Athabasca Glacier in the front
Standing where the glacier use to be - it is disappearing fast.
Glacier Icefield
Other glaciers feeding in to Athabasca
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Heading North in to the Canadian Rockies...
It has been 12 days since we have had a good internet/wifi connection where we could down load information. We have used Starbucks and visitors center wifi to check email but because of the high volume of usage from travelers it was very difficult to get anything done on the blog.
We left Callaway Campground outside of Calgary and continued North on the Trans Canada Highway 66 miles to the Banff National Park We stayed in a park campground close to town (town was down the mountain 1 mile) for four nights so we could tour and hike the area.
Banff is the highest town in Canada with an elevation of 4, 537 ft. Banff National Park was established in 1885 as Canada's first national park. Banff is known for being a winter playground with skiing, snowmobiling, etc, and a cooler summer destination for tourist surrounded by the beautiful Canadian Rocky Mountains. Banff is a regular town with lots of shops, post office, banks, two grocery stores, etc. and great mountain views and lots of tourists. Due to many wildfires burning North of here, we have had smoke issues since we were in Calgary.
We took the gondola (ski lift) ride to the top of Sulfur Mountain for great 360 degree views and a walk on up to the summit for even more great views. Once we were back down the mountain, we walked over to the hot springs for a look - lots of people in the pool and dipping their toes in the small pools of water along the waterfalls. Then we drove Tunnel Mountain Drive and stopped at Surprise Corner for a view of the Bow River and the waterfalls. We also walked the Johnston Canyon upper and lower falls trail - very pretty going through the canyon. Mark and Wayne hiked up the Tunnel Mountain trail while Jill and I headed to the local farmer's market in the park and to the grocery. The smoke continued to get worse everyday in Banff spoiling the great views.
Then we headed 30 miles north to Lake Louise in Banff National Park for a three day stay in the park campground there. Lake Louise is a very small village well known for the beautiful Lake/Mountain views.
We drove up to the lake - Lake Louise and the Fairmont Hotel to see for ourselves - WOW!! beautiful even with the smoke in the air. We walked the lake trail and spent some time just sitting on a bench enjoying the views. Beautiful blue water lake with mountains with glaciers on top of them. We also drove to Morraine Lake and hiked up the rockpile for more beautiful views. We had a trail along the river in our campground which was very nice and pretty too. One day it rained here all day with thunder, lightning and hail too so we just used the day to catch up on things in the RV.
We did a one day drive to the Icefields Parkway north of Lake Louise- 80 miles north - to the Glacier Discovery Centre and the Athabasca Glacier. We hiked the trail up to the glacier - as close as we could get - WOW!! an amazing sight. We spent most of the day on the Icefields Parkway stopping at overlooks along the way. The Canadian Rockies are beautiful!!!
The we continued West on the Trans Canada Highway headed for Vancouver and the the West Coast. We drove through Yoho National Park and the Canadian Glacier National Park on the way with more beautiful mountain views. We did a one night stop over in Merritt on the two day drive. We were surprised to drive through the mountains all the way to Vancouver- beautiful scenery.
Saturday, July 12, 2014
Oh Canada!!!
Hitting the road in to Canada...
We crossed the US - Canadian border and checked in to Canada customs on Monday morning. We headed on north on the Chief Mountain Highway to Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta- Canada's version of our Glacier National Park. We had reservations for three nights in the Waterton campground in the village on Upper Waterton Lake. This is a beautiful place- nice village with great mountain views all around. Since we were only two blocks from town, we walked everywhere in the village. They also have very nice walking and biking trails. We drove the Red Rock Canyon Parkway to Red Rock Canyon and hiked the canyon trail and the Blakiston Falls Trail - both were very pretty to see. We also drove the Akamina Parkway to Cameron Lake and hiked the lake trail until we reached the barricades - the rest of the trail is still closed due to snow on the trail that has not melted. Mark also hiked the Bear Hump Trail and we played tennis for the first time since Memorial Day weekend. This is the nicest national park campground we have been in so far on this trip West. We walked to Cameron Waterfalls from our campground and we could hear the falls from the RV. The views were wonderful.
From Waterton, we headed north to Calgary for a three night stay. Calgary and the Canadian Rockies, that is. Calgary is a booming city of 1.3 million people and growing. Lots of construction too. It is very culturally diverse with more than 120 languages spoken here. Calgary is also home to the Calgary Stampede - the biggest Rodeo event annually in Canada. Calgary was also the site of the 1988 Winter Olympics and the Olympic Park was not too far from our campground. There is lots of urban sprawl in the area surrounding Calgary with beautiful parks and biking/walking paths.
We toured the Calgary Olympic Park facility which is still be used as a training facility. They have a huge summer bike camp for kids where they use the chair lift to take the kids and their bikes to the top of the mountain. They have made bike trails for them to ride back down to the village. They have a skyline luge run, zipline, summer bobsled run, down hill mountain biking available. Mark did two runs on the luge which he thought was pretty neat!
