Walker Walk-About part 2

Sorry about the giant blog drought... things have been crazy around here (to put it gently). I'm back in school and still working part time, having massively time consuming car problems still and began to conquer the upstairs bathroom remodel. I'm sure each will have their own respective blog posts at one point...

So where was I... oh yea, at the Canadian border...

The Canadians are still really into they're Olympic game propaganda - this little rock guy was everywhere there was a flat surface to stack rocks.

We stopped for a lunch break on the road. Canadians really know how to make a nice rest stop! I was fine with stopping by this little lake for a quick sandwich. Until I saw the Bear fur when we got out of the car. Nothing like eating a sandwich on full alert. 

 

We continued north for a few hours and stopped JUST outside the Kootenay National Park to camp for the night in the town of Radium Springs. The campground was real nice, in a little valley off the road. Apparently, the mountain goats like to hang out on the hillside, but of course... no goats. When I checked us in the lady at the front desk gave us a real, real stern warning. NO walking on the trails, NO walking into town, make LOTS of noise, pack up the food, etc. Why?? Momma bear and her cub have been making the campsite their home! We were told if we heard a shotgun noise that it was fine, just the "bear banger" that people carry on them to scare the bears away. We set up camp and relaxed a bit. While we were getting our dinner ready we hear a very loud, very close bear banger.

After settling in we decided to go check out the hot spring right up the road, inside the park. Now the weather on the trip had not been real good up to this point, just generally cold (hence the emergency sweat pant shopping trip at the K-Mart in Libby, MT - desperate times, desperate measures). The hot springs were a very welcome part of the trip. The hot spring was naturally about hot tub temperature... a very wonderful soak. Chris practically had to drag me out of the water!

We stopped for photos of the entrance to Kootenay National Park. This was definitely a preview of the amazing sites waiting for us. (Notice it was raining, it was pretty much the only rainy night we encountered)

By the time we made it back it had stopped raining (for a minute or two, true mountain weather around these parts) and we got an amazing view from our campsite.

 Hey! Look who I found!

We were up and on the road early the next morning - next stop - Banff!

The first view point in Kootenay National Park. The mountains got real big, real fast! I only wish it was actually clear, can you imagine a nice crystal clear blue sky day around here?

We continued our drive and stopped at the Paint Pots for a quick hike. I don't remember the entire story, but there is some pretty incredible geological activity in BC/Alberta. These pools are extremely strong with iron and the Aboriginals would use the mud as paint.

The next stop on the way to Banff was Marble Canyon. I wanted to stop, but didn't have much expectations... Super steep marble walls, bright blue water. A great stop!

 Crazy rock!

In 2008 there was a real bad forest fire - the damage is still very obvious:

Unfortunately on the way back to the car, I pulled a classic Carissa. My foot slipped out from under me (how?? who knows...) and I TOTALLY biffed it. The result: A badly sprained ankle AND a tear in my jeans. The ankle will heal, the jeans, not so much.

And finally - BANFF! Banff National Park sits on the providence line between British Columbia and Alberta. Neither of us had been to Alberta, so that was kinda fun to check off the list. And! It was Continental Divide appearance #2!

Chris was in Alberta - I was in British Columbia!

Welcome to Alberta - Wild Rose Country!

We settled into our campsite - yet again in bear country. They're not really kidding about the bears. They have grizzly's and we happen to be there during berry season when the grizzly bears are particularly aggressive.

We got this friendly reminder on the way into the campground.

  We didn't have too much daylight left so we heading into the town of Banff. The town of Banff itself is very touristy. It was kinda fun to browse for awhile.

 

The Fairmont Hotel is a VERY fancy hotel (we stopped in to use the bathroom while we were out walking - a definite upgrade from the campground bathrooms). The hotel had a crochet lawn in the back!

Banff Falls

 

The entire trip we were exceptionally careful for wildlife (the highways in Alberta are actually fenced IN so wildlife can't cause collisions.) However this guy gave us a pretty good scare and ALMOST got the mirror on the passenger side of the Escape.

Here's the view from our campsite. As far as I'm concerned this view first thing in the morning isn't too bad. The mountain is called Tunnel Mountain because they were going to put a train through it to promote tourism when Banff was first founded. Because of the time/danger of blasting through that giant mountain they ended up re-routing the train before they began blasting.

Well there is still more vacation left to torture you guys with, but that should do for this update! Hopefully I'll be able to get through it this weekend, better late then never, right?

Walker Walk-About 2010

All we can say is what a trip...
 
Trip Stats:
8 days
1,505 miles (according to google)
2 countries
4 border crossings (4?!)
3 states
2 provinces
5 national parks
1 concert
5 campsites
1 hotel room


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We're a home a few days earlier then expected, (don't worry, that story will be told) but I can speak for both of us when I say the trip was spectacular. The scenery amazing, the people great and experience to remember (for better or worse). It's nice to wake up in your own bed and not worry about 1. How you are going to prevent freezing your ass off between your bed and the bathroom hut on the other side of the campground. 2. Where that giant grizzly bear is lurking that everyone is warning you about

This is probably going to be a multi blog post as we have had many "adventures" to share. (And it will probably bore you guys, but it's more for the fun of us reminiscing then anything.) - Note - I just finished typing and only made it through Montana in this sitting. It's SUPER long with lots of photos... it's just so easy to share with you guys! We won't be offended if you don't look at the entire post :)

We started the trip by packing the car up and headed out and ON THE ROAD!! Wahoo! First stop the Gorge for the annual Dave Matthews Band concert extravaganza! We met up with our friends Mike and Elaine and a bunch of their friends (flown in from New Jersey and Texas) to relax and enjoy the good music. The Saturday night concert was sold out (capacity of 25,000) and the weather was great. The beauty of the gorge is that you have nothing to do but relax and wait for the evening to come to go to the concert.

