Kicking Horse Resort Gondola Ride

Friday, July 21, 2013

Because of the flooding problems, we have decided to stay in Donald for another couple of days to see if maybe the roads will reopen. So, today was a kind of lazy day, cleaned house, did laundry and basically took it easy.

Saturday, July 22, 2013

We drove into Golden this morning to take the Kicking Horse Resort Gondola up to the top of the mountain. It was drizzly and cool when we got on the Gondola

and raining when we got to the top. We had reservations at the restaurant

at the top of the mountain so we went in to eat. Lunch was included in the ride to the top and was pretty good. While we were eating, the clouds started to clear and the sun came out.

The views from the top of the mountain were stunning!

Just to the north west of the Kicking Horse property was the boundary for Glacier National Park, so we were seeing a part of the park that we couldn’t see from the road when we drove through a couple of days ago.

John & Fran

From the top we could see to the town of Golden in the valley below, as well as the river valley on the other side of the mountain.

During the winter this mountain is a hive of activity for skiers, snowboarding and other winter sports. At this time of year the paths are full of mountain bikers and hikers and the skies are colorful with paragliders. We watched some of the bikers take off down the mountain, the beginning of the trail is a steep downhill slope and by the time they reached the actual trail they were going pretty fast! The restaurant was at an altitude of 7700’, the bottom, where we got on the gondola is 3900’! That’s an adrenalin filled ride!! Not even when I was younger would I have attempted that, Phil probably would have though!

About half way up the mountain is the Kicking Horse Grizzly Bear compound. In the beginning there were a pair of Grizzly’s here, but now there is only one, a big guy named Boo. We looked for him going up and coming down, but didn’t see him.