We could not leave Calgary with out attending the Calgary Stampede - a 13 day event complete with a rodeo daily, chuck wagon races, amusement ride, Indian Village - similar to a state fair in the US. We saw the Peking Acrobats perform, an Indian pow wow, and the chuck wagon races (9 heats) in the evening. The chuck wagons were running 40-45 mph in the races!!!! Since parking is at a premium in Calgary around Stampede Park, we chose to ride the commuter train in so we were dropped off/picked up right outside the main gate to Stampede Park. Lots of people, lots of junk food everywhere. Oh my!!!
We will head on north to Banff, Alberta tomorrow....the journey continues.
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Finishing up our time in Glacier NP
Yesterday Mark and I completed the famous drive - Going-to-the-Sun-Road starting at St. Mary (East side) and driving all the way to the Loop in the car - no RVs allowed. Driving this road is simply magnificent, and a totally unforgettable experience. The fact that they could even build such a road is amazing - very good engineers and 20 years of very hard work!!!
We stopped at the Logan Pass Visitors Center (6646 ft) where it still looks like winter with several feet of snow on the ground. We were traveling early enough in the morning that we could stop where ever we wanted to take photos. This is the area of the road that they have been working on to clear for traffic. The scenery was spectacular!!! We took way too many photos...326 pictures yesterday alone on my camera - a new record!!!
After lunch we drove south to an East side area of the park called Two Medicine - very primitive but also very pretty. There was a general store and a campground, and Two Medicine Lake. We also stopped and walked the trail to Running Eagle Falls- very pretty.
Today we drove back to Many Glacier Lodge to do a boat/hiking trip. We left the lodge and traveled by bat across Swiftcurrent Lake, hike 1/2 mile over a to Lake Josephine, get on another boat and travel across the lake to a hiking trail that took us 1 mile to Grinnell Lake/Grinnell Gacier. The trail to the glacier is still closed due to snow - but we did walk through some snow. Beautiful. Then we did it in reverse back to the hotel boat dock.
Tomorrow we head in to Canada and the Waterton-Glacier National Park area for a couple of days before we move on the Calgery. We will have cell service available for us with our phones, but no data package for Canada that we were willing to pay for, so our internet use is still a wait and see what we have and what our options are when we get there. We all ready know that gas is over $5.00 a gallon - so we are filling up before we leave here - of course we will need to fill up more than once!!!
We are not sure how many posts we will be able to do in Canada - just keep checking back.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Cruising through Montana
Happy 4th of July Everyone!!
It has been a week since we left Yellowstone NP and we have had limited wifi or no service to use. The main problem was a lack of electricity since we can only run the generator at specified times in national park campgrounds. We thought Yellowstone NP had restrictive times (8 AM - 8PM) ... Well, we hadn't seen anything yet as Glacier NP only allows generators to run 6 hours a day total - 8 AM -10 AM, 12 PM - 2 PM, and 5 PM - 7 PM!!! We are on our way to sightseeing by 8 AM - gone through lunch time-sightseeing, etc. and we had to make it a point to be back to the RV by 5 PM to run the generator and charge the batteries every day. We are thinking we need to get a solar panel to charge things...
We departed from Yellowstone NP through the West Yellowstone entrance and headed north. Our first stop was Ennis, Montana for a one night stay. The drive to Ennis was beautiful and we ended up having a "million dollar view" from our RV site. We had mountains on all sides with a meadow in front of us that ran right into the mountains. We checked out two ghost towns nearby - Virginia City and Nevada City. It is difficult for me to call them ghost towns when there are people living there...not quite the ghost town I was expecting to see. After dinner we were playing cards with Jill and Wayne (Born to Cruise) when we had the largest, most complete rainbow in the sky that we have ever seen. We could see both ends of the rainbow plus the middle - it had beautiful, vivid colors in it. Very nice. The next morning we loaded up and drove to Missoula, Montana. On the way, we drove past a large music fest...people in tents, campers, trailers, and RV's everywhere parked in a very large field. There were hundreds of them...looked like a smaller version of Woodstock- flashback to 1969!!! We spent two nights in Missoula- shopping, provisions, laundry, etc. and we drove around the University of Montana there. Missoula is a very neat town. Mark's grandfather received his master's degree from the University of Montana-Missoula. Mark's mother was born in Choteau, Mt. and she grew up in Great Falls, Montana. We also treated ourselves to a couple of dinners out - the MacKenzie River Pizza Co. and The Iron Horse Bar and Grill - good eats!!!
We then headed north to Glacier National Park -the West Glacier area first on the west side. We stayed a couple of nights in the campground on Lake MacDonald. Nice campground but there were lots of trees so the view was very limited. We drove over to see the historic Lake MacDonald Lodge -which is celebrating 100 years in operation this summer. We had beautiful views of the lake and the mountains from the lodge. The lodge is a neat old building made of very large lodge pole vines.
