Bismarck to home

Today we drove all the way from Bismarck to home. It was a total drive of about 13 hours. Not much else to say other than we did stop at a gas station and noticed they had a giant pink elephant, so that was cool. This was a really cool trip. We saw so many awesome things it was unbelievable. I’m already wondering when we’ll be back to do it all again.  Our total mileage was 4,550 miles.  Here’s a pic of the elephant.

Theodore Roosevelt NP, drive to Bismarck

Drove to Theodore Roosevelt NP, but it was freaking hot! Car showed anywhere from 101-106 while we were there. There are buffalo all over the place here, they didn’t seem to be enjoying the heat much either.  It’s very scenic, kind of like the badlands in South Dakota with a river at the bottom and, again, lots of buffalo.

We did a short, half mile hike, hoping to walk in the river, but there was no access. So we just did the scenic drive loop and headed out. It was a good stop, nice to stretch our legs a bit, even though the planet Venus would probably be cooler.

We stopped in Dickinson, ND about halfway to Bismarck, and ate at Los Cabos, good Mexican food. Tomorrow we will attempt to drive home.

Waterton Lakes NP, Lost wallet. and drive to Malta, MT

After the breakfast buffet at the hotel, which was actually pretty good, we drove down to Waterton Lakes NP. 

Almost every search for Waterton Lakes has results with people raving about the Bear's Hump hike, so we had to do it.  It is short, but very steep, it does have steps which made it easier. But the air is pretty thin and it can be rough for people with asthma.  The area had a forest fire a few years ago so all the tress were burned out.  This was kind of interesting but also meant there was no shade, which made the hike that much hotter.  There is a great view at the top which made the hike more than worth it.  A lot of wind too, which felt really good since it was pretty warm on the way up.

We then ate "linner" in town at Zum's and there was a Beaver Tails right next door.  So we had to get that as well, very good linner.  Only bummer was when I went to pay at Zum's I realized I lost my wallet at some point.  After retracing my steps to the car and a thorough search of the car we came to the realization I must have lost it on the Bear's Hump hike, as I remember having it in the parking lot before we started.

So we went back to Bear's Hump and I started to hike it again, while looking for wallet, which really wasn't on my list of things I wanted to do, as I said it is a pretty steep hike and it was pretty warm out. Luckily, Deb found a young guy parked next to us who was willing to RUN the trail again, which he has just finished doing. So he caught up to me real quick on the trail and moved on ahead of me.   He talked to people just a little farther up who told him they remembered some other people saying they found a wallet and would try to get a hold of me. So he told me this and headed down ahead of me (once again running).  By the time I got back down he had remembered seeing a piece of paper on the trail sign.  It turned out to be a note for me that said the wallet was at the hotel.  The Prince of Wales Hotel is right across the street from the trail so we figured that must be the one they were referring to. So we went there and sure enough they had my wallet, thank God, and big thanks to the "running guy" and whoever found my wallet and took it to the hotel. What a big relief to get it back!

After that adventure we drove around and did a short walk to Red Rock canyon on the way out of the park.  Pretty canyon and a nice casual hike around it.  We would have liked to spend more time exploring the park, but the wallet fiasco really ate up a lot of time and we still had a long drive ahead of us.  We then drove 320 miles, mostly on what may be the straightest road for that long of a distance I've ever been on, Rte 2.  Our destination was the bustling metropolis (pop 1876) of Malta, MT. Due to the wallet delay and a slight re-route to find a border crossing that was still open, we didn't get in until 1 AM. The Country Inn was the motel, and it was very dark and the entire situation had an American Horror Story vibe to it as I left Deb in the car and went into the empty lobby. My only companions in the lobby were some taxidermy animals.  Had to call the guy to come down from his apartment upstairs and give me a key. This was definitely not a Marriott property. We survived and really the guy was very pleasant and helpful in the end.  He even got the breakfast foods (cereal and toast) back out for us when we finally got up the next day.

Just another day on vacation for us.

Norquay Lift, Kootenay, drive to Calgary

We started our Saturday and last day in Banff by finally getting on the Norquay lift and had breakfast at the top. The restaurant up there did not offer much choice for breakfast.  I guess this is understandable given how they have to get supplies there.  But the few choices they did have were odd, nothing very traditional.  It would have been nice to be able to just get some scrambled eggs and bacon, for example.  I don't know why some places feel they have to offer exotic, or off beat, food when the whole attraction is something other than the restaurant itself.  Great views though, it was very peaceful, quiet with the morning mountain breezes. 

