Sharp's Travels

It was pouring this morning. We took our time getting around in hopes the rain would stop so Gay wouldn’t get wet closing up. We had to be out by 11am.

The rain let up about 10:30am and we finished packing things up. Luckily things went pretty fast and we were on our way. We only had 75 miles to go today. We will be staying in St. Mary, Mt. for a couple of days waiting for our mail to come in.

As we got closer to Montana the U.S. Rockies could be seen off in a distance. The terrain started to get hilly. We see lots of horse and cattle ranches.

We pulled into Johnson’s of St. Mary’s RV campground about 1pm. We are parked up on a hill and the wind has begun to pick up. The camp office said they expect 60 mph winds tomorrow. Hope we don’t blow away!

Gay headed downtown to the internet hot spot at 6:45am. He wanted to upload yesterday’s blog & pictures. I planned biscuits & gravy for his breakfast, so I made a batch of biscuits before I hopped into the shower. By the time he got back, breakfast was ready. He said he spotted a big buck in the campground on his way out. He can put that on my wild animal card!

He showered and we began packing things up. We pulled out of our campground at 9:30am.

Within 45 minutes we had left the Canadian Rocky Mountains behind. As far as we are concerned, they are much more breathtaking than the U.S. Rockies.

Our scenery has leveled out into plains and hills.

We took the bypass around Calgary and picked up Hwy 2 south. We stopped for the day about 2:30pm in Fort Macleod.

For pictures of the day see Album: Banff to Fort Macleod 8-25-08

Our day started early. Gay was up at 4am. I was awake and got up about 4:30am. At 5am we went in town to the internet hot spot to upload pictures for the last 2 days blogs. We sat outside the café in the truck. We plugged the computer into the inverter in the truck. It took about 1 hour to update everything.

We headed back to the 5th wheel, had a cup of coffee and a nap!

At 10am we were ready to take Rt. 1A back to Lake Louise. We wanted to check out some of the attractions we missed on our way to Banff. The parking lot for Johnston Canyon was full yesterday. The cars were even parked out on the highway.

We arrived at Johnston Canyon around 10:30am. We were lucky enough to get a parking spot in the lot. There were tons of cars parked out on the highway again today.

It was a ½ hour walk into the lower falls. It was a paved trail with catwalks that clung to the sides of the canyon walls. The water was so clear and that pretty turquoise color. The falls are a mere 20 feet across at some points along the trails. When you got to the lower falls there was a bridge to cross and you went into a cave and out on the other side close enough to the falls to feel the spray from the water as it rushed over the rock cliff. The closeness to the pounding water was magnificent.

We headed on to the upper falls. That was another hour hike. We climbed up the paths, which winds through the pine, spruce and Douglas fir and onto more catwalks to an impressive site. The upper falls were 100 feet high. It was beautiful. It had high weeping canyon walls to one side. WOW!

The walk down went a litter easier. There wasn’t all that climbing to do. We stopped at the ice cream booth for a treat when we got back down.

We drove on up to Lake Louise. Once more, we were lucky to get a parking place pretty close to the lake. The view from the lakeshore is known the world over. Melting glacier silt creates the striking turquoise color of the lake and keeps it at a frigid temperature year-round. There was a big crowd there. Lots of them rented canoes to paddle the lake.

We decided also to check out Moraine Lake. We drove up a steep, winding road and again when we reached the lake cars were parked all along the road. We drove up into the parking lot and were lucky, for the third time today, to get a spot where someone had just pulled out.

Moraine Lake is also quite famous, in that an image of the valley of the ten peaks, surrounding the lake, appears on the back of the older versions of the Canadian $20 bill. All the peaks are white capped with the remains of the Wenkchemma Glacier. The huge mountain to the north, with the glacier on its summit, is Mount Temple, at 11,636 ft., the third highest mountain in Banff National Park.

To us, this was far prettier than Lake Louise. Seeing the mountain peaks towering over the beautiful turquoise lake was stunning. We walked around the edge of the lake, in and out through the trees. We were glad we decided to check this one out.

It was time to head home. We took Hwy 1 back to Banff. The sides of the highway were lined with tall fences. They had 2 land bridges that spanned the highway for the animals to use to cross over the road. They were covered with grass and trees. They were in the process of doing another one. They had two 15ft high X 150ft long culverts that spanned each side of the 4 lane interstate. They were pretty neat looking.

