Our Great North AmericanTrip: The Canadian Rockies - part 1; June 21 – 25

Leaving Montana, USA and entering British Columbia, Canada (at Roosville, on the north-west side of Glacier NP)

Our first hike in the Canadian Rockies: Johnston Canyon (all signs are in two languages in Canada: English and French). This is north of Banff - the well-known resort town in the Can. Rockies. This canyone has two beautiful waterfalls.

On our way to the lower Falls; to get there they constructed a “cat walk.”

The Lower Falls and…..

…. the Upper Falls.

Us at the top of the Upper Falls

After a few more kilometers of hiking up the mountain, you get to so-called Inkpots. These are ponds with water of various shades of blue caused by sediments in cold water that bubbles up from the bottom.

One of these Inkpots

My attempt to take a photo of water bubbling up from the bottom

Banff: the Bow Falls (in – you guessed it - the Bow River)

Lake Louise another well-known area in the Can. Rockies, some 60km north of Banff. We tried biking for a change (and that in rainy weather); plus, we had to climb in low gear for 4km to reach the lake…..

But we are not faint-hearted and biked another 13km and climbed another 350 meters to Moraine Lake. As the name implies, it was created by rocks deposited by a glacier, eons ago. This created a dam in the river and thus the lake. Above you see that natural dam.

In front of Moraine Lake at about 1850m above sea level. The mountain view in the background was used on the Canadian $20 bill.

Looking back for another beautiful vista of the mountains around Moraine Lake; we were now descending, easy but cold, especially our hands

Lake Louise again, the following day; this time at the start of our hike to the Victoria glacier, seen in the distance in an area called Plain of Six Glaciers. The lake is at about 1700m; the viewpoint close to the glacier is at 2200m. The distance one-way is about 6.5km. So it’s a pretty good climb.

On the way, we saw rock climbers at work; this is not for us…..

It’s June 24, summer is 3 days old, but there is still snow on the trail at 1900m.

The great reward for making it to the glacier viewpoint: a tea house at 2100m that serves delicious chocolate cake. Very civilized (it reminded us of Austria and Switzerland).

Sitting on a pile of moraine (rocks left behind by the glacier during the ice age) for a good view. The Victoria Glacier is the one at the top of the picture. You can see the ice wall from which large pieces break off and tumble down. We witnessed one and heard another. This is as close you can get to it by using the trail which ends here. We are at 2200m. Pictures of just 70 years ago show that there was a lot more snow in this area……

Looking in the opposite direction: Lake Louise in the distance; fed by the melting snow from various glaciers

Clark’s Nutcracker is the name of this bird. (Named for Clark, of the Lewis and Clark discovery expedition of the early 1800s, mentioned in one of my previous blogs.)

Crossing another snow field on our way down

And more rock climbing; always fun to watch.

Total hiking time, including our break of chocolote cake: 6 hours….

June 25, still around Lake Louise: Mirror Lake, on our way to the second teahouse

The weather could have been better….

After climbing almost 500m to the tea house at 2150m, our reward: soup and sandwich

Lake Agnes (next to the tea house)

Our final hike in the Lake Louise area: climbing over the moraine dam by Moraine Lake on our way to Consolation Lake (we don’t make up these names)

Consolation Lake reached in less than one hour as there was little climbing involved

A visitor looking for hand-outs: Golden-mantled Ground Squirrel (it looks like a chipmunk but it’s larger and has stripes only on its sides, not on his back….

Buffalo Bill, WY; Montana: Glacier Nat. Park – June 15 - 19

 

Hi everyone:

My previous blog dealt with our stay in Wyoming.  Before we left that State, we visited the Buffalo Bill museum in Cody.   See below.  The museum is organized by the Smithsonian of Washington, DC and is a very attractive and interesting museum.  It’s not just about BB, the scout and military man and later showman of the second half of the 19th and early years of the 20th century, but also about the struggles between European settlers and native americans at the time.   Really worth a trip to Cody. (The town is named for BB whose real name was William Cody.)

