Yoho – August 12th – 13th, 2016

On Friday morning, we headed into Yoho National Park and saw Emerald Lake and Natural Bridge on our way to go white water rafting on the Kicking Horse River. The immeasurable mass of tourists at Emerald Lake was just a taste of what was to come at the rest of the famous lakes the Canadian Rockies offer. White water rafting was a blast! Being a glacier-fed river the water was very, very cold but felt very refreshing in the hot and beating sun. Being a princess in life, we thought it only appropriate that I take a turn being the princess on the boat. The princess is a person who sits in the very front of the boat and stretches beyond the bow, just like in the Titanic. Although you don’t have to paddle, you do get blasted in the face with all of the waves. Leaving the roaring river unscathed, I figured it was only appropriate that I eat shit getting out of the bus, resulting in a properly bruised arm.

Natural Bridge in Yoho.

Rafting the kicking horse. I am the princess in the front and Andy is hidden behind the guy to my right.

Photo taken right after the previous shot, I am engulfed in a wave.

The raft company, Alpine Rafting, has a piece of property along the river that they let you camp at for free. So after getting some ice cream, we set up camp and relaxed for the afternoon/evening. Handy Andy fixed an assortment of things on the van, while I watched a horrible movie (if you haven’t seen 10 Cloverfield Lane, DON’T). The intermittent windshield wipers, windshield washer fluid pump, driver’s side door handle, and air vents now work. GO ANDY!

The next day we took in more of the sights Yoho has to offer. There is the tallest waterfall in the Canadian Rockies (Takkakaw Falls), a pretty amazing freight train spiral loop cut into the mountains, and a historic walk through the old Trans-Canadian Railway “Big Hill” which existed before the spiral tunnels (this walk included seeing an abandoned train from the 1800’s that helped build the spiral tunnels), then returned to the free campground for the night.

Tukkakaw Falls in Yoho.

Kananaskis (sounds like how it’s spelled) Country – August 9th – 11th, 2016

We pulled into Interlakes Campground within Peter Lougheed Provincial Park around 1pm and got one of the last sites bordering the lake. It was an immaculately clean and well-kept campground. There were even rack marks around the fire pit from someone cleaning the dirt. Props to Canada on the cleanliness of their parks so far! Although our legs felt like jelly from Andy’s birthday hike, we rallied and did a steep, but short (2.2 miles one way) hike to Rawson Lake.

Big horn sheep in the road in Kananaskis Country.

Our campsite at Interlakes Campground.

The view from our campsite.

View along the hike to Rawson Lake.

After a good night sleep, we packed up camp and finally saw a black bear on our way towards Canmore! YAY! Once in the Canmore area, just south of Banff National Park, we got a camping spot at Spray Lakes West, which was slightly more out of town that we were originally hoping for… since on our way back into Canmore we had a self-inflicted Bernard moment: we ran out of gas! We flagged down a truck that was passing and the driver was nice enough to take Andy to the nearest gas station – about 20 minutes away in Canmore. He got a container of gas and took a taxi to the end of the paved road. The taxi driver was a bigot bully who just yelled at Andy about the fundamental problems of multicultural politics, so Andy had a good time with that. Happy to be out of the taxi driver’s van, he hitch hiked from the 1988 Olympic Nordic Center and had better luck with a friendly hiker from Calgary who brought him the rest of the way – good thing he’s highly attractive because the whole debacle only took about an hour!

After spending more time on the internet and getting laundry done, we went to Tavern 1883 to celebrate Andy’s birthday. The food and drinks were good and we got to watch some of this years summer Olympics.

The next day we hiked Ha-Ling Peak, which was GRUELING! It was only 1.4 miles, but with 2600 feet of elevation gain. The view was well worth the effort though, as it overlooked Canmore and the surrounding mountains. Returning to the car, we spotted a sign that said no alcohol in the parking lot, so obviously we had to have a beer with lunch. We’re rebels, what can we say? After, we made our way into Banff where we soaked in Upper Hot Springs. It was ridiculously crowded, but felt good to get in some hot water after the last week of hiking… not to mention, it had been several days since we had last showered. On our way back to Spray Lakes West, which, by the way, was not at all worth the drive just for a spot to sleep, we got some cake (it was Thursday).

View from Ha Ling. 

Tuck on top of the Ha Ling. With no fear of heights he insisted on hanging out on the edge of the cliff.

View from Ha Ling.

Andy hydrating in a super cool way.

A little background: the reason we were camping outside of Banff was because all of the campgrounds in Banff were closed due to wolves in the area. We hoped to see some, but so far no dice. Also Cake Thursday originated from the fact that we had pie at our wedding and one of my favorite foods is cake, so we agreed it only appropriate that during the first year of marriage I should get cake anytime I wanted it, which apparently is on Thursdays.

