Blogs from Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada, North America - page 2

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Day 6 Well, another night in a National Park Lodge and now we know the "business" of the folks in the room next door! Geez, just paper thin walls. oh well, still a great view and it was nice and cool and got a decent nights rest anyway. Rented kayaks for an hour and cruised the lake enjoying the spectacular scenery before getting back on the road. We stopped at a world renown place called the Cattle Barron Supper Club and had lunch. Supposedly this place was on the travel channel. Had a buffalo burger and was pretty good. Arrived at Waterton National Park in Alberta around 2 or so and got all checked in to the hotel where we found wifi and a tv with 3 channels! We are living large! Next we headed to ... read more
Loon?
Chief Mountain
Kayaking on Swiftcurrent lake


First Impressions and Townsite Campground We hadn’t heard much about Waterton Lakes Park in Alberta, Canada, other than it was smaller and less impressive than Banff or Jasper to the north or its International Peace Park partner, Glacier in the US, to the south. We reserved two days in the townsite campground, which is basically downtown in a very flat open communal park and initially unimpressive. However, this charming park really grew on us! The landscape is less treed so the vistas are quite broad. One of the centerpieces is the Prince of Wales hotel on a bluff overlooking Middle Waterton Lake and its setting is really spectacular. Our camp neighbors, from around the world, from Chile to Belgium, were very friendly. We met a fabulous professional Canadian wildlife photographer who advised us all on where ... read more
Bears Hump Overlooking Upper Waterton Lake
View from townsite camp space
Deer in Waterton townsite


At the start of the morning, we went by the hotel where my sister was going to be staying. Mistaken on when she was arriving, we were disappointed in finding her, but were treated to a little deer group including a young fawn. We were acutely aware that we needed to get more conditioning done if we were to successfully complete the climb to Grinnell Glacier in Glacier National Park. We also knew that we had attempted the hike to Crypt Lake twice in the past and never come close to succeeding in making it. Therefore we decided to take the hike in Waterton Lakes National Park to Bertha Lake. At 5.7 miles round trip with about 1600 feet elevation gain, somehow it sounded workable as a goal. The trail started out as a fairly gentle ... read more
Starting up trail to Bertha Lake
Lower Waterton Lake from Bertha Lake Trail
Bertha Lake 1


Looking at the map, I realized that the shortest route (not necessarily the fastest, I admit) was to leave Banff, turn due south out of Canmore, and go down a maintained gravel road along Spray Lake on the Smith Dorrien Trail. Since I was traveling with people with a high tolerance to insanity, we notified people to let the Mounties if we did not show up as planned, and headed down the road. I had never ridden on 60 km of gravel road. Although dusty, it was actually pretty tolerable in terms of maintenance. The road leaves Canmore and ascends several hundred feet, affording a wonderful view back over the town outskirts with the mountains in the background. From there, it is relatively level for the duration of its dusty length. It gives great vistas of ... read more
Smith Dorrien Trail
View from Prince of Wales Hotel room balcony
Washed out bridge


This is how we do...the philosophy of our trip. Again, any plans we made resulted in the least favourite and the stumbled upon amazed us! Having traveled a lot, this one thing consistently rings true - no plans = good plans! TRIP ROUTE: Vancouver - Mt. Robson PP - Jasper NP - Icefields Parkway - Lake Louise - Banff - Kananaskis Valley - Peter Lougheed PP - Waterton Lakes NP - Glacier NP - Whitefish - Flathead Lake SP - Yellowstone NP - Grand Teton NP - Jackson - Sandpoint - Nelson - Conkle Lake PP - Vancouver Total Km: Approx 8000km So the plan - keep it simple, stay off the grid, and no hotels only camping for a month. We could have gone another 3 months. This trip was amazing! There was a sense ... read more
drinkin gigantic PBR's in Teton
The Look - the 2 brother foxes
curious cub


Ce matin encore un réveil sous la pluie. Mais le pire était a venir. La chaine Météomédia annonçait hier au soir 180mm de pluie pour les 36h a venir, dans la région de Lethbridge, et Waterton Park ma destination du jour, la riviere Oldman pourrait montée de 2m. Évacuation des habitions en zones inondables. Voila le menu du jour. Et malheureusement pour tout le monde ils ne sont pas trompés. Essuie glaces de rigueur pour faire un tour de la ville, Médicine Hat, en voiture bien sur, pas question de descendre, d' ailleurs peu a voir, ville typique nord américaine, sauf une belle église. Direction Lethbridge 170 kms de terres agricoles, bien plates et déja bien inondées, sans beaucoup d' intérêts. Lethbridge, a voir, "The wiew scenic". go. La seule accalmie de pluie de la journée, ... read more
ca met les boules, avec tout ce qui tombe
panorama Lethbridge
a view scenic


Das ist unser letzter Tag in Canada - es ist unglaublich, wie die Zeit vergeht, besonders, weil wir ja so beschaeftigt sind. Bergsturz von 1903: Frank landslide - wobei Frank ein Ort ist, der dabei teilweise verschuettet wurde. Das Besondere an diesem Tag war Head-bashed-in Buffalo Jump: Ein Museum an einer Klippe, wo die Blackfoot Indianer Bison gejagd hatten. Oberhalb der Klippe ist gewelltes Weideland, dort waren im Herbst meist Bueffel. In Richtung auf die Stelle hin, wo die Klippe besonders steil ist, bauten sie Steinhaufen, in die sie Aeste steckten. Dazwischen stellten sich Menschen auf, wenn es dann zur Jagd kam, die Felle schwenkten. Vor der Herde lief ein junger Mann her, der das Fell eines Kalbes umgehaengt hatte, er lockte die Herde in Richtung Klippe. Hinter der Herde waren Maenner, die Fuchsfelle umgehaengt hatten ... read more


It’s still raining, it’s still pouring and the old man (that’s still Jon) is still snoring! We’re over it now. Since we’re ill-equipped, ignorant to the basic survival skills required in this wilderness and precious about getting drenched in the rain we decided today would be as good a day as any to drive further north into Canadafor a cuppa tea. This was a very sad day for the Dress. After a few heavily accented questions from the Canadian border control, we were in Alberta. Even though it was raining, we didn’t want to miss this photo opportunity. We owed it to the Dress. I reclined the passenger seat in the car as far as it would go, stripped down to my skivvies and shimmied into the dress. There was only one problem now. I was ... read more
So sexy and manly with his cucumber sandwich
Succumb to the fantasy
One more pic of that expensive cuppa


Once again taking advantage of our Spring Special deal at Bayshore Resort, we enjoyed a hearty buffet breakfast, including lots of fresh fruit and make-your-own waffles. This was an especially good deal, given that a fruit cup alone in the adjacent coffee shop cost $9! Advice for campers or any tourists coming to Waterton Lakes: you might want to stop at Pincher Creek on your way in and stock up on fresh produce, because there's not much available in Waterton. While digesting we caught up on some work and email. There's no escape! Then we caught the 10:00 boat to Goat's Haunt, the southernmost point in Upper Waterton Lake. Our purpose was to follow the route of the guided International Peace Park Hike that we'd researched online, an eight-mile all-day hike along the lake shore that ... read more
Wayne clears customs
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No sign of any wild life today, we went for a couple of walks but only caught sight of a chipmunk.... To console ourselves we had afternoon tea at the Prine of Wales hotel, lovely hotel in a beautiful spot, look at the photos and feel very envious !... read more
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