This is a trailer for a documentary that hopefully will be out soon.  It is about the Swiss guides who played a big part in the history of this area. 

It's that time of the year.  Every spring the bears make their appearance around Vagabond Lodge and this year is no different.  There is a mom and 2 young cubs just down the road towards Golden hanging around the roadside where the grass is nice and green.  And we have about a 2 year old black bear who has been wandering around our yard.  I try and get out and make some noise and get it to wander away before they get too used to hanging around.  Yesterday he was just behind us and I did convince it to move along.  But later in the evening on a walk I noticed it not too far away again.  Once it greens up a bit more they will usually take to the trees and higher elevations.  
We are open for business starting this week.  There are all sorts of things to do in the area, including the Whitewater Rafting on the Kicking Horse River, Golf, tandem paragliding, parachuting, mountain biking and hiking and more. This is obviously a great time of the year for bear spotting.  Give us a call toll free in North America 1 866 944 2622 and make a reservation or email me at ken@vagabondlodge.ca
Here is a photo of the young bear in our back yard last night.

We have had scary nice weather here for the past week.  Temperatures in the mid 20's and not a cloud in the sky.  Fabulous.  River is starting to rise quickly and that means whitewater rafting on the Kicking Horse River starts next weekend.  One of the best things I have done since we moved here over 9 years ago, was to go on a back country horseback trip. BJ owns a company calledBear Corner Trail Rides and we went with him last summer and it was spectacular.  He does a variety of different types of trips including a 3 day trip to the top of Howse Pass.  Our trip was 2 hours which was perfect for my butt. Here is a video I put together last year to give you an idea of what to expect.  Kicking Horse Resort doesn't open until June 28th but there are all sorts of good things to do in the area and Horseback Riding is just one of many adventures

We had our first bear sighting of the season today.  We were just on our way up the hill from Golden and were talking about the fact we  hadn't seen any bears yet.  Spring is when you see a lot of bears around Vagabond Lodge.  Well no sooner we talked about not seeing any bears, there was a probably a 2 year old black bear at the side of the road feeding on the green grass.  The bear showed no signs of being afraid of our car.  He wandered away at first and then after a couple of minutes near the edge of the trees, came back up towards us. I have seen up to 8 or 9 bears on one trip between Golden and Vagabond Lodge which is only 13 km.