Damian & grandpa Ed's summer adventure

Damian and his grandpa Ed have talked about this trip several times during recent months. Finally they have been able to coordinate their time between Damian's many activities and Ed's work, to finally get out on the road.
The adventure began on the morning of Monday August 20th around 9:00am. Damian came over to grandma and grandpa's on Sunday evening for a sleepover to ensure an early start the next day.
The final destination for the day was Enderby at Mabel Lake in British Columbia, but a couple of stops were needed on the way.
After a little over two hours of driving, we stopped at Lake Louise village to stretch our legs and visit the Laggan Bakery; a favourite for coffee and home baked treats. We were not disappointed and tucked into cookies, chocolate milk and a steaming  hot coffee for Ed.
A little over an hour later we were at Takakkaw Falls near the small railroad town of Field, just over the border in BC. After leaving the highway, the road twisted and turned along the side of a mountain and had a seriously steep and narrow set of switch backs to navigate. But the hairy drive was well worth the nail biting - the falls were spectacular.

The roar of water was very evident as we exited the car but as we got closer to the bottom of the falls it was difficult to have a conversation. The fall is the second highest in western Canada and is over 1000 feet. Although the day was 25 deg C it was quite cool at the base of the fall as the air was filled with very cold mist and spray.

The Kicking Horse River was also very tempting for a paddle on such a warm day but it was very cold - literally bone chilling. Damian and Ed stood in the water up to their knees - 25 seconds and they were out with bones literally aching.  If you have had a brain freeze from ice cream you will know how our legs felt.

The Kicking horse is a glacial river and carries a lot of rock flour which has been eroded from the surrounding limestone mountains. The flour is deposited in the shallows and slower pools as a grey sludge, and sets like cement when allowed to dry. We had great fun playing with this and also skipping stones and throwing rocks - Ed morphed into the kid he was over 50 years ago.

The remainder of the journey was fairly uneventful and we arrived at Mabel Lake around 7:00pm. We stayed with Dave, a work mate of Ed's. Dave has a summer cabin at the lake and had invited us to stay over for a couple of nights. We had a barbecue, set up our camp  cots, unrolled our sleeping bags, had a quick wash and were sleeping within minutes of hitting the sack at 9:00pm.
I will post again to give details of more of our adventure and our day hike on Tuesday.
Sleep well.