We then drove around Lake Minnewanka area, which was kind of the opposite, really crowded. We just drove around because parking was virtually impossible.  The whole park seems to be much more crowded than during week.   It looked nice, but honestly the experience was kind of ruined by the congestion.  

We did find parking by Johnston Canyon, where we hiked to the lower falls.  This was also crowded though, and parts of the hike are single file so it was tight.  Also a big attraction is to walk into a little hole under the falls. People were stacked up waiting on this, so we just did a selfie with the falls in the background.  We've been under Niagara Falls so we get what the experience is like. 

After that we left Banff and drove down to Kootenay Park, we did a short hike around Marble Canyon.   Nice pretty canyon, not a bad hike.  We will have to come back and explore Kootenay more some time/  We then drove to Calgary, we ate at "The Place"-a small local Italian place.  Very old school where the workers seemed to know most of the customers, food was pretty good.  We also had the honeymoon suite at the Four Points we stayed at.  That was kind of nice.

Non-hiking day in Banff

Today we slept in.  We grabbed breakfast at Summit Cafe in Canmore. Nice little cafe, very relaxed and good food.  We did a horseback ride around the Spray River/ Bow Falls area.  My horse was named “Mountain”, they definitely matched each horse with the size of the person.  Feeling a bit insulted, but whatever.  Deb's horse was named "Misty" or something girly like that. It was a nice ride around the wilderness (and a golf course).  Fun fact, did you know that after riding a horse for an hour or more, your leg might fall asleep?  I discovered this as I was descending the mountain(aka dismounting).  So for us tourists, they out a little step on the left side of the horse.  You first put your left foot on this and the swing the right leg over.  When I did this I discovered I had no control over the dead weight that was my leg.  Nearly knocked the 120 pound girl who was spotting me right on her ass.  I might have flattened her if I didn’t have ahold of the saddle with my hand.   So a nice peaceful ride through the wilderness ended with a bit of an adventure.

So anyway, we decided to drive around for a bit, nothing really planned the rest of the day.  We decided to do the Mt Norquay chair lift, on the way up we saw several bighorn sheep on the side of the road. Unfortunately, when we got up there they told us a storm was rolling in so the lift would be closed for a few hours.  So we did the Vermilion Lakes drive, which was a bit different than other areas of Banff.  It was actually a flat drive and there were very few people around the lakes, I think we saw at most 10 people.  We did try to find the source of the thermal spring that feeds the lakes (and keeps a large part of them from freezing all winter).  But that turned out to be just some smelly water in basically a roadside ditch.  But it is a nice area and as I said,  very quiet and secluded.  

We headed back up to the Mt Norquay chair lift, but now we were too late as it was closed for the day. We did see a bear on the mountainside there. This would turn out to be the only bear we saw on the trip and it was about a half mile away.  We saw 2 more sheep on way down, so that was kind of cool.  We once again did not have a reservation and free-lanced a restaurant for dinner.  We ended up eating at the bar of Park Distillery right in the middle of Banff. We both had steaks, they were pretty good, as were the drinks.  Also, we appreciated the efforts of them to get a chair with a back for Deb as the barstool was not good for her.  I think they actually brought one up for storage in the basement.

All in all, it was a good relaxing day, except for my stumble down the mountain.

Banff-Lake Louise and Moraine Lake

So this probably wasn’t my best planning.  We had to get up for a 9:00 shuttle to Lake Louise.  Which doesn’t sound bad.  And really didn’t expect it to be a problem.  But since we got in after 11 and had to unpack the car and get settled it was after midnight before we went to bed.  After the long day, the next morning came really early.  But we got up and drove to the Park and Ride in Banff for the shuttle to Lake Louise.  What was really disappointing was we made the shuttle on time, and then sat on the bus in the lot for 20 minutes while they waited for people.  WTF?

