We left Banff on morning of 5/28 to go to Lake Louise. On the way, we stopped at Johnston Canyon. Pictures cannot depict the sequence of falls that we observed. This is a must stop on any itenerary to Banff National Park.
After our unexpected paddle in the morning, we had a snack for lunch at Johnson Lake rather that the feast we had planned back at our camper. We hiked around Johnson Lake. It was an interesting habitat. We got some great pictures of a squirrel, a couple of trout in a stream and a deer.
We were pretty much exhausted. Fred took an hour nap when we got back to the camper about 3 pm.
After a wake up call, we went to the Upper Banff Hot Springs to relax. Then, we visited the Bow River Falls area – very nice when out of wind.
Banff is a great visit. The village is quaint and upscale much like Edgertown or Aspen. Looks like shoppers would love it. We came during a shoulder season between Skiers and Summer tourists. There were people around but it wasn’t crowded. Mostly for tents, the camping at Two Jacks Lake Campground looked wonderfull. We really liked the Tunnel Mountain campground for campering.
Milly has defined camping for tents, RVing for motor homes and trailers and campering for in between rigs like ours.
Tommorrow morning we will go to Lake Louise.
We were just notified by Alaskan Ferry officials that our departure from Prince Rupert has been delayed from June 2nd to June 4th. They also adjusted our inside passage itinerary to reduce our stays in Ketchikan and Wrangell by a day each. I changed our camping reservations accordingly. They asked if change was ok with us? We understand that these ferry schedules are subject to change and do change quite a bit. Yet, we didn’t expect shifts of days like this. Fortunately, this does impact picking up our daughter, Kim, at Ketchikan airport on June 5th. She is joining us for 3 weeks.
Fred’s plan for the morning called for us to paddle Johnson Lake, drive to Two Jacks Lake and the paddle up to Lake Minnewanka and then hike a trail before going back to camp for lunch. We took a scenic drive up to planned paddling areas. We decided to take the “short” paddle from Two Jakes Lake to Minnewanka. The wind was blowing fiercely toward Minnewanka. As Fred got upstream, he discovered a dam blocking our passage. Now he knows what is like to be a frustrated salmon.
We decided to return back via other side of Two Jacks Lake to keep out of wind. As we got down the lake, we decided to continue to the end of the lake. There we found a wide stream. We went down the stream. This trip down the steam was fantastic.
We failed to load water or food for this short paddle which turned out to be over 2 and a half hours.
We decided to hike around Johnson Lake when we got back from paddle.
It took about 2 hours to drive from Calgary to Banff. We are staying at the Mountain Tunnel Campground. After we set up our camper, we had lunch and went to the Banff Information Center. We discussed various possible kayaking and hiking locations as well as other activities at Banff/Lake Louise/Jasper with the park rangers. We found out that Lake Louise was still frozen as were the lakes north of there.
We decided to stay in Banff an extra day and limit our stay in Jasper to one night. Since the weather looked a bit threatening, we decided to take in the museums that were suggested by walking the village. The most intersting by far was the “Cave and Basin Historical Site”. This was the place where the sulfer hot springs were found that caused the creation of the first Canadian National Park here.
The pictures we are posting below show the views from the campsite that we were assigned. This was an unbeleiveably beautiful location from all sides. We are also showing views of the inside accomodations of our camper. Its small but sufficient for our needs. We feel blessed to be on this trip!
The weather did turn stormy by the time we got back to camp. We waited about 45 minutes and it was sunny. After we had dinner, the wind and rain came. We were told the weather was suppose to be good tomorrow. We’ll see.
It was wonderful visiting this park before the tourist season. We could stop anywhere without worrying about blocking others. We met people at major stopping points but rarely saw anyone on the roads. We were the only boats on the lakes.
On our first full day here, we spent morning traveling to Many Glaciers area and kayaking Swift Current Lake. In the afternoon, we went across the border to the Canadian side of the park to Waterton Lakes area. We paddled Upper Waterton Lake and took a scenic drive to Cameron Lake.
MANY GLACIER AREA – Hike to Falls and Kayak canyon lake
Waterton Lakes Area – paddle lake and scenic drive
At the end of the day, we decided to limit future Kayak Trips to one per day, if possible.
The kayak has added to our enjoyment immensely. We went to roads end in canyons and slipped into the kayak and went where you couldn’t easily get to by foot. We passed one mountain peak after another in the water. We got close to moose, ducks and saw Big Horn Sheep high in the cliffs over looking the water.
The glacial water was very, very cold. It probably will be no colder in Alaska. It didn’t bother us once we were in the kayak.
On the last full day here in Glacier, we drove to Two Medicine Lakes area. We planned to kayak down Two Medicine Lake (length of 2-3 miles) and hike about a mile to Twin Falls. We had to break thru ice that covered parts of the middle of the lake. That was a fun, When we got to the trail head, we had difficulty finding the trail and realized that there was snow up to our knees the whole way. We turned back. A storm arrived just as we got back.
On Monday 5/26, we spent the morning putting a new electrical connection on the car for the trailer. We are so greatful to the work campers at Glacier KOA who spent their time off helping us through our hitch issues. They were like angels sent from heaven to help us in our distress.
We drove to Calagry after lunch. We are staying at a Walmart for the night before proceeding on to Banff and Jasper.
We left Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota and drove across Montana to Great Falls where we stayed at the Walmart – once again filling their coffers with food and misc. purchases. In the morning, we proceeded north to Glacier arriving about 1 PM. KOA Campground hosts generously installed our new hitched that arrived via UPS. They also worked on electrical problem for us. Great people!
Journey across Montana provided varying scenes as shown in pictures.
We took an afternoon ride up the fameous Going-to-the-Sun-Road. We stopped to take a couple of hikes. One was to the St. Mary’s Falls. The pictures do not do this justice.
On our way back to campground, we stopped for a paddle of St Mary’s Lake. This lake can be quite windy and difficult to paddle. The early evening was perfect with glassy surface to guide across the lake.
We will be spending next two days in other parts of the park.
