Day 9 started us off in Big Timber, Montana, just off Highway 90, and was basically spent driving the whole day. Took 90 West to Butte, then North on 15 to 287. 287 was gorgeous - all incredible vistas ending with mountains. Cows with views for days. We stopped for lunch in Augusta at Mel's Diner and arrived in East Glacier in the early evening. Everyone was tired and cranky and we opted to go for a hike in the park (it was so close!) which was, unfortunately, mosquito infested at that hour of the day, right next to Two Medicine Lake. The car ride back to our little hotel room was tense. We nearly had our first defection from the trip at that point, but managed to just go to bed and pretend it hadn't happened.
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| Montana Mountains |
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| Hood up for skeeter protection |
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| Beargrass is EVERYWHERE in Glacier |
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| Two Medicine Lake |
Up and out the next morning took us to the western portion of Glacier National Park. We stopped in Apgar at the Visitor's Center there to reconnoiter and decided to do a hike rather than another scenic drive. Good call. The fresh air and moving under our own locomotion was a tonic for any lasting tension, and the path we took around Fish Creek at the Southern end of Lake McDonald was beautiful!
I've been shocked to learn how insanely blue the water is here. I assume it's some sort of minerals in the water that does it (plus being VERY clean), but the water along a lot of the rivers is a milky turquoise color and the lakes/ponds themselves are this glorious greenish blue that doesn't even get fully captured in photos. It's otherworldly beautiful.
Post-hike, newly calmed from our nature exposure, we hopped into the car for the drive into Canada. A lovely border patrolman made us feel welcome and we carried on northward to Invermere, just south of the entrance to Kootenay National Park. We got in early enough to have time to do some laundry and veg, and I abandoned ship for a while to check out a bar around the corner. Me-time was good, and the open mic night was not so much.... but still fun.
Yesterday our only schedule was to make our way, eventually, to Golden, British Columbia. Plan was to take an indirect route so we could travel through Kootenay & Banff National Parks. We did that and stopped for a hike in Banff at the Johnston Canyon. Slowpokes that we are, it probably took us 3.5 hours to hike up and back to the Upper and Lower Falls, but it was so beautiful. And because we went rather late in the day (we didn't leave Invermere until after 11am), the hike back down was significantly less crowded than the hike up.
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| Upper Falls from below |
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| Upper Falls from above |
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| Upper Falls |
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| Dad was tired :) |
Drove along the Trans Canada Highway alt route 1A to see more scenery and took in some incredible wildlife. Then on through Yoho National Park on the final leg into Golden.
Dinner was at the Golden Taps Pub in Golden and we arrived at our cabin just outside of town around 10pm. We're very confused, actually, about what time it actually is. Apparently most of BC is in Pacific time, but Golden sticks with Alberta (Mountain) time. So the car is confused, our cell phones are confused, we are confused. But we ate, made it here, and have been slow rolling this morning.
Thank goodness for rest days. I've been able to catch up on work emails, write this dang thing, and it looks like the cloud cover that trailed us for most of the day yesterday (which made for lovely shady hiking in Johnston Canyon!) might start to blow off.
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