We arrived back at the 5th wheel about 5:30pm.

For pictures of the day see album: Banff 8-24-08

We were on our way by 8:15am. 8 units parked in the parking lot last night. It was only 37 degrees this morning.

The scenery is just breathtaking. The snow capped mountain peaks change around every corner

We stopped to view the Mistaya Canyon. It was a 300 meter walk down an old rock filled creek bed to the canyon. We dreaded the climb back out but it was well worth it. In the canyon the river has worn a deep twisting gorge into the limestone bedrock and tumbling boulders have created potholes and a natural arch in the canyon walls. Gay climbed out onto the rocks to get pictures of the water flowing through the deep gorges. I stayed on the observation bridge. The water was flowing very rapidly, it thundered through the holes.

We drove along Waterfowl Lake. It was so pretty and peaceful looking.

At Bow Summit lodge, we took the road west to Peyto Lake View Point. The glacial meltwater lake is a brilliant turquoise from glacial sediments. We hiked up a trail about ½ mile---straight up—I had to stop and rest every so often. The air is thinner and I have problems hiking uphill. At the top, we could see Bow Mountain (elev. (6,849 ft), Bow Glacier and the beautiful Peyto Lake below. It was a spectacular site. The downhill trip was much easier!

On up the road, we caught site of Crowfoot Glacier and Bow Lake, another beautiful turquoise lake. We pulled in beside Bow Lake for lunch. It was a nice view from our kitchen window.

We saw our first black bear in the park. We had expected to see lots of animals. He crossed the highway in front of us. He stopped on the hillside to feast on scrub trees there. There was quite a traffic jam before he disappeared into the trees.

We turned onto Hwy 1A headed towards Banff. We were hoping to see more animals but saw nothing. The road was narrow and tree lined on both sides. There were a number of pull-offs with some great views.

We pulled into Tunnel Mountain Campground about 2:30pm. We got everything set up and headed into town to find an internet hot spot to check e-mails and upload pictures and blogs.

For pictures of the day see album: Columbia Ice Fields to Banff 8-22-08

We didn’t leave our campground until 11am. We hooked all up and then Gay thought we should take the hitch extension off to avoid further strain on the bedroom slide. That took about 1 ½ hours. He got that set up and we pulled over to dump and we were on our way.

We spotted 2 doe down in the ditch by the road. They didn’t move as we went by.

We stopped at Rearguard Falls. It was a short 5 min. walk down to the falls. It was impressive. The water surged down over the rocks.

We pulled into the visitor’s center by the viewpoint of Mount Robson. (elevation 12,972), the highest peak in the Canadian Rockier. What a gorgeous view. There was a tour bus from Belgium there. The people were fascinated by our truck and 5th wheel. We showed them the truck and they asked if they could see the 5th wheel. Before we were through, I think the whole bus loan was in the 5th wheel looking around. They said in Belgium you would not be able to drive anything that big on the highway. They were shocked to hear only 2 people lived in it.

We also took in Overlander Falls. It was a downhill walk of about 15 min. to reach the viewpoint of the falls. It gushed down through the rock walls. It was very pretty. It was well worth the walk.

We were starting to see the Canadian Rocky Mountains. It was beautiful scenery. We spotted 4 elk grazing along the road. We crossed into Mountain Time just before we reached Jasper national Park, so we have lost another hour. There were lots of pull-offs to view the mountain glaciers.

We did one more falls today, the Athabasca Falls. It drops 40 ft., but it is through a short narrow canyon. The site was sure worth the stop.

We kept checking out campground sites as we went along, but they all had narrow entrance roads to get into the campground and we were afraid we wouldn’t be able to get turned around to get out.

The mountain glaciers along the way were impressive but not like the Columbia Glacier. The glaciers visible from the road are fingers of the giant Columbia Icefield, which covers 241 sq. miles.

It was getting late and we found no suitable campgrounds for our rig so we parked in the far lot of the Icefield Centre. There were already 3 other campers there with their slides out so we joined them. We had a beautiful view of a glacier out our picture windows.

For pictures of the day see album: McBride to Columbia Ice Fields 8-21-08