After marveling at how the river running along the highway changed from running west to running east as we crossed the Continental Divide and entered Alberta once again, we headed towards Lake Louise, just to see it.  We should have known better.  We sat in traffic, stopped multiple times to wait for waddlers to meander across the streets as they gawked at the mountains, totally oblivious to cars and buses and RVs, and ultimately found a place to turn around so we could get the hell out of there.  We got on the Icefields Parkway, which is an impressively scenic road that runs through Banff and into Jasper.  Banff is incredibly beautiful, with towering mountains, shining glaciers, and unbelievably blue glacial lakes, And, once you’re out of the Banff village and Lake Louise areas, the density of people dwindles dramatically.  Traffic on the Icefields Parkway doesn’t move too fast, because everybody is taking in the scenery, and every few miles you find a pullout for a spectacular view or a trailhead.  We stopped at the Bow Lake trailhead where we had lunch with a view, and then hiked part of the Bow Lake trail around the lake.  We didn’t go all the way to the waterfall because we didn’t feel like we were up to another steep climb after the Hoodoos and the Avalanche Hikes the previous two days, but we got plenty of great views as we walked around the lake.

After our hike, we continued north towards Jasper.  On our map, we had found a FCFS RV campground near the entrance to the park which said it had 100 sites.  We were glad we’d made this our destination rather than one of the smaller campgrounds slightly closer to the park Banff/Jasper border, because while this campground really is just a paved parking lot, it’s a paved parking lot which is the front row for the view of the Columbia Icefields.  After seeing a few glaciers in the US Glacier NP, and a few more larger glaciers in the Canadian Glacier NP, we were completely unprepared for the massive Columbia Icefields which is right there, next to the road.  It is receding dramatically year by year, but we still found ourselves standing in front of our truck and staring at it with our mouths open.  We resisted the urge to immediately walk to it, mostly because Tom had the good sense to realize that even though it is so big it looked like we could reach out and touch it, it was actually about a mile and a half away, which I realized when I considered that the small dots we could see crawling up it were actually gigantic trac buses hauling loads of tourists onto the icefield.  We talked to some other campers, and then had dinner and settled in for the night.  

In the morning, we walked to the glacier, which was as far away as Tom had estimated.  The walk was somewhat sad, because signs along the way show where the glacier was every five years or so, and the amount it has receded is frighteningly impressive.  Nonetheless, it is enormous, and seeing what it has done to the earth beneath it as it has receded is a big reminder of the power of nature.  We also found that this glacier is the source for the headwaters of the Athabasca River, which runs to the Mackenzie River, which we would eventually follow to the Arctic Ocean.  

We left the Columbia Icefield with the intention of stopping for a walk at Mount Edith Cavell, but discovered that the road to Mount Edith Cavell doesn’t allow vehicles over 21’.  So, we continued on to Jasper, where we did a bit of shopping.  We had noticed as we approached Jasper that most of the campgrounds were full, so we were relieved to find another parking lot campground with plenty of room between the town of Jasper and the park boundary.  This campground was listed as having over 200 places, and it was in a very picturesque spot on the river between the mountains.  We decided that it was probably a better option than any of the full campgrounds since with all that space, it was easy to find a spot away from other campers even though the sites would have been close together, had they all been filled.  We spent one last quiet night in Jasper NP before starting the drive north to the Yukon, where we planned to pick up the Dempster Highway and head for the Arctic Ocean.

Yoho National Park is another small park in the cluster of parks dominated by Banff and Jasper, but to us, it definitely has the most bang for the buck.  After leaving Glacier, we stopped in Golden for groceries, so we didn’t hit the southwest park border until midafternoon.  We knew that another FCFS campground was only a few miles into the park, and that the Hoodoo Creek campground had a nearby trailhead, so we decided we’d driven enough for the day.  The campground was a little odd, in that it was just a gravel lot with campsites marked by poles and picnic tables.  A couple of the sites had evidence of already being occupied, but we had no trouble finding a flat spot to park.  We had lunch, and then went looking for the trailhead, not really expecting much after the decidedly unimpressive campground.