Anyway, we made it to Lake Louise, which is the most famous attraction around Banff.  It is really beautiful, but like a lot of national parks, was VERY crowded.  Had to work our way through the Instagram crowd to get a decent picture of the lake, which again, is really nice.  We decide to hike around to the back of the lake and then we saw a sign for a hike up to the tea house. For the record, this hike was not my idea.  I even pointed out it was 1,400 feet up and 3.4 km long. Uphill all way, this hike is pretty tough on the feet and body. Waited in 2 really slow lines, Deb for the bathroom and me to order some food.  The snack at the tea house was good though. 

We then walked back down (hard on the toes) and boarded the shuttle to Moraine Lake.  Moraine Lake is also very beautiful. This was probably partially because of how tired we were to start the day and also because of the hike to the tea house, but we were too tired to hike anymore. So we relaxed on the patio, did some people watching and shared a sausage roll. 

We then took the shuttle back to Banff for dinner, ate at Tooloulos. We got kinda lucky as it started to rain just as we found the restaurant.  About a minute after we sat down at the table in the front window, it started pouring really hard.  So we were dry and had the fun of watching other people scramble around in the rain.   Food just OK, Deb had cajun shrimp, I had scallops. The most memorable part of the meal was we discovered that a Thai chili pepper is REALLY hot.  It was on her plate, apparently just as a decoration, and we both took a bite, which we will never do again!  

After dinner we walked around Banff a bit, it’s a nice tourist town with a lot of the standard gift shops and lots of restaurants.  We saw a sign for beaver tails, which I had heard we had to get.  These things are freshly fried dough with sweet toppings.  Since we were on vacation we got ours with ice cream on them. Very, very good.  Perfect way to end the day before heading home for some much needed rest.

Icefields Parkway

We started the day at Mount Edith Cavell, where we were able to walk about a mile up to a pond formed by the runoff from the glacier.  It's a mostly paved walk with a hike through a bunch of broken rocks down to the pond.  Not too bad, but it is all sloped.  It was pretty cool to see the water running down into the pond and got a good view of the glacier itself.

We then headed out for the Icefields Parkway which takes us down to Banff.  This is also where we, OK, I, made a logistical error.  Rather than getting gas before we headed out to Mount Edith Cavell I decided to get it afterward.  Unfortunately I didn't look at the map closely enough and though the gas station at the edge of town was right by the start of the Iceway.  It was actually back several miles.  So, our start in the parkway was delayed about an hour.

 

Our first stop was Athabasca Falls.  Not the biggest falls, but the water was really raging through this area.  The coolest part is you walk right over the top and can get really close to the water and the falls. We then moved a little way down the parkway to Sunwapta Falls.  These are bigger than the Athabasca falls and very scenic.  We walked around a bit to get some different views of the falls and the river that feeds them and got back on the road.

 On the way to the Columbia Icefield we stopped at Tangle Falls.  These are right at the side of the road and aren't huge falls, but they are big enough and are really cool as the water cascades down several steps of limestone rock.  We could have walked up to the top but just went up a little bit, we got the idea and it looked really neat from where we were.

We then got to Athabasca Glacier, Deb remembers coming to this same glacier as a kid.  It was really poignant to see how far the glacier has receded since then.  They have signs there that show where the glacier was in different years in the past.  I don't know the actual distances, but it has receded ALOT.  Interesting to see the scraped landscape it leaves behind as it recedes. We walked as far as we could, but didn't take the little tour to the glacier itself, maybe next time.

Here is where we wished we had more time, as it would have been nice to stop in at the Icefields center, but we wanted to keep moving.  This proved to be a good decision though, as we ended up getting stuck in construction where they had a temporary stop light due to the road being one lane for both ways over a bridge.  This added a good 20 minutes to our drive.

Pretty hungry by this point and so we stopped at the Rocky Mountain cafe, as it was the last food until Banff, and we knew that would be hours away.  This gets back to wishing we could have stopped at the Icefields center, as they have food there, and while I'm sure it is overpriced there's no way it was as bad as this place.  Talk about gouging people for bad food, we paid exorbitant prices for not great food.  The only plus is it did fill us up and we didn't get sick from it.

We then drove on to Peyto Lake.  We were lucky enough to see this right around sunset-awesome view.  Might be the most incredible view I've ever seen.  Bonus- very easy and short walk to the view point.  After spending some time just soaking it in, we got back on the road.

We were anxious to get into our Vrbo as we were running out of daylight, but as we drove by bow Lake we had to stop.  Another stunning view that we had to get some pictures of.  We didn't hike at ll, just took the pics from the roadside.  Beautiful.

