Lussier Hot springs. White Swan. Canal Flats.

My second attempt to visit the Lussier natural hot springs came pretty close to tradgedy, and almost destroyed another toyota van.

Of course the first time was when I borrowed (parents out of town) the family Previa and drove in the middle of the night from Calgary with friends to the springs. On the way up to the springs we bottomed out the oil pan on some rocks that were in the middle of the road and that drained all the oil. After many examples of random human kindness from the people of Canal Flats we made it back home, without even dipping in the hotsprings, only to pay the dealership $1, 000 in repairs. The previa never did run the same after that...

last night, after warnings about not going to the hotsprings due to treacherous road conditions from pretty much everyone, we set out to the hotsprings. Driving Kerwood's Toyota Town Ace (which is similar to the previa; egg mobil, engine under the seat, almost blows over in the wind). Anyways, on the way up the 17km gravel road, the "gravel" really turned out to be ice disguised as gravel, but we didn't realise this until we were sliding sideways at 50km/h. Na a good feeling, but for some reason we didn't panic and just tried not to spill our road pops. We headed for a burm of dirt sideways traveling pretty fast, and we all prepared for the car to flip, me holding a pop in one hand and the car ipod in the other (Shostakovitch). Adam, in the newly camperized backseat (which does not have seat belts yet) put his arms and legs out like a starfish trying to grab onto something to brace himself. Kerwood kept calm, probably accepting the imitate demise of his van.

We hit the burm, and all the loose items in the van flew over to my side, but we didn't tip over. And the absurdity of the situation caused us to laugh pretty hard at our foolish luck. The front wheel was pretty bent taking the brunt of the impact and would no longer spin, so we changed that tire, and that allowed us to at least continue our journey. After locking in the 4WD we crawled the rest of the way, and made it to the hotsprings.

The evening turned into a success with cheese fondu cooked on Adams camp stove right next to the hotspring pool which was enjoyed by all. After 5 hours alternating between the Hot pool, warm pool, and freezing river we returned home safely to Cranbrook.

See photos on #2 flickr page....

!!! I found my password for #2 again, so the latest photos (week 10) are on #2, check it out for the latest !!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timberframecranbrook/show
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timberframecranbrook2/show
http://www.flickr.com/photos/timberframecranbrook3/show

and 4,5,6, etc... as required due to the flickr 200 photo limit per account.

Cheerio,
ROBERT