Points North

Glacier was one of the primary objectives of this trip, Banff and the surrounding territory was the other. It truly is a strikingly beautiful area and I took many, many pictures. So many, in fact that I've decided to split my time there into two posts. This post will cover the drive through Calgary, my first evening in Banff, and the next morning at Lake Louise. The succeeding post will cover my trip to the Columbia Icefields and the rest of my time in Canada.

As I started out the morning after Glacier National Park, I glanced in my rearview mirror. I'd been a bit disappointed that there'd been no snow-capped peaks in the entire park. That night at my campsite brought a bit of rain and the wind had rocked my van on its springs. Now, behind me, the peaks of the park were resplendent in white, but there was no turning back, I was just six miles from the Canadian border:

I'd been anxious since my trip started about crossing the Canadian border. The van was still so new I didn't have the permanent plates yet, just a dealer's tag, the purchase paperwork, and an emailed copy of the proof of insurance. I'd gone so far as to call Canadian Customs before I started the trip and they said it would be okay, but government isn't always consistent - my experience in the U.S. As it turned out, my apprehension was unfounded. The border agent asked only to see my passport and took in stride the fact that the van had no plates. He did ask nearly five minutes worth of questions about where I'd been and what I had in the van. There was a tense moment when he asked if I had any alcohol. My heart sank at the vision of pouring out several bottles of wine and micro-distillery spirits, but it seemed I was well under any sort of limit imposed. He waved me through and I was on my way to Calgary.

The drive north was through fairly monotonous pastureland. Speed limits in Canada are in kilometers per hour, of course, and oddly my German made Sprinter didn't have that as a second set of markings on the speedometer. So whatever the speed limit sign said, I quickly trained myself to multiply by six and divide by ten; i.e. 70 kph becomes 42 mph. By far the most common limit on highways is 100 kph, which is convenient because dividing the distance to some waypoint by 100 gives you the hours and a fraction until you arrive: 275 kilometers at 100 kph gives 2.75 hours. 

I pulled over at one point to plot my route through Calgary. Originally, I had planned to go directly to Banff and make Calgary a day-long side trip, but after a change in route to see more of Glacier, the plan was to just drive through Calgary on the way to Banff and leave it at that. In retrospect, this was much more sensible. Calgary is a big bustling city - much larger than I'd expected. To just show up and expect to "see" the city was naive. In fact, I've made it a general principle now not to visit a large city without several days of planning and a point-by-point tour route. I was on Highway 2, I simply needed to take a left on Highway 1 in Calgary - seemed easy, but Calgary had other plans. My first surprise was that while Highway 2 is a nice four-lane divided highway outside of town, it quickly degenerates into a congested surface street in the city. Huh, so this is why my mapping software told me it was going to take 5 hours to go 150 miles today. My second dose of reality was that Calgary wanted me on some other street to catch Highway 1, and the third dose was that I missed some zig or zag of that street and ended up completely lost in the middle of downtown. I did, however, get a nice shot of the skyline while I was stopped at a traffic light.

I was still without any GPS software and regretting it more than ever. Luckily, I'd had the foresight to buy a printed map (yes, they still make those) of Western Canada, and it had a detailed map of Calgary. I managed to extricate myself from the heart of downtown the old fashioned way, and shortly after getting on Highway 1 pointed west, I stopped for lunch at Earl's Restaurant to celebrate, actually more upscale than the name suggests. It was here that I had my first exposure to the renown Canadian niceness. The hostesses were smiling and cheerful. My waitress was very attentive and took the time to ask if I had a big weekend planned, and then asked several more questions when I told her about my trip. I ordered my go-to meal when I'm trying out a new restaurant - the Reuben Sandwich, and they offered a bowl of clam chowder as a substitute for fries. A perfect meal to calm my jangled nerves.

Soon after you're west of Calgary the scenery becomes more dramatic:

I stopped a little further along to take this panorama:

Highway 1 runs right through Banff National Park and you have to pull through something like a toll plaza to buy your park use pass. I was quite ready for a rest when I pulled into the Banff campground a short time later:

The RV sites there are kind of unusual: not pull-through or back-in, but pull alongside - a nice arrangement when commercialism isn't trying to squeeze the maximum profit from the minimum land:

It was Saturday evening and I didn't remember until later that it was Canada's Thanksgiving weekend. Even though I'd made reservations a few days in advance, I was lucky to get a space; the campground was full that night and the next. There were still a couple hours of daylight left, so I decided to take a hike around the camp. At one point the trail encountered a series of downward "steps" each about two feet high. My foot slipped and I fell pretty hard onto my side. No harm done, though; it's nice to know I can still bounce. I had the camera in my hand and I was more worried about it, but it escaped unscathed, too.

The next morning I set off for Lake Louise, about 45 minutes away. Many friends had sung the praises of the beauty of this spot, so my expectations were pretty high, but it met every one of them. Here's a picture of the surrounding mountains from the parking lot:

and here's the lake itself:

The most striking thing, of course, is the bright turquoise color of the lake, but the glacier valley at the far end is pretty spectacular, too.

And I got my customary "attendance" shot:

This was by far the busiest attraction that I've encountered on my trip:

Almost as famous as the lake is the Fairmont Hotel on its shore:

Here's another view of the lake from the hotel's grounds:

And a couple shots of its lobby:

Walking past the row of shops next to the lobby, I have to admit to doing a double take when I encountered this guy:

Heading back outside, I like this shot of a canoe on the lake - it almost seems suspended in space:

The canoe rental place was along my path back to the van:

I'd gotten all this done by lunchtime. My afternoon excursion would be the Columbia Icefields, about two hours to the north. That, and the remainder of my time north of the border will be the subject of the next post.