Discovering Fernie

We’re just back from two weeks off doing a road trip and had a ton of fun.
We’ve visited a lot of new places in the Kootenays and discovered a lot of mountain towns we’d love to come back to.
My biggest discovery of this trip is Fernie! It’s everything I wanted it to be: a small active town, surrounded by mountains, rivers and lakes, with a lot of hikes and outdoor things to do. The center of the town was very lively during the days we were there and everyone was so nice.

Here are my favourite places:

• We stayed at the Raging Elk Hostel. Super conveniently located, the family room gave us a lot of space. The patio was really nice with lovely flowers. And it’s so nice to have a huge kitchen accessible to prepare meals and lower the cost of the trip. The one downside is the lack of AC, but there was a fan in our room and the temperatures were getting cool enough at night that it was fine.
• Big Bang Bagels – Delicious bagels and a very nice patio with view on the mountains (next to the road but not too many cars when we were there)
• Fernie distillers – Great spot for a drink … or several! The staff was super friendly.
• Himalayan Spice Bistro – Tasty indian food.
• Last in this list but high in my heart: Fernie Brewing Co. Their beers were super tasty and they had the best non-alcoholic beer I’ve had in a while: the Logo Citrus.

Nice hikes:
Before doing any hikes, I recommend visiting the tourism office. They had a lot of printed hikes ready to grab and go! I thought that was super smart and super helpful. We did a couple of hikes that were lovely:

• Fairy Creek Falls – 5k, less than 2 hours, nice walk along a river to the Fairy Creek Falls. The start is just next to the tourism office.
• Ammonite – 8k, 250m elevation. Fun hike with a great fossil!

Other activities we haven’t had a chance to do in the few days we were there: tubing down the river. To my big regret, we didn’t try this out but we had other activities planned. It was entertaining watching people on inflatables or stand up paddles or small boats going down the river. A good reason to come back another time. And there’s a lot more to do in Fernie! Next time for sure!