We were wrong, and the trail turned out to be the perfect hike for an afternoon.  It was about five miles round trip, up and around the mountain to a spot with some pretty impressive hoodoos.  The main trail took us to the top so we could look down on them, and then a shorter shoot of the trail took us down to the riverbed to get the view from the bottom.  On the flats before we started climbing the mountain, we discovered that the campground wasn’t always lame, and that at some point there had been a standard national park campground with wooded campsites off loops with latrines and water, although it has apparently been abandoned for at least a few seasons.  We suspect they just dragged the picnic tables from the old campground to the new parking lot campground since most of the picnic tables at the current campground look pretty well used.  

We left the Hoodoo Creek campground the next morning, heading directly through the park on the Trans-Canada Highway.  We decided not to do any of the activities off the highway, because one of the roads was not recommended for vehicles over 21’, and the other area of the park required reservations for hikes.  But, that didn’t even matter, because we found plenty to see, with our first stop being the Natural Bridge.  From there we took a walk around the village of Field, and then continued northwest.

Our next stop was probably our favorite thing to see in Yoho, and that was mostly based on totally accidental perfect timing.  We had seen that the Spiral Tunnels were one of the sights to see, so we stopped to take a look.  We were surprised how many people were there, and then we found out that it was crowded because a train was about to go through the pass and use the tunnels.  We found a good vantage point and waited with the rest of the crowd, and we were not disappointed.  In the video below, the train cars you see moving in three different directions are all part of the same train.  The photo is a fairly clear map of how the tracks run through the tunnel.  It’s an engineering marvel, and I don’t know if I would have believed it was real if I hadn’t seen it in real life.  So, if you ever get to Yoho, stop at the Spiral Tunnels and wait for a train!

When the train passed, we continue up the hill to the Continental Divide, which is the Yoho/Banff park boundary, as well as the Alberta/British Columbia provincial boundary.  

Canada’s Glacier National Park changed our definition of what a national park should be.  After driving through Banff, we had figured the Canadian national parks were pretty much the same as the US national parks.  Yes, Kootenay was much less crowded, but it’s just a small skinny park running along a river.  Canada’s Glacier NP is about the same size as the US Glacier NP, but the experience was completely different and, sad to say, to our minds, better.  The access road for the Canadian Glacier National Park is the Trans-Canada Highway, but despite the easy access, the park was much less crowded than the larger US parks.  We drove to the Illecillewaet campground, and found a spot right on the river without reservations.  The campground is at a trailhead for a whole series of trails in that area of the park, so we were able to take a short walk around the Glacier House ruins with the dogs, and then take a longer walk down the old rail bed that used to run to Glacier House.  One difference between the US parks and the Canadian parks is that the Canadians don’t get so wound up about dogs, and leashed dogs are allowed on almost all of the trails.  However, we still elected to leave the dogs in the camper, and we were glad we did because we saw a number of people with their dogs on the trail, and it would have been a bark fest with Ty.

We booked the campsite for two nights so we could take a longer hike up one of the mountains the next day.  However, it started raining sometime in the night, and was still showering steadily for most of the next morning.  We spent the morning doing inside things, and when the clouds parted after lunch we decided to take the hike anyway, figuring that with sunset well after 9PM, we weren’t going to get stuck in the dark.  We strapped on the bear spray, left the dogs in the camper, and started the climb up the mountain to Avalanche Crest.  We climbed 1,890 feet in just a little over two miles, and used the many magnificent views as a reason to stop and take photos.  With all the beautiful sights we’ve seen in our year of traveling through amazing national parks, the scenery in Glacier easily surpassed anything we’d seen, and we both said “wow” at pretty much every turn of the trail.  It probably helped that the weather was still very changeable, so we had all sorts of interesting light as the sun sent rays through breaks in the clouds onto the glaciers below, but this backfired in the end because it started to rain in earnest when we were at about mile 2.25 of 3 miles on the way to the crest.  At this point we were climbing up a stream bed of slick rocks, so we did something we rarely do and decided to turn around before reaching the end of the trail.  The climb down was definitely slippery, so we were ultimately glad that we’d decided to turn back and made it down safely.  

The next morning, before leaving for Yoho, we took the dogs for a walk around the Glacier House ruins, imagining what it much have been like to be dropped off at a grand hotel along a river surrounded by glaciers.  Nothing remains of the hotel but stone and cement foundations, but enough of the ruin remains that it’s easy to imagine staying in the hotel and looking at the views as you listen to the river.  The hotel closed after only about 30 years of business because the train tracks were moved to a tunnel after avalanches kept blocking the tracks, and many people lost their lives trying to clear the tracks.  Once the tracks didn’t run right by the hotel, people started going to hotels in Banff and Lake Louise that were still right off the rail line, and Glacier House closed.  

