Canadian Rockies National Parks, What a Week

We arrived on a Sunday, and we leave on a Sunday.  What we have seen leaves us in awe…and tomorrow when we depart Banff, we have one of the most gorgeous drives there is, from Banff to Jasper.  What will it be like?  Well, it might be raining when we leave Banff…we “might” wake up to some snow, but it is too warm to stick around long…and the further north we go, the better the weather is suppose to be.  But I think we all have experienced the weather person’s “suppose to be” before.  Either way, we should make it to Hinton without problems, and we will enjoy the drive even if every mountain is shrouded in clouds.

We came to the area without any expectations.  We leave with many memories. Memories of Black Bears.  Memories of glacier waters which display the most extraordinary colors of blue and green – like turquoise and emeralds.  Memories of mountains that reach out all around, of forests full of wildlife, and some forests ravaged by fires fighting to regain their glory and life.  Memories of people from all over the world, most very polite, a few how are ignorant to those around them, most who are tourist as ourselves, in awe of that which abounds, busy taking pictures to share with those back home.

We will always have kind reflections of this place…even though something is telling us that we have many more memories that lay before us as we travel north to Alaska.  In two days this trip hits a new plateau…if all goes well, we will be at Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek.  There we will stay for a few days to savor the moment, to further plan our trip northward, and explore the town.  It has been 22 days since we left Sacramento…we have seen so much, and there is so much more that is before us.  As many others who have made this journey before us, we feel honored, we appreciate all that we have seen, we anticipate that which is ahead of us, and we have a gratitude to the almighty which neither words nor pictures can fully describe.

Tunnel Mountain – Ain’t No Tunnel Though, Banff

This is “Tunnel Mountain” from the Fairmont Banff Springs Golf Course.  Taking pictures into the sun is not easy, many times you get funny colors bouncing on your lens.  In yesterday's posting on our visit to Lake Louise and the Icefields Parkway, I said that we visited the outskirts of Banff yesterday evening, so this is the post I promised about that.

This is the view from close to where the campground is located taken a few days ago.  The Campground is Tunnel Mountain Road, and contains the Tunnel name too.  When you drive an RV and you hear “Tunnel” you always want to make sure your RV will fit inside such tunnel.  But surprise, surprise…Tunnel Mountain has no tunnel, and Tunnel Mountain Road and Tunnel Mountain Drive (yes, there are two different streets named Tunnel Mountain) have no tunnels to worry about.  WHAT?  Yes, no tunnel.  Kinda like Banff without an “i” between the n and the fs.  Kinda like…well, we will stop there.

So Tunnel Mountain got its name because the Canadian Pacific Railway survey was going to put the railroad through the mountain, creating a need for a tunnel.  But that plan was scrapped when the general manager said that the railroad was not going to be delayed for 18 months, found another route which was shorter, saving the railroad millions of dollars.  Too bad that common sense does not rule in today’s construction projects…such as the Big Dig in Boston, which is the most costly construction project in US history.

On our drive yesterday around the outskirts of Banff, we found the Bow Falls, made famous by the 1953 Marilyn Monroe film "River of No Return", which featured the falls.

I prefer the view of the river after the falls myself.  When we passed through the area, which is where the golf course just starts meeting the road, this place was packed due to a couple of bus tours.  Bus tours is a huge business in Banff, Jasper, etc.  This time of year, if you run into a crowd, and see buses parked, just wait for a bit and the crowd will be gone along with the buses.

      

It’s times like this that I wonder why I gave up golf!  Reminds me of some of the golf courses in the Colorado Rockies…always a great background to keep you cool when you put your ball into the water.

The road through and past the Golf Course turns into a one-way road and does a large loop through the trees, along the river, and full of wildlife habitat…but we did not see anything outside of geese, ducks, ground squirrel and other birds.  But it is a nice drive.

As we were driving back to the campground, we did see an Elk alongside the road.  At times there is a large herd of Elk in this area…but we have only seen this one.  Marcia saw a couple of Black Bear on our way to Lake Louise yesterday, and we both saw a couple of deer…one right in town standing on someone’s front lawn. 

The Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel is one of the premier Railroad Hotels, like the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise Hotel.  Canada has a number of Railroad Hotels, each a National and Local landmark, and they make up much of Canadian Railroad History. The Banff Hotel opened in 1888, went through a series of additions and remodels, most of it burnt down in 1926 and was reopened in 1928 with the look seen today. In 1968 it was winterized, and is now open year-round.

