chapter 24, Glacier/Waterton
August 5, 1998
7/12 We left Lewis and Clark RV Park, in Kamiah ID, late, and drove only to Missoula, MT, stopping again at the KOA to do laundry and shopping, and to stock up on prescription drugs before heading into Canada. The departure from Missoula was also late, after a morning of shopping (this is the last "big" town we'll be near for quite a while.
7/13 The drive up to Glacier National Park from Missoula was pleasant and pretty. We drove beside Flathead Lake for a long time - this is a really big lake. We're in sweet cherry and huckleberry country. Flathead Lake cherries are just coming into season are for sale everywhere (they are delicious). An incredible variety of huckleberry products are also for sale everywhere. Would you like some huckleberry body lotion? The berries are supposed to be ripening now, but we haven't seen any - most of the bushes around our campground didn't set fruit this year.
Mountain Meadow is a pleasant RV Park, terraced up the side of a hill in the woods, about 10 miles from the west entrance to Glacier National Park. No sewers in most of the sites, but they have a convenient mobile pump-out service. So far, we're happy with this park, although we haven't looked at a couple of others that sound similar and are within a few miles.
7/14 The drive along Going To The Sun Road in Glacier N.P. and back, with many stops at visitor centers and scenic pull-outs, took all day and put 130 miles on the truck. It's not for timid drivers - Many portions of the road are very narrow, with a sheer drop on one side and a jagged overhanging cliff right at the edge of the pavement on the other side. At times, sheets of water running off the overhanging cliffs was dropping directly on the truck. Driving with our windshield wipers running on a sunny day is a new experience. The road is limited to vehicles under 21' (we just make it), and less than 8' wide, including mirrors. We had to remove our towing mirrors. Even so, it looked like our mirrors were only missing the rocks by a few inches when we were on the inside of the road. The size limit apparently doesn't apply to road maintenance vehicles - it was a real adventure to meet a full-sized dump truck coming the other way as we edged around one of the tight turns. It doesn't pay to be in a hurry on this road - some drivers were creeping very slowly at the narrow places. The views make it all worth while - long vistas to craggy mountains, still with a lot of snow coverage. An occasional small glacier is visible, but the glaciers are shrinking rapidly - only a fraction of the size they were 100 years ago.
When we stopped at the Visitor's center at the top of Logan Pass, there were two mountain goats wandering through the parking lot. One spent quite a while near our truck, licking up a spill from the blacktop - it looked like someone had spilled a sweet soft drink on the pavement.
It's still spring here. Our plan to follow the spring flowers north is working. Spring began in January in the Anza Boreggo Desert, and up here, we are still walking through a profusion of spring flowers in mid-July.
7/15 The campground owners are computer-literate and modem-friendly. The park has a Web page, and accepts reservations over the Internet. This morning, I went in to ask about the weather forecast for the day, and the owner asked her 13-year-old daughter to check. The girl turned to the computer and quickly brought up both the radar precipitation map and the local forecast, using the Internet and Yahoo.
Armed with a favorable weather forecast, Helen dropped Dave just east of the Continental Divide at the head of a 10-mile trail which winds up and over Siyeh Pass (at about 8100 feet) and then down to St. Mary's Lake (at 4600 feet). The trail passes quite close to Sexton Glacier. The middle portion of the trail is well above timberline, and portions of the trail on the east side of the pass were still snow covered. The early spring alpine flowers were in bloom among the rocks above timberline, and most of them were unfamiliar. I took notes and sat down with Helen when I got back, and she identified at least 8 varieties that were completely new to her. There were many other species I didn't even try to identify (I view identification of the many asters and "daisies" as hopeless). Most impressive to me was the Jones Columbine - a tiny plant just a few inches high, covered with very large bright blue flowers, shaped just like the domestic garden columbines.
7/17 We drove a primitive road up the North Fork of the Flathead River. This valley is the extreme western edge of the National Park, and the valley bottom is relatively open and flat for many miles - a surprising contrast to the craggy mountains rising just a few miles to the east. The 35 miles of unimproved road, mostly through dense forest, took about two hours. We crossed the river at Polebridge, and returned on a good gravel road outside the park, getting back in less than half that time.
7/19 Hungry Horse Dam is only a few miles South of our campsite. It is one of the furthest upstream of the many dams on the Columbia River system. It is about 500 feet high and 2115 feet long, and was built primarily for flood control. It collects water during the spring runoff, is kept full during the July and August recreation season, and generates power during fall and winter. The displays pointed out that the water stored in these upstream dams generates power not just here, but also at each of the many downstream dams it flows through on the way to the Pacific. So the power-generating value of a small dam in the mountains is much larger than is initially obvious. There are many such structures tucked away in mountain valleys throughout the Northwest, and hydro power is around 50% of the power usage of the entire Northwest. The reservoir has several nice campgrounds scattered around it. We verified that some of these campgrounds could accommodate our big trailer.