The Going-to-the-Sun-Road, which is one of the main attractions here and runs through the middle of Glacier NP (West to East) has not yet opened for the season. The 14 inch June snowfall here caused problems with the Logan Pass area of the road. We were able to take the park service free shuttle on the Going-to-the-Sun-Road -from the West Glacier area up to the Loop area where they dropped us off to walk the road and explore. The road is closed to general traffic east of the Avalanche Creek area. From the Loop area, Mark and I walked up the closed road until we reached the snow line. We had great views and photo opportunities that you would not to do if the road was open to traffic. The rumor was that the road will open before July 4th- we see what happens. We hope to be able to do all of the road before we leave the park next week.
We also drove to the Avalanche Creek area to do some hiking. Huge, old cedar trees lined the very pretty Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail. We also took a white water rafting excursion on the Flathead River for 10 miles - a first for Mark and I and we both loved it.
We then moved on to the east side of the park for several days, staying two nights in a park campground and three nights in a rv park in the small town of St. Mary-electric + water too!!! We toured the Many Glacier area by car, and we drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road from St. Mary -18 miles before we had to turn around. Lots of road construction on the east end of the road with part of it a dirt road. We hiked several trails and plan to complete the Going-to-the-Sun Road tomorrow. We will also take a boat/hiking trip as well before we leave. Tonight there will be fireworks over St. Mary Lake to celebrate the 4th of July!
Hope to get some photos posted before we leave next week and head in to Canada.
It has been a week since we left Yellowstone NP and we have had limited wifi or no service to use. The main problem was a lack of electricity since we can only run the generator at specified times in national park campgrounds. We thought Yellowstone NP had restrictive times (8 AM - 8PM) ... Well, we hadn't seen anything yet as Glacier NP only allows generators to run 6 hours a day total - 8 AM -10 AM, 12 PM - 2 PM, and 5 PM - 7 PM!!! We are on our way to sightseeing by 8 AM - gone through lunch time-sightseeing, etc. and we had to make it a point to be back to the RV by 5 PM to run the generator and charge the batteries every day. We are thinking we need to get a solar panel to charge things...
We departed from Yellowstone NP through the West Yellowstone entrance and headed north. Our first stop was Ennis, Montana for a one night stay. The drive to Ennis was beautiful and we ended up having a "million dollar view" from our RV site. We had mountains on all sides with a meadow in front of us that ran right into the mountains. We checked out two ghost towns nearby - Virginia City and Nevada City. It is difficult for me to call them ghost towns when there are people living there...not quite the ghost town I was expecting to see. After dinner we were playing cards with Jill and Wayne (Born to Cruise) when we had the largest, most complete rainbow in the sky that we have ever seen. We could see both ends of the rainbow plus the middle - it had beautiful, vivid colors in it. Very nice. The next morning we loaded up and drove to Missoula, Montana. On the way, we drove past a large music fest...people in tents, campers, trailers, and RV's everywhere parked in a very large field. There were hundreds of them...looked like a smaller version of Woodstock- flashback to 1969!!! We spent two nights in Missoula- shopping, provisions, laundry, etc. and we drove around the University of Montana there. Missoula is a very neat town. Mark's grandfather received his master's degree from the University of Montana-Missoula. Mark's mother was born in Choteau, Mt. and she grew up in Great Falls, Montana. We also treated ourselves to a couple of dinners out - the MacKenzie River Pizza Co. and The Iron Horse Bar and Grill - good eats!!!
We then headed north to Glacier National Park -the West Glacier area first on the west side. We stayed a couple of nights in the campground on Lake MacDonald. Nice campground but there were lots of trees so the view was very limited. We drove over to see the historic Lake MacDonald Lodge -which is celebrating 100 years in operation this summer. We had beautiful views of the lake and the mountains from the lodge. The lodge is a neat old building made of very large lodge pole vines.
The Going-to-the-Sun-Road, which is one of the main attractions here and runs through the middle of Glacier NP (West to East) has not yet opened for the season. The 14 inch June snowfall here caused problems with the Logan Pass area of the road. We were able to take the park service free shuttle on the Going-to-the-Sun-Road -from the West Glacier area up to the Loop area where they dropped us off to walk the road and explore. The road is closed to general traffic east of the Avalanche Creek area. From the Loop area, Mark and I walked up the closed road until we reached the snow line. We had great views and photo opportunities that you would not to do if the road was open to traffic. The rumor was that the road will open before July 4th- we see what happens. We hope to be able to do all of the road before we leave the park next week.
We also drove to the Avalanche Creek area to do some hiking. Huge, old cedar trees lined the very pretty Trail of the Cedars Nature Trail. We also took a white water rafting excursion on the Flathead River for 10 miles - a first for Mark and I and we both loved it.
We then moved on to the east side of the park for several days, staying two nights in a park campground and three nights in a rv park in the small town of St. Mary-electric + water too!!! We toured the Many Glacier area by car, and we drove the Going-to-the-Sun Road from St. Mary -18 miles before we had to turn around. Lots of road construction on the east end of the road with part of it a dirt road. We hiked several trails and plan to complete the Going-to-the-Sun Road tomorrow. We will also take a boat/hiking trip as well before we leave. Tonight there will be fireworks over St. Mary Lake to celebrate the 4th of July!
Hope to get some photos posted before we leave next week and head in to Canada.
Wednesday, July 2, 2014
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