Canada Vacation–Post 7

The last few days of our vacation slipped away far too quickly. On Thursday, September 20th we awoke in Waterton National Park, on the border of Glacier Nat’l Park in Montana, and drove to the trailhead to Bertha Lake. Just as we started up the trail a couple from Wisconsin was scurrying toward us. They said a young black bear was coming down the trail and despite all the clatter they created, the bear wouldn’t leave the trail but continued toward them, so they came back down. We decided not to press our up-to-now great fortune and headed down to Montana.

We ended up camping in the Lewis and Clark Nat’l Forest campground, Cave Mountain, near Choteau and stayed two nights. We hiked on Friday up to the pass into the Bob Marshall Wilderness, a steep and somewhat arduous six mile hike, which we enjoyed immensely because we were lengthening our vacation with an extra day and knowing we would be home the next day. But while we were in Cave Mountain Campground we met up with someone we knew from Rec Lab back in ‘95; in the same group of friends gathered from Conrad we also met a man who was married to the niece of a good friend of ours from the Livingston area. Small world: coincidence? We just don’t know.

The following day we loitered in Augusta on our way home to have a cup of coffee and were home by late afternoon. Not too many days passed before the time we had spent in the Canadian Rockies seemed more like a fantasy than an actual event; had it not been for our pictures, the time we spent in Canada would have been more difficult to believe had actually happened. It has now been two weeks since we returned, a time equal to the time we spend camping and hiking, and the wonder and beauty we experienced and remember seems too fantastic to be real, but isn’t that the way all great and wonderful events and periods of our lives seem when we return to our regular schedules? It always seems that way for me. But because of our pictures, the time we spent in Canada will always have a connection to our fantastic reality.

 

On the trail above Cave Mountain Campground

We saw a group of eight mountain goats across the ravine grazing around this cave, stopped a few times and watched them for several minutes through binoculars. The picture is fuzzy because of the distance. All eight goats are here, but one of them almost blends into the rocks and one is partially hidden by the trees.

The end of our hike

 

The following pictures, our final reminiscence, are of the Canadian Rockies we experienced just driving down the highways of the national parks.

I, too, wish they could have continued on indefinitely.

Canada Vacation–Post 6

On Tuesday, September 18, we hiked to Helen Lake. The trail started just across the highway from Crow’s Foot Glacier. We had awakened that morning with a sense of the dread, since this was the last day before heading south, toward home. I began to realize, too, that I had been utterly overwhelmed by the spectacular beauty of the mountains here and was only now beginning to absorb them. As if to compound the problem, the leaves of trees and shrubbery were, each day, displaying more and more of their wondrous autumn colors.

Sleep had, the entire time in Canada, been disrupted by that sense of being overwhelmed and trying to put all we had seen into some semblance of understanding. I had seen pictures of places – Alaska and the Himalayas – that had seemed to be what I was experiencing, but I’d had no physical experience to base understanding and realization of what we were experiencing upon. We decided that, indeed, we would have to return and spend even more time in these Canadian Rockies to more fully experience the majesty of the mountains.

 

Fall Colors along the trail

Crowfoot Glacier

Helen Lake

Water tumbles from the lake

Canada Vacation–Post 5

On Sunday, the 16th of September we drove further into Yoho and up to Emerald Lake. As we were strolling around the lake we found a trail up to Emerald Basin and, so, got in a much better hike than we had anticipated. Emerald Lake was a truly beautiful lake and we enjoyed the walk around it, but because we love hiking so much the trail up into the basin made the day feel like a great success. The hike was wonderful and the basin was, in its own right, just as beautiful as the lake.

Hiking up the Basin trail

Hiking down from the Basin

We packed up our camp the next morning, Monday the 17th, and drove up the Icefield Parkway in Jasper National Park. The Parkway had too many fun and interesting stops along the way to list, but we finally made our way up to the Icefield Centre, which had extensive information on glaciers. After heading out to set up camp at Wilcox Creek, we drove back up to the Icefield Centre and hiked up a paved walkway to the roped-off edge of Athabasca Glacier, which was the closest we got to a glacier our whole vacation.The Glacier was huge and came off a humongous icefield atop the mountains, but it seemed amazing to us how the air temperature dropped as we walked closer to the glacier. It had been downright hot in the parking lot of the Icefield Centre by the time we left to hike, but was quite chilly up near the glacier.

Athabasca Glacier from the Icefield Centre

Athabasca Glacier from the roped-off end of the trail