7/20 We moved our base to the East side of Glacier Park - to Chewing Blackbones Campground and RV Park. This is the first time we've stayed on an Indian Reservation. The park is owned and operated by the Blackfeet Tribe. It's a bit shabby - not well maintained - but is spacious, with large sites and lots of empty land. It is located along the shore of lower St. Mary's Lake, and the view west across the lake into the jagged peaks of Glacier National Park is very nice. The campground is not modem-friendly, but "will look into it".
7/21 The Many Glacier area is another dead-end road up a deep valley extending back among steep jagged mountains. At the end of the road is another impressive old hotel and a campground, which we drove through. About half the sites in the campground would accommodate our 35' trailer (but with no hookups). Some sites had a nice view of the lake. The camground was, of course, full.
We hiked a trail to Scenic Point - an appropriately named mountain which has great views in all directions, and particularly out over the rolling ranch land to the east. The trail climbs 2350 feet in 3.1 miles, and the first mile and last half-mile are relatively level - so the center portion is very steep. We didn't try to count the number of switchbacks on the way up the open rocky mountainside. Helen climbed about half way, then headed leisurely back down, taking pictures and identifying flowers, Dave went on up to the summit, traveling somewhat faster, and meeting up with Helen again on the way down. We saw two large Hoary Marmots along the trail, going about their business and mostly ignoring the humans. These interesting animals look something like the woodchucks that were familiar to us in the east, although they are a bit smaller and are colored differently. Their alarm call is a loud high-pitched whistle that can be heard for a long distance. One sounded off fairly close to me, and it sounded just like the smoke alarm in our trailer - and was just about that loud.
Driving up Highway 89 toward the Canadian border, we had to stop twice, once for a group of horses who were wandering slowly down the center of the road, and once for a herd of cows who showed no interest in moving off the road.
We headed for Waterton Lakes National Park without reservations, and with some nervousness about Canadian Customs. Last fall, we had been subjected to a full search (requiring that we completely empty nearly every storage area in the trailer) when crossing into Canada. We spent an unpleasant hour, then paid very high duty on all of our wine and beer supply.
We now have Texas registration, and the rumors among RV folks were that license plates from the states bordering Mexico were a sure ticket to a search, on the theory that Canada thinks that people from these states have much higher probability of carrying guns or being drug runners. We can now partially disprove this theory. We were questioned carefully, about liquor, guns, firewood and how long we would stay in Canada ("gee - I don't know, maybe a couple of months" is not an acceptable answer). It turns out that any specific answer less than six months will be accepted. We were then passed through, with instructions to dump our firewood in the bin provided. California bans citrus fruit but Alberta bans firewood - to prevent the importation of Dutch Elm Disease, which has still not made it into Alberta. Our excess alcohol was passed through without duty, and our shotgun was also passed through, with just one question about barrel length.
We had called ahead, and been told that Townsite RV Park, Waterton National Park's only full-service RV-oriented campground, takes reservations only from people who are physically standing in line, and fills up every day. We arrived about at 12:30 and were told that it had long since filled up, but that two people who stood in line yesterday had not yet showed up to claim their campsite, with a 1:00 p.m. deadline. So we hung around until 1:00 p.m. and indeed got one of these two spots - no hookups at all, but that's no problem for our self-contained rig.
It's clear why this campground is always full. It is a lovely spot - on the shore of Waterton Lake, with high mountains rising on the other side of the lake.
7/24 We drove all the park roads (only adding up to perhaps 40 miles), stopping to do short hikes at several points. The hike to lower Bertha Falls was the nicest, and most ambitious activity of the day. This trail climbs up a steep mountainside above Cameron Lake, providing a lovely view of the valley. It then turns to follow a canyon toward Bertha Lake. The falls is small but pretty, cascading down 75 feet or so of interesting limestone and mudstone cliff. Dave went scrambling up the slick rocks beside the water, and had a bit of a scare (so did Helen, who was watching) when he lost his footing and slid rapidly down a short steep section of the cliff. No significant damage, however - a bloody cut on an elbow, and some bruises.
Spring has finally ended - the season has moved north too fast for us to keep up, and it's now summer everywhere (even in Alaska, according to net friends there). The meadows and roadsides are still bright with flowers, but they are summer flowers - fireweed and goldenrod are predominant along the road. Berries are ripening. We've been disappointed to find the huckleberry bushes didn't set much fruit this year, everywhere we've been. The thimbleberry bushes did set a good crop, and we've found a few early ripe ones. These are a raspberry relative - sort of similar flavor, but larger and with smaller but much more numerous individual sections in the fruit. Serviceberries are ripening too, but the flavor is bland and uninteresting.