Banff was first settled in the 1880’s due to the railroad.  Banff got its name from George Stephen, president of the Canadian Pacific Railway, who was born in Banff, Scotland.  Banff is the only incorporated town within a Canadian National Park, having incorporated in 1990.  It averages over 70 inches or snow each year, and it can snow on any given month of a year.  It is at 5,000 ft in elevation, and has a population of over 7,500 people.  It has truly become a year-around city for tourist, and is one of the most popular tourist locations in Canada.

One landmark is the administration building in Cascade Gardens for the Banff National Park.  The gardens around the building are pretty and many weddings are held there.

 

    

There are a variety of homes in Banff, none of which are available for under 1/4 million dollars, and who knows what the upper limit is.  The last two pictures are two churches we passed, St. Paul's Presbyterian Church on the left, and Saint Mary's Catholic Parish on the right.  Banff is truly a “Tourist Town”, we have found the people friendly (including the lady at the bank who told me that the bank only exchanges dollars for its customers, but who pointed me to a money exchange down the street before I could ask).  There are a wide variety of different people visiting here, and more and more RVs arrive each day.  We were lucky, however, in that we have been able to extend our stay by one day here at the same campsite.  Seeing snow in the forecast for Jasper and especially Hinton, our next stop, for Friday and Saturday, I was happy to be able to extend our stay here by a day.  The guy at the front gate wondered how I was able to do it…he said last year that could not be done…just our luck I guess.

Note:  Pretty much took Wednesday off from sightseeing.  Did a bit of laundry, and had a few hours of recuperation after I awoke with an eye ache.  I think I might have had a hair in my eye, which might have scratched my eye…after eye drops, a warm compress, and few more hours of sleeping to rest the eye, all is fine.

Lake Louise

We said we wanted to be out the door by 7 am, well, we were in the car by 6:30.  I knew that Lake Louise is a very popular spot, and the more people there, the worse your picture opportunities are.  We had very little problems as there were only 20 people around when we arrived, about 30 as we left. 

In this reflection you can see the greenness in the water, which is increased by the reflection of the green trees.

This straight shot shows the Victoria Glacier that helps to feed the lake.  Glacial sediment is what gives the glacier lakes their different colors.

Here is the right side of the lake, and again you can see the greenish color of the lake.

The lake feeds Louise Creek, which runs down to the Bow River.  This area of the lake is very accessible with fine paved walkways, areas to sit, and numerous locations to take pictures from.

Here you can see Marcia in her scooter.  Other than temperatures of 38 degrees, she got around fine on her own, taking pictures, some of which are used above.  She does have a blanket over her legs to help keep warm.  The dogs stayed in the car.

This shows the handful of the people around the lake.  The folks on the left were taking lots and lots of pictures, each one with one or more of them in the pictures.  They did not seem to mind that others might not want them in their pictures…but I was just happy that it was one small group doing this and not a huge crowd.

I was also glad that the canoes were all locked up for future use during the day.  I have seen many pictures of Lake Louise with many of these canoes out on the water.  I am sure glad we beat the crowds, it made the morning very special.

The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise butts right up to the lake.

Look at all these rooms which look out onto the lake!  The cost is around $900 (Canadian) per night during September…not sure you could even book a room right now looking over the lake.  After we left we headed to the small town of Lake Louise to get a coffee.  As we were there, we saw no fewer than six tour buses pull in, and we saw many more headed that way when we traveled back to Banff later. 

      

The trip up to Lake Louise was full of many mountains, and the early morning sun made for some very interesting images.  Beyond Lake Louise it just seemed to get better.  We only traveled a short distance up the Icefields Parkway, perhaps 30 miles or so.  Fatigue was starting to set in on both of us, and I wanted to take the Bow Valley Parkway back from Lake Louise to Banff, which would take much longer than Canada Highway 1 took coming up to Lake Louise.  Below are some of the pictures we took north of Lake Louise.

    

    

    

    

I think one could spend years up here taking pictures…there is so much beauty everywhere you look.  How lucky we are to be able to enjoy even a few days of our lives here.   Later in the early evening we went for a drive around the outskirts of Banff, which perhaps I will post pictures of another day.