 

Betsie in the saddle in the BB museum

 

For a brief moment, we thought we were back in Europe; however, it turned out we were still in Montana.  After all, Amsterdam and Belgrade could never be off the same freeway exit……

We stopped in Bozeman, Montana, a somewhat ominous name for a Dutchman (“boze man” is “angry man”); however, the town was just like any other Western town.  Two problems with the camper were resolved: a new house battery was installed (that took one hour) and the refrigerator was repaired (it was not working properly when running on propane; on 12V and 110V, no problem).  That took nearly two hours.  We were happy, however, to have found an RV repair place that could take care of us the same day.   In the late afternoon, we continued on our route north; camped outside Helena, the State capital.

 

The next day we spent in Great Falls, Montana; mostly to have more maintenance done on the camper (propane tank filled, oil change, tire rotation).   Great Falls, is well-known for the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-1806, commissioned by President Jefferson (who was the second or third President after George Washington; sorry, I never went to high school in the US).  We visited the museum that’s dedicated to this endeavor.  L & C were charged with finding a way overland to the Pacific which had not yet been discovered.  Using the Missouri river for the first part of their expedition, they came to obstacles that nearly ended their attempt:  5 waterfalls at what is now the city of Great Falls, Montana.  They portaged (dragged)  their boats and supplies over land for 18 miles for which they had to construct carts.   A display in the museum (below) shows what this looked like.

It took them 18 months to reach the Columbia River in Washington State on the Pacific, traveling much of the time through Indian land.   Without help of the natives who supplied food and horses, they would not have made it.   (I am elaborating on this for the benefit of my non-US friends as for Americans the Lewis and Clark discovery expedition is a well-known part of national history and folklore.)

 

In the early evening, we reached Glacier NP.  It’s on the border with Canada and as the name implies, is famous for its glaciers.

 

There are a number of campgrounds.  We opted for one on the north-east side:  Many Glacier (this is the correct spelling).   Above shows you the view of the drive into the Park.  The road in had stretches with deep potholes.  We hit one really hard. After we parked the camper, we discovered that we were missing two hub caps (wieldoppen for the Dutch).   While dusk was setting in, we backtracked about 10 miles to the area with potholes and found one of our hub caps (and several others that belonged to other cars….).  Ours was pretty beat-up as cars  had driven over it.   Well, now we are minus two hub caps, if that’s the worst that happens, we shouldn’t complain…

 

A very fortunate surprise also happened on that bad road: our first grizzly!   Photo credit goes to Betsie with her 200mm lens (or 300mm digitally, Betsie says) and after some cropping on our laptop.

 

We took a long hike today (6/17), following the shores of several lakes.  (A sign was posted not to hike to a glacier higher up the mountain because of snow on the trail, otherwise we would have done that.)

The trail towards Grinnell Lake

Grinnell Lake, which we reached after 2 hours.

“Hidden Falls” only visible if you take a 500m detour from the main trail.  Below two more pictures taken along the Grinnell Lake trail

 

 

 

“Many Glacier hotel,” where we had a coffee and….

 

while enjoying our coffee two female bighorn sheep strolled by….

On our hike to RedRock Falls, the following day, we met a real photographer: he used a large format camera with bellows and black and white film on a glass plate. Looking thru the view finder (under a curtain, a real throw-back to pre-WWII photography) you see the image upside down…..

 

Redrock Falls, one of many beautiful waterfalls in Glacier

 

Zoomed in 6x, you can see a few bighorn sheep on an alpine meadow at about 2,000m above sea level

 

 

St. Mary Falls

 

Virginia Falls; both falls are near the “Rising Sun” campground where we spent the night

 

St Mary Lake with Goose Island

 

View of Saint Mary Lake from Sun Point

 

As we were leaving Glacier’s east side, some cars had stopped on the side of the road;  Betsie jumped out of the camper just in time to get this shot of a grizzly wading in the lake..

 

We passed this point:  “Goat Lick” on the south side of Glacier.  From a viewpoint across the river, you can see mountain goats (which are white and larger than normal goats; they are famous for being able to climb near vertical rocks). These goats normally stay at higher altitudes and you are lucky to see them through binoculars.  Here they come down to lick the rocks for minerals they need, which apparently they can’t find farther up the mountain.

More pictures below; if you look closely you see some goats inside the gash which has been worn into the rock face because of hundreds of years of licking by mountain goats