Oh CANADA! Waterton Lakes National Park – August 7th – 9th, 2016

We survived the border crossing and went to get a campsite at Crandell Mountain Campground inside Waterton Lakes National Park. Rather than make us stand in a line all morning, the Canuck’s system for getting a campsite in a National Park was much more efficient. They simply handed us a queue number and told us to come back between 11am and 2pm. That easy! So we went into Waterton to make some plans and again catch up on our quality time with the Internet. We parked right outside of Subway and found a way on to their network without actually buying a sub– we simply hopped on the local free (and painfully slow) wifi, looked up the Subway store number, typed it in, gave them our email address, and we were on our way to some free high speed internet! For our efforts they rewarded each of us with a FREE 6” sub! On a regular day Subway would not even make the list of potential places to eat, but somehow free always seems to taste better! We occupied our campsite around 11am and spent a couple of hours doing some old fashioned trip planning with real books and maps (it was surprisingly efficient, imagine that!) before heading back to Subway to continue internet planning.

The next day was Andy’s 28^th Birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANDY! We took the ferry to Crypt Lake Trailhead and spend the day hiking about 12 miles round-trip to a stunning alpine glacier lake. There was an exposed rock face leading to an 8 foot ladder up to a 60 foot long natural tunnel. Tucker was the only dog on the trail and turned out to be quite the little mountain goat. He made it over half way up the ladder before we hoisted him up the rest of the way! People were shocked, he was quite the crowd pleaser. At Crypt Lake we did a quick illegal border crossing to the USA before heading back into Canada. 

Scenery around Crypt Lake. 

Natural tunnel on the trail to Crypt Lake.

Entrance to the natural tunnel.

Panorama of Crypt Lake. The US is in the distance at the other side of the lake. 

After returning to Waterton, we Skyped Andy’s family. It is also his Mom’s birthday on August 8^th (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!)! To celebrate, we bought a homemade pie from a local grocery store and lit a lighter for him to blow out. We ate left overs for dinner after eating the birthday pie (because we are adults and we can). We figured we would rain check his birthday dinner for when we were in a town with a wider selection of restaurants to choose from. All in all a pretty successful birthday I’d say!

Before leaving Waterton the next morning, we drove the Red Rock Canyon to hopefully spot some wildlife. We had heard there were many bears in the area and we were hoping to catch a glimpse from the safety of Bernie. Unfortunately, we only sited a couple of deer.

Glacier National Park – August 5th – 6th, 2016

 After the paranoia created by Yellowstone, we woke up at 4:45am and rushed into Glacier National Park to get a campsite at Rising Sun Campground. Along the way we saw a porcupine! We arrived at 6:30am, which was apparently WAY too early because the camp hosts were just waking up. We got a site right away, leaving us wondering, who leaves a perfectly good campsite before 6 in the morning?! Rather than be productive and beat the crowds in the park, we did what any reasonable people would do: went back to sleep.

Porcupine in Glacier National Park.

We got up eventually (lets say before 11am for argument sake) and took the shuttle into the park, leaving poor Tucker at the van (luckily it was a cool day and our campsite was shaded). We started hiking the Highline Trail from Logan Pass (which was stunningly beautiful, by the way), before realizing that the trail follows the road for the first ~4 miles - we’ll just drive it, thanks! Accordingly, we hopped back on the shuttle to The Loop where we hiked to a suspension bridge in a burned over valley. It was pretty, but bouncing on the suspension bridge and cooling off in the glacier river underneath was the best part! The shuttle back to our campsite was PACKED, but we made friends with some fellow travelers. Nothing brings a bunch of sweaty people together quite like being squeezed into a small bus like sardines. 

Panorama from Logan Pass.

Suspension bridge over Mineral Creek.

The next morning, we left the park and found a campsite at a privately owned lodge just outside of Saint Mary. It was a little strange, being that there were abandoned trailers and a stray dog that wouldn’t shut up, but it was better than battling the crowds to get a campsite at Many Glacier within the national park. After securing our campsite, we drove back into the park and hiked to Glendale Lake where we crossed two more bouncy suspension bridges (we may have been seeking them out)! On our return trip, we picked up a super nice couple that was hitch hiking to their car after a backpacking trip (figured we could use the van karma). It is amazing how many like-minded people we’ve met since we have left Seattle.

Glendale Lake.

After picking up some groceries at the not-so-nearby town of Browning on the Indian reservation, we made it back to our campsite, just in time for the excessive amount of rain to soak us and all of our stuff. We hung out inside the lodge with Tucker while it passed and used the “internet” which loaded websites at approximately 30 kb/s (slower than dial-up).