. It's a sunny and a balmy 24 degrees at the bottom of the lift. When we got to the top the winds increased to about 30 km and the clouds started to roll in and the temperature dropped about 5 degrees. They'd even shutdown the lift the day before for awhile due to a thunderstorm. Yikes we were not dressed for that! so ... we did not stay very long just took some pictures and came back down the lift. They had a big mountain bike race earlier in the morning, so all of the trails were very busy and not very safe for the hikers apparently.

Here we go.

Views from the chairlift.

Chairlift views. Look at all of the flowers.

From the top, looking down at the Elk Valley

Big White

Elk Valley and Mt. Hosmer

Fernie Alpine Resort

The meal was included in the lift ticket but the beer was not. :)

View from the patio

Next it's off to explore the town of Fernie. It sure is a quaint little town. Lots of outdoor patios with pails of water everywhere for the pooches. They even have a large off-leash dog park along the river, so a very dog friendly place.  We've found everywhere in the Kootenays' people are so friendly even for BC standards.

We stopped at the Visitor's Center to check it out first. They have this oil derrick on display.

The Visitor's Centre also has a sani-dump for $2 and potable water with fairly easy access.

Next it was off to the historic downtown.

While not quite "historic" we checked this place out but unfortunately it's closed on Sunday.

Mountain biking is huge here in Fernie with the trails up the mountain accessed by the chairlift for the months of July and August. Here downtown they were having an event for the kids.

This little girl apparently was the winner, just not this run.

Managed to catch the train coming through town.

1912 Catholic Church still open for parishioners. 

Courthouse still operating. Circa 1908.  Only Edwardian chateau style courthouse in BC.

This used to be the Crowsnest Coal Company circa 1905 now houses the Brickhouse Pub.

Here are some more views from town.

The alpine flowers are gorgeous.

 View of the Three Sisters (L), Mt. Hosmer (R) and the Elk River.

Tomorrow we are moving to Larchwood Lake Recreation Site, a short 1/2 drive from our current location to get in some fishing for Ray finally. The price is right $14/night, but with Ray's disability card we only pay $7/night. That will certainly help our camping budget for the month as we did not expect to pay $40 per night or more.