Bonners Ferry to Banff–Yep, Stopped and Seached at the Border

The Banff area is just lovely.   After the long drive, trouble at the border, and adjusting to Canadian speed limits, distances, and fluid measurements, let alone the blinding beauty of nearly the entire drive…all we did was set up camp, shower, and have dinner.   Along with getting up before 6 am to watch church, and pull out of camp at 8:30…it is now 12 hours later and we are both pretty beat.  As for the border crossing…well, they pulled us over, had both of us go into their building, had to give complete chronology of when we left Florida to when we got to the border (that did give me a chance to mention our blog which details the entire thing), remove the dogs, remove our important papers box after they looked inside of it – they then did a quick search of the motorhome and the HHR.  Oh, and I got a lesson on how to say “Banff”.  We just went with the flow of things, but I did not like the idea that Marcia had to get out, walk in, walk back out, and get back into the motorhome…seemed kind of strange to me.

   

We both agree that this part of the Rockies is much different than other parts that we have seen.  The variety of the look of the rocks, the massiveness of the mountains, and the sharp edges and points that many of the mountains have are amazing.

    

There is a silt from the glaciers which turns the lakes and rivers a turquoise blue or green.  All three of these shots are of the Kootenay River, which would go from a blue, to a turquoise, to even a green.  In one area, where we just could not stop due to narrow, steep roadway, the water was rushing so fast, and it was a pretty turquoise green…it is something neither of us have ever seen before.

There were signs up about black bears in the area, and no stopping along the road…which led to Marcia catching the rear end of the one that we saw as she begged me to stop (two other cars had stopped).  Hey, after that experience at the border, I have seen enough people in uniform today as far as I was concerned.  And something tells me that this is not the only bear we will see over the next few months.

All the pictures today were taken by Marcia, and we rarely stopped.  We are here for six nights, so I am sure there will be four or five days of getting many pictures of the beauty of this place.  When we leave on Saturday, we will head north through Jasper and plan to stay in Hinton, only 230 miles away.  I know we can’t see everything, but we will see a lot.  Stay tuned you all…we have landed in B A N I F F (yes, I know it is Banff, aka: “I don’t care how you pronounce it Mr. Border Man)   BTW:  There is a town of Banff, and there is Banff National Park. 

We are in Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court, a park run by Parks Canada outside the city of Banff.  We bought a yearly family pass already, and it is good for two years due to the celebration of the 100 year anniversary of the Canadian Park System.

The sites have water, sewer and 30 amp electric.  They are all pull through in a sense, but some are split in half for two shorter vehicles.  We have plenty of room for our car, our motorhome, and another car if someone was to visit.  It is quiet, so far, but we have been warned that it is a Canadian 3 day weekend coming up, so Friday might get a bit crazy.

New Phase Starts – Headed to Banff in the Morning

Sunday morning we will head out from Bonners Ferry, and by the afternoon we should be settling for six nights at the Banff Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court.  From there we will explore from Banff to Jasper and back, over to the Canadian’s Glacier National Park, and so on.  With her MS, Marcia can only do so much…and I am not much of a hiker anyway, so there will be many things to see from the comfort of the HHR.

I think I have everything in order for the border crossing.  I have read many blogs of RV travelers, and I have not read one blog where they said, “Crossing the border is going to fun…”   For many it is a bit stressful, for others it is just paperwork and something you just have to go through.  Last year when we took our HHR over to Victoria it was very easy.  I hope tomorrow is easy too, if not, we will just deal with it.  I doubt I will lose any sleep over it, that's for sure.

After our six days in Banff our current plans are to head to Dawson Creek, taking two days to get there.  This could change if we decided to extend at Banff, or find a place to camp in Jasper…but my guess is that six days will be enough.  Once in Dawson Creek we will probably have a couple of days to prepare for the long haul (nearly 1,600 miles) to Anchorage.  While at Dawson Creek I will schedule out that phase of the trip.

Tonight we went back to Mugsy's Tavern & Grill for another great meal.  Danielle’s daughter waited on us, and when we mentioned coming through in 2012 and part of the conversation we had with her, a light went off in her head and she did remember us.  As we were getting into our car, Danielle ran out and waved good-bye.  I told her that if we are ever in the area again, she could bet that we will be back.  I had another burger, and Marcia had a shrimp pasta with feta cheese…both were real good…especially the brownie, ice cream, fudge desert that we shared after our meal. 

Note to family and friends:  Our cell phones will not work in Canada.  The best way to get a hold of us is via email.  Don’t know how long this will be, could be as long as 20 days, but most likely it will be shorter than that.