You smell Radium Hot Springs before you see it, or so it seems: faint sulphur, wood smoke, hot tarmac. The village sits where the Kootenay valley opens to the broad Columbia, and the road from the north drops through Sinclair Canyon, a dramatic notch in red rock, so narrow that the highway squeezes through with barely a shoulder. It is the best entrance to any town on the loop.
The springs themselves are the reason it exists. The hot pool, fed from a spring that comes out at around forty degrees, has been used for centuries by the Ktunaxa people, and in the early twentieth century it became a spa. Today the big pool, built into the canyon wall, is a lovely thing at the end of a day in the saddle: warm water, cool air, cliffs above. In the village, bighorn sheep wander the streets and lawns, so watch for them at dusk and in the morning, and drive gently.
The village is small, and the nearest bigger town is Invermere, about twelve kilometres north on the shore of Lake Windermere, where you will find more shops and services. Radium itself has motels, cafes and fuel stations, plus a couple of good places for a hearty meal, and it is a lively stop in summer, busy with families and riders.
East of here the road climbs back into the mountains and into the park, while to the south the Columbia valley is a broad corridor of grass and wetlands, an important bird area, with the Rockies on one side and the Purcells on the other. Heat can be sharp in July and August, and storms build in the afternoon, so aim to arrive in the early evening. Come in the golden hour and the canyon walls glow like embers.