Our group campsite -

Mike made a bean bag game for us to play, nicely done!

The group taking a "funny photo" not sure how well that worked out (what's Mike doing to Chris??)

Nothing is unusual at the Gorge -

Before the bird took a bite of Chris' hat -

 Buddies -

Enjoying the sunset and waiting for the show -

There he is!!

Sunday morning we were back on the road. We headed East on I-90 bound for "however far we make it". We did take a pit stop in Spokane to meet up with Chelsea and her boyfriend Richard for a quick lunch. An added bonus to the trip! We crossed the border into Idaho and turned north.

North Idaho is BEAUTIFUL. We'll be making a trip back there for sure.

 It was just about dark when we crossed into Montana. We stopped to get a picture by the Montana sign and were greeted by one of Montana's finest residents. The state sign was right in front of this incredibly shady bar. The kind you see in the movies. We pull up and get out to take a photo and this lady comes stumbling drunk out of the bar wearing camouflage shorts and a plaid robe offering to take our photo. She asked us to come in for a drink we politely told her we were tired and headed to our campground a few miles up the road. She told us to set up camp in the bar parking lot and come in for a few cold ones. Needless to say we hit the road onward to our campsite in Troy, MT...

On our way into Glacier National Park (this one in Montana, there is one in British Columbia we passed through on the way home). We stopped at a roadside pull off and admire the river. We thought the water was so blue (we had no idea what was coming).

We made it! Glacier National Park!

We arrived early morning and set up camp - we had some company in our campsite.

In Glacier there is the Going to the Sun Highway, a super twisty very scenic road up the park from the main entrance to Logan Peak, the continental divide. The National Park Service describes the road as "not for the faint of heart". Bring it on. The day before we got to Glacier the Going to the Sun Highway was closed and the hiking trails cleared out due to severe heavy snow. We were bummed that we had come all the way to Montana just to be turned away by bad weather. BUT - the weather broke the day we were there and it was the last day for the shuttle that runs the highway. Which meant that neither of us had to drive and we could both enjoy the view. Unfortunately it wasn't sunny and there was some low cloud cover, but it was still an amazing ride. A pictures out the bus window, I swear half the bus was hanging over the edge of the road:

The glacial waterfalls were spectacular!

The continental divide (on of two times we'll see it this vacation)

Now planing the trip we envisioned a great summer vacation. I guess I ignored the fact we were going to GLACIER National Park. Glaciers need cold to survive... It was a bit chilly, but no big deal - on goes the winter hat and gloves!

Some views from the top of Logan Pass -

We didn't have much more then a few hours at the top because the weather was closing in. But we did get in a pretty good hike up towards the peaks.

On our way up!

A fuzzy marmot at the beginning of the trail:

The weather changed SO FAST during our hike that I couldn't stop taking photos!

The higher we hiked the more it snowed!

I think I had one about 4 layers here. but still smiling!

We rounded the corner and came face to face with these guys! They kept walking closer and closer to us. They don't have any real predators (beside the occasional bear) so they weren't shy at all.

The little one was the cutest - Chris said I couldn't bring him home though :(

The far lake is at the bottom of the Going to the Sun Highway -

As we continued on our hike - big horn sheep!

Snowy trail:

We hiked for a bit longer then decided because of the weather/time it was a good point to turn around. On the way back the goats were still on the trail! Chris got to take some real good pictures (I'll get them off his camera soon) using the tripod I had lugged the entire way with us.

Snow on Chris' backpack! Note the bear bells. Bears are NO JOKE in this area... We thought Glacier was bad, it wasn't until we were in Alberta that they were real serious about it...

On the way back down the weather started getting nice (term used loosely) and we got some good photos!

After the scenic bus ride back down we were more then ready to relax back at camp. The trusty teardrop was there waiting for us! Notice the cooler on the front is covered by a tarp... yea, back to that whole Bear thing...

The next day we continued to head up North to Canada. We were supposed to go zip-lining in Whitefish, but there was no zip lining on Tuesday - BIG bummer, oh well, it got us on the road a bit earlier then we planned, so that was a bonus.

A few quick pictures of Lake McDonald before we left:

After an hour or so of driving we arrived at the US/Canada crossing at Roosville (!!) Montana.

Goodbye USA!

Hello beautiful British Columbia!

We crossed the border with no problem or question. We stopped for photos on the BC side of the line and found this - at the time we didn't know just how true that sign was going to be...

So after that marathon blog post I'll call it good for now. There is PLENTY more trip to go and stories to bore you guys. Once we crossed into Canada the views were REALLY spectacular and things started to get real interesting... Stay tuned for more!