7/25 The town of Lethbridge, AB is sort of on our way to Calgary, and Map'n'Go indicated a museum and Japanese Garden there which might be interesting. We drove about 90 minutes to get there, again without reservations on a weekend, and were again lucky. Both RV Parks in town were full. We stopped at the one adjacent to the Japanese Garden, and they discovered that one site had just been vacated unexpectedly. So we're in a full-hookup site in a very convenient location. A phone plug is available in the office, so we're even getting caught up on EMail.
The museum was a bit of a disappointment. We had been led to expect a tutorial on the development of the "dry farming" techniques that have been successful in this area. Instead, we got a mildly interesting exposition of the history of the area, illustrated by a somewhat random collection of the machinery, clothing, furniture, and household bric-a-brac typical of the several historical periods (beginning in the late 1800's). One room was particularly nicely done - a special exhibit of wedding dresses, illustrating the changing wedding customs over the past century. The dresses had been collected from local families, and most were accompanied by stories about the family and photographs of the wedding and the family members.
7/26 The Japanese Garden was very nice. The northern climate required some differences from other such gardens we've visited: there were none of the traditional Japanese Maples, although some other distantly related maple species made a reasonable substitute. There was no bamboo, and no Koi in the pond. But the overall design was pleasing, and the garden was a pleasant and relaxing place to spend an hour walking around.
We drove around Lethbridge for a while. The town seems prosperous, rapidly growing, and well-kept. A valley on the western edge of town is crossed by North America's longest and highest trestle bridge (locally spelled "tressel"). It is about half a mile long, and about 300 feet high in the center, built in the early 1900's to carry the railroad across the valley. It appears to be in good condition and to be still in use. Much of the valley is parkland.
8/3 This is our eighth day in Calgary. When we got here last week, we were reminded that the first Monday in August is a holiday, and that all campgrounds were already booked full for the long weekend, just when we had planned to be traveling to Banff - probably the most popular destination in western Canada. So we immediately rushed back to the campground office here and asked to stay through the holiday weekend. As it turned out, they actually did have space, although it meant that we would have to move to a different site at least once, filling in gaps in their reservation schedule.
Calgary is a boomtown. The roar of earth-moving machinery can be heard everywhere. Housing developments and new shopping malls are spreading in all directions. The old downtown area is being replaced with high-rise office buildings, with the exception of a few blocks where the old storefronts are being renovated and incorporated as part of the new construction. ("Old" in this area means turn-of-the-century - this must have been one of the last temperate portions of the continent to be settled). The metropolitan area now has 905,000 people, and is growing at something like 4.7% per year. Calgary will soon replace Edmonton as Alberta's biggest city, although Edmonton is also growing rapidly.
Devonian Gardens is one of the strangest places we've been. It's almost a city block of tropical plantings, fish ponds, sculpture, and noisily splashing fountains, tying together the 4th floors of several large buildings. It's enclosed by huge sloping walls of glass which provide views of the city streets below and of the adjacent, mostly new, buildings. The ponds are populated with huge Koi (Japanese decorative Carp), fat Rainbow Trout, and large turtles. In the middle of all this is a well-designed playground, bustling with screaming little kids. Like many of the northern cities, the second floors of major downtown buildings are linked together by glass enclosed walkways spanning the streets, so one can stroll around town without being exposed to the weather.
A few blocks away, half of another city block is occupied by Olympic Plaza - another collection of ponds, fountains, artificial waterfalls, and plantings. This entire area was bustling with people - many of them students and young immigrant families. Children were playing in the fountains and ponds, getting soaked, and nobody seemed to mind.
The Grain Academy was a pleasant surprise, and we were there for about two hours. This is a small museum, in the Roundup Building, on the grounds of the Calgary Stampede in the center of town. The museum is operated by the Alberta Grain Pool - a large farmer's grain storage and marketing cooperative. Interestingly, this organization ceased to exist on the day we were there, having just merged with a similar organization in Manitoba. For most of our visit, we were the only people there, and we got a personalized tour from a retired guy who worked in the grain business locally for his entire career. They had a large working model of a grain elevator. We'd always been curious about these huge structures which seemed to crop up every 50 miles or so across the prairie, and this one showed all the internal detail. Another huge scale model depicted the entire transport system through Alberta and over the mountains to Vancouver, showing the loading of grain from local elevators, the impressive spiral tunnels which lift the tracks up over the Rockies, and the ship loading facilities in Vancouver. Toy trains pulled hopper cars through the entire layout as recordings described each step of the process. Another train model, showing a local stop with grain elevators, a train wreck, and a concrete grain storage silo partially destroyed by a dust explosion, was incredibly detailed and realistic - the broken concrete had tiny end of rebar sticking out, and an outhouse had a tiny roll of toilet paper. This model had been donated to the museum by a private builder, after winning several awards and being featured in an American model train magazine.
