Day 11: Part I: Calgary to Montana

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Today's Itinerary:  Part I will include the drive from Calgary south to Alberta Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park (which borders Glacier National Park in Montana) and then across the border to the town St. Mary, Montana.  Part II will include photos that evening in St. Mary and also inside the park.

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We left Calgary early to beat the traffic.  Picked up coffee and breakfast sandwiches and headed for Canada Route 2 heading south.  Once out of the city we traveled through farm and ranch country for about three hours before reaching the entrance to Waterton Lakes National Park.  It is the small green area on the map above, just above the Canadian border and touching the much larger Glacier National Park in Montana.



We spent the rest of the morning and the early afternoon here.  The scenery was spectacular and the brown colored "black bear" with black cub was memorable.  Like a nature show on television, we saw a big horned sheep enter the bear's "space" causing the cub to climb a tree. 



That's Cameron Lake

Upper Waterton Lake

After leaving Waterton, we passed through customs and arrived at the lodge in St. Mary, Montana, just on the edge of Glacier National Park.

Chief Mountain, about 5 pm



St. Mary Lodge, about 6pm







Day 10: Part II: Banff to Calgary

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Itinerary: Part II of this day was to leave Banff and arrive in Calgary

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We arrived in Banff in late morning and spent three hours walking around the town. We did a bit of gift shopping and grabbed a cup of coffee at Starbucks. At Evelyn's Cafe we bought a couple of awesome cookies. They were the biggest and thickest cookies I've ever seen. I was immediately looking forward to lunch.





It was now time to think about leaving the national park and heading east across the flat land to Calgary. But before doing so, we stopped for a picnic lunch (and one of those wonderful cookies) at the Cascade Lake Picnic Area just outside of the town of Banff.





This is called a "Trail Mix" cookie



It took nearly three hours to reach Calgary.  It's pretty wide open country and we very quickly missed the mountains.  For miles we could see them in the rear view mirror.  The shot below is looking back (i.e. west) to the mountains.  You can see them in the background.



Our hotel, the Sheraton, was on the outskirts of Calgary and directly across the highway from Canada Olympic Park where the ski jumps and bobsled runs were built for the 1988 Calgary Olympics.  We wish we'd had more time to explore Calgary.  The downtown seemed like a very interesting place.  Oh well, next time!



Day 10: Part I: Lake Louise to Banff

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Today's Itinerary:  Part I of this day was to depart Lake Louise and arrive at Banff
Part II will be Banff to Calgary

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We had some great scenary and wildlife spottings along the Bow River Parkway (a smaller road that runs pretty much parallel to the faster and more wide open TransCanada Highway) on our way to Banff.

All of these pictures were taken before 10 a.m.

Mother grizzly and three cubs



Day 9 Part 2: Jasper to Lake Louise

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Today's Itinerary:  Leave Jasper and retrace our steps (south) to Lake Louise.

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The trek south to Lake Louise was along the beautiful Columbian Icefields Parkway.  I stopped frequently to take pictures.  The North Saskatchewan River made a wonderful brackdrop and there were lots of ponds and lakes.  Interestingly, many of the deeper lakes were still frozen, though I don't think you'd want to walk on them.

The sky was overcast and dark.  Picture taking was made difficult.

Black bear cub

Black bears: mother and cub



We checked into the Lake Louise Inn early, about 2 p.m. and then checked out the gift shops at Morraine Lake and Lake Louise.  Of course, we admired the scenery, too.  A lot of the ice that we'd seen on Morraine Lake a few days earlier was gone.



Morraine Lake



A special treat was a mother grizzly and two cubs near Lake Louise.  The park's "Guardian of the Bears" were there to ensure that spectators kept their distance.  The mother bear was grizzly #62 and you could see the tag on her ear. We were told that in recent days the bears had been feeding on this field of dandelions and the cubs were also being taught by their mother to hunt ground squirrels.



Day 9 Part I: Breakfast in Jasper

We were happy that the rain was lifting when we packed up to depart from the Sawridge Inn where we'd stayed for two night.  We went right away downtown to hit the bakery treats at "The Other Paw", owned by the same people who own "The Bear Paw" that I reported on yesterday.  Same wonderful sticky buns, and Laurie says she had the best breakfast sandwich she'd ever eaten.