We got to Vrbo after 11 and it was DARK around there, had some trouble finding the right code to get into the underground parking but we did eventually get in.

A very long, great day, with stunning views everywhere.  We will definitely have to come back and do a more leisurely trip on the parkway.  Put this on the list for when we're retired and can spend as many days as we like doing things.

Maligne Lake and Canyon

Started the day with breakfast at the hotel and then we headed out to hike Maligne Canyon.  We also had tickets on a cruise out to Spirit Island in Maligne Lake.  AllTrails describes this as an in and out hike from bridge 5 to the top that takes an average of 1 hour 15 minutes.  So we should have had plenty of time to get to out 2:45 cruise, even with about a 45 minute drive, since we were starting around 12.  However, that turns out to be the average to go ONE way, not both as it seemed.  We realized this on the way up and turned around at bridge 2.  I spent a good part of this hike on hold with Pursuit who was running the cruise, and no one ever picked up the phone.  I was on hold for 30 minutes.  So basically I was trying to enjoy the hike, which was really nice, while feeling let down by both AllTrails and Pursuit.  Was doing my best to not get aggravated.

We ended up rushing to the lake only to miss our cruise.  We were a bit delayed on the way because there was a big elk on the side of the road,  One of the better reasons to miss a boat, I think.  Determined to not let it get to us, we just booked a spot on the 4:15 cruise and got something to eat in the cafeteria.  As it turns out it was no big deal, the later cruise was pretty nice and according to the guide and captain the views were better as some of the wildfire smoke had cleared.  It's a casual cruise, guide had some good info and it was interesting to see spirit island.  You can't actually go on the island as it is sacred to the local tribes.

After the cruise we headed back to Maligne Canyon, driving to the top and walking the part of the hike we didn't complete earlier  Glad we did, as the most spectacular falls are there above bridge 2 and bridge 1.

We then stopped at Medicine Lake for another spectacular view and walked down to the water.  A bonus was seeing a Hoary Marmot right there by the parking lot.  Let me walk within about 15 feet for a pic.  Dude just didn't care.  Of course this is the point where my camera really was broken from when I dropped it on the Maligne Canyon hike.  So, no Marmot picture here.

We then headed into Jasper for dinner.  We ate on the balcony at Earl's Kitchen.  Nice meal with fantastic view of the mountains, crazy how late the sun is out here.  All in all, a great day, despite the time crunch at the start.

First day in Jasper

It was pretty rainy most of the day. We spent some time walking around the West Edmonton mall, which is kind of like the Mall of America, with a skating rink, water park and other fun stuff.  But it turns out it's still a mall, and mall-itis set in fairly quickly for me.  Got to the Overlander Lodge and moved everything into our room.  The rain let up as we moved our stuff into our room so we decided to go check out the park a little bit.  The Overlander is about 5 minutes outside of Jasper National Park and we were able to quickly drive to Patricia Lake and on to Pyramid Lake which is right next-door. We did a little walk around Pyramid island and looked at Pyramid mountain and the other mountains that circle the lakes. 

We then went to dinner at the Whistlestop pub in town. We just got some nachos and a burger and the food wasn't great but it filled us up.   We then looked around in a couple of gift shops.  As we left town, we noticed a herd of elk grazing right by the road, so we stopped and took a couple pictures. We also stopped further down the road, because there was a really cool view of the mountains and the river in the sunset. We also spotted an interesting contrast in the color of the water right in the middle of the river.  I guess this results from the water coming down from the glacier and mixing in with the current.  Further down the road, I think I saw a bear run across in front of the car ahead of us. But to be honest, I'm not really sure. It was a quick black shape running across the road and disappearing in the woods. So that's our first possible bear sighting.

Edmonton and Elk Island National Park

On the way to Edmonton we stopped at Elk Island National Park. This is a nice little park with elk and Bison herds. We did a nice bike ride around one of the loop trails. The beavers have been very busy here, lots of dams and chewed trees.  Didn't see much wildlife but it was a nice ride anyway. We did see one bison while driving out of the park, but that was it. 

We then went to dinner at an Indian place, called Zaika. The food was pretty good and service was excellent. Not much else to say, an easy day, and tomorrow we get to Jasper.