Canada exports two thirds of its grain crop, to 90 different countries, and this exported grain feeds 90 million people. (In passing, our guide also mentioned that Kansas grows more grain than all of Canada). In Alberta, the main crop is wheat, with smaller amounts of canola, rye, and flax. Canola is the latest fad in cooking oil, since it has the lowest saturated fat content and the highest omega fatty acid content of any of the commercial oils. The fields of canola had made an impressive show as we drove through them earlier in the month, both in Montana and Alberta - the plants are covered with bright yellow flowers during the late spring, and we occasionally saw hundreds of acres glowing a uniform yellow. A farmer could make a real show if he alternated fields of canola and flax (which has a pale blue flower). Interestingly, the reason that "canola" is a relatively unfamiliar word to us is that it is an acronym, coined in 1979, from "CANada Oil, Low Acid" for an improved variety of what used to be rapeseed.
We're camped at Pine Creek Campground. This is the most spacious commercial campground we've seen. The RV sites are nearly all pull-throughs, 50 feet wide and about 80 feet long. (Some old city house lots aren't this big!) Each cluster of RV sites is surrounded by many acres of open grassy space. Trees have been planted, but will need at least another decade before they provide much shade. The campground is on a low hill, so we can look out across open ranchland. We suspect that the owners are also ranchers - the RV sites are called "stalls" on the park literature. We're about a mile from the southern city limits of Calgary - just out of sight of the nearest construction of new housing developments.
One afternoon, Dave went for a stoll down the access road to the campground, and came back with a large bouquet of mixed summer wildflowers. After Helen exercised her flower arranging skills, they look wonderful in the trailer, and have lasted several days.
The Calgary Zoo is a mixed bag - a few nice things, a lot of inexplicably empty cages, large areas closed and under construction, and a large area devoted to naturalistic displays of the flora and fauna of the Canadian prairie and mountains. This last seemed rather poorly done - the animals were generally not visible, and the foliage was a poor substitute for the real thing. The real thing is all easily accessible within 100 miles, and we had already gotten much better views of nearly all the large mammals in the wild, so we question the rationale for building this exhibit.
A day was spent shopping for new tires for the truck - after 51,000 miles, the original tires were getting uncomfortably thin. These tires gave us good service - no problems at all - and were a good compromise tread design - docile and not too noisy on the highway, but also having a reasonable amount of traction when we ventured out onto muddy or sandy jeep trails. So after checking what else was available, I decided to get the same tires again - Goodyear Wrangler RT/S.
On another shopping expedition, we found a sale on a good electric frying/roasting pan, and added this to our sparse roster of kitchen equipment. We've already used it for frying (much higher heat output that our propane stove) and roasting (more convenient than the gas oven, and doesn't heat the trailer as much - could even be done outside on a hot day.)
8/3 This was a long day of driving Northeast from Calgary - to the Royal Tyrrell Museum of Anthropology, located in an area rich with fossils, and beautifully exhibiting the fossil history of the area in an attractive modern building. This place is off the beaten track, but is a must-see for anyone with even a little interest in paleontology. The nearby Burgess Shale formation has yielded many dinosaur fossils, including one that was first found here and is named Abertasaurus. On the way back, we looped through Trochu to visit a pleasant little botanical garden. We also stopped briefly in Morrin to see a reconstruction of a sod house typical of a prairie farm home early in the century.
8/4 This morning, as we were packing up to leave, we discovered a crack working its way across the windshield of the truck. It was only about 6" long, but every time I tapped on the windshield, the crack grew another inch or two. Apparently, it started at a stone chip, right at the edge of the windshield. We were aware of a stone hitting the windshield a few days ago, but that's happened many times, and we couldn't see a chip, since it's out at the edge, on an opaque portion of the glass.
It seemed wise to get this fixed before leaving Calgary - we're likely to be in rural areas for the next month. The campground agreed that we could stay for a few more days without moving again (this is the third site we've been in this same campground). But as it turned out, we'll only be delayed a day - I was fortunate to find an auto glass shop that could replace the windshield immediately, and which was with a comfortable bike ride of the campground.
8/5 The new windshield is wonderful. The many stone chips accumulated in 50,000 miles - quite a bit of it on gravel roads - had been bothering us. It was real hard to drive into the setting sun in the evening, when the old windshield almost looked frosted, even when squeaky clean. And we found something that's a bargain in Canada. The cost, with labor, was $275 Canadian ($178 US), for that great big windshield. Had I known it was that cheap, I would have had it replaced earlier.
So we're finally on the way, riding on new tires, looking out through new glass. We'll remember Calgary as a place to spend money. Next stop, Banff National Park, only about 100 miles to the west.