Updates for July 8th thru the 10th
Sunday July 8 we left our campsite at St Mary’s lake around 8:50 am and crossed the border into Canada at 9:15. They asked us some questions and asked to see our passports and we were on our way. Our road passed thru lots of Canola fields very similar to Montana. We got into Calgary around noon and made a stop at a Wal-Mart for some goods. Left the MH parked and walked over to a Wendy’s for lunch. Traffic was very busy around this shopping area.
We were too late to get tickets for the rodeo so after gassing up at Petro Canada we headed northwest out to Canada Hwy 1 and on to the Banff Park area. Found a pretty spot at Two Jack lake area to camp, but we weren’t on the lake. Drove over that way to see Two Jacks lake and we ate supper there. We also watched a wedding party getting some pictures taken. Then we drove around a loop to see Lake Minnewanka. Dale got out and walked a trail partway around one end (actually just a corner as this is the largest lake in the park). There were a few people in the water, but mostly just on the shore. This is the only lake in the park where motor boats are allowed and they have boat tours you can take. It was very pretty and very busy even though it was evening when we were there. Between the two lakes there were two mountain goats and a baby along the side of the road. We had excellent cell and data card coverage in this area.

Monday July 9th we already had camp reservations for Tunnel Mountain Village II so we drove up to Lake Louise to walk some trails. We had been in this area in 1979, but boy has it changed. They have added to the motel and added to visitors parking (but not enough). We were early enough to get a good parking spot, but lots and lots of people everywhere and before lunch people were circling the parking lot looking for a spot. We walked a shoreline trail back along the lake. Pretty level trail so easy for me. I waited at the end of that trail while Dale went on for a bit. He came back and we headed back to the parking lot and some lunch. After a short nap Dale went ahead and hiked a short, but steep trail, to an overlook of the lake and area. He had to fight thru the gnats to get there and the mosquitoes at the viewsite were really bad!! He started to get a drink out of the backpack, but decided to wait until a ways down the trail. The water was not as clear and blue as we remembered it, but more milky turquoise. It is cold. Too cold for swimming, but great to cool your feet off after a hike. They have steps along the shoreline that work great for this. Lake Louise is a beautiful area and well worth your time, if you ever get up to the Banff area.

The Banff and Lake Louise areas are very busy. Lots of tour buses and tour vans, something we don’t remember from 1979.

After leaving Lake Louise we drove over to Johnson Canyon. On the way there was a beautiful Elk with a great set of antlers along the road. We did get a nice picture of him as we went by. At Johnson Canyon we started out on a trail up to the falls, lower and upper. The trail has spots where they hang a bridge walk off the side of the canyon over the rushing water. We’ve been on another trail like that in Western NM. It makes the hike very interesting. I was tired and didn’t feel well so didn’t quite make it to either one of the falls. Dale went on to both the upper and lower falls and there were several smaller falls along the way. At the upper falls almost the whole river drops into this one crack that does not look more than a couple of feet wide and then comes rushing out the side of the mountain in a big water fall. Very impressive. At one of the smaller waterfalls there was a whirlpool with a big log in it. Dale watched it for sometime and the log would go back under the falls and come up headed down stream, but one end would be in the whirlpool and it would pull the whole back and around and around it would go. Dale had seen it on the way up and it was still in the whirlpool when he came back down. I met Dale back at the camper and we headed for camp at Tunnel Mountain outside of the village of Banff. This campground was set up a bit different. Just wide avenues with hookups every once in a while. All you had to do was pull into a spot like parallel parking with no backing up. Shower house and bathrooms were nice, but in separate buildings and only one shower house for a campground of well over 100 sites. Weird setup!
Tuesday July 10th we left Banff Natl. Park and headed up to Jasper Natl. Pk.. The Icefields Parkway took us past many small glaciers and ice fields. Our goal was to make Honeymoon Lake campground for the evening, as we had been there on our last trip. We have a picture of Dale standing on a rock in the lake with the mountains in the background. Many years ago Dale’s sister and brother in law had this picture painted by an artist local to Cozad. It still hangs in our living room. I wanted to see if we could find that spot again. I think we did, but forgot to bring the picture along so I just took lots of pictures at different angles to compare. Dale did find a rock to climb onto to help me, but there were two rocks that might be the right one!! He had to wade in the water to get to one of them, which he didn’t do in 79, but the water level could have changed.

OK, on to the today’s drive. Lots of beautiful mountain scenery here with snow topped peaks and glaciers. These parks have to be one of the prettiest drives we have taken in our many journeys. We stopped at several smaller glacier areas but the biggest was at Columbia Glacier. This area has been really commercialized since we were there in 1979 and a lot of people including many tour buses. You can take buses or hike up to one of the glacier here. Last time we hiked up to one end of a glacier and walked on the ice. I do remember that. We did not do that this time, but elected to continue on to see if we could get our spot at the campground. We got here about 3:30 pm, found our spot and registered. It was self register so we put our money in the envelope and put our ticket stub on our post at our site and left to head up to Athabasca Falls. That is another very pretty place and very popular. We saw a couple of deer with nice antlers on the way. After seeing the falls we headed back to our site and someone had taken it. He claimed that there was no stub on the post. What do you do, but find another site. The one we have is not as good, but OK. We simply re registered, but instead of more money wrote on the envelope what had occurred.