​Since we had spent a day and a half at Radical Diesel hanging out with decent cell reception, we’d tried to make plans.  But, because we weren’t quite sure what was going on with the truck, we couldn’t make reservations.  This area of Canada has a clump of national parks, and while they’re not directly in a line, we planned a route that would allow us to see Banff, Kootenay, Glacier, Yoho, and Jasper.  The Canadian National Parks system in this part of Canada seems to have been created to preserve land made accessible by Canada’s Rt. 1, better known as the Trans-Canada Highway, and this highway and a few off-shoots are the parks’ access roads - which makes the parks very accessible.  Banff even has entry kiosks on Rt. 1 as you enter the park so you can purchase your park pass if you don’t have the system access pass.  Because we had purchased the access pass at Waterton, we were able to bypass the kiosks and directly enter the park.  The campgrounds in this part of Banff are reservation only, and you must reserve at least two days prior to when you want to stay, so we had planned to stop and see some sights in Banff, and then head on to Kootenay, where all the campgrounds have at least some first come first served sites.  However, Banff was much more like the major US National Parks, crawling with people and slow moving cars.  We took in the view from the highway, and kept driving, knowing we’ll pass nearby again after Yoho and we can decide then if we want to stop to see anything.


We got off Rt. 1 onto Rt.93, which is the Kootenay NP access road.  Large pulloffs with plenty of parking are every few miles, so it’s easy to find a trail head or scenic point.  We went to the McLeod Meadows Campground, which is right on the Kootenay River, has a good hiking trail right by the campground, and is close to Radium Hot Springs, which we wanted to see.  Three loops are FCFS, so we found a spot in the loop nearest the river and the trail head, although when we took the dogs for a walk we found that the other two loops were almost deserted.  After we walked the dogs, we hiked to Dog Lake, which was about 4 miles round trip, up and over a hill across the river to the lake.

The next day, we drove into Radium Hot Springs, which is a fairly substantial town with lots of gas stations, a nice grocery store, and bunches of hotels, restaurants, and other tourist oriented businesses.  Someone in Calgary had recommended checking out the Fairmont Hot Springs before going to Radium, so we drove about 20 miles south and did that.  Fairmont Hot Springs is part of a resort with a hotel, ski area, and a bunch of outfitters for horseback riding, kayaking, rafting, and anything else you might want to do outdoors.  We only did the hot springs, which is two large pools with one about body temperature, and the other about 10 degrees F warmer.  I was pleasantly surprised by how clean the pools were, because there were a lot of people in the pools, and they were advertised as no chemicals added.  We discovered the reason for this when we got out; hot spring water is constantly flowing from the spring through the pools, and every night they completely empty the pools and let them refill overnight.  We were told by someone who goes there regularly that the locals like to go hang out by the stream where the pools drain every night to see the giant temporary waterfall.  The original hot springs are up the hill, with a small building with three private baths, and the natural pools.  ​

​We left Fairmont and went back to Radium Hot Springs.  We saw some big horned sheep on the road, and then went through the canyon to the Hot Springs building.  We decided not to do any more hot spring soaking, and were glad we had gone to Fairmont since one of the Radium pools was closed.  We also don’t know if Radium drains and refills them every day, although the Radium pools also looked very clean.  We returned to the campground and prepared to leave the next morning for Canada’s Glacier National Park.

We spent 12 days in Missoula.  Tom finished the project he was working on in Belize around 4pm on Friday, the new fan for the toilet arrived in the mail on Friday, and Lisa got home Friday evening.  So, we made plans to head for Glacier NP on Saturday morning.


Glacier NP is almost due north of Missoula, and it was an easy drive on wide open Montana roads.  We’d had a pizza dinner with Lisa and Stash the night before, and Stash had warned us that Glacier was requiring vehicle reservations to enter the park.  We looked on line about getting a reservation, but it seemed too complicated so we decided to deal with it after we got to the park.  We pulled up at the west entrance near Apgar, and saw the giant signs saying vehicle reservations were required between 6am and 3pm, and to expect lines to enter the park after 3pm.  It was already close to 2pm, so we drove about 7 miles from the entrance to a disbursed campsite we found on iOverlander to have lunch and make a plan.  The plan we made was to eat lunch, leave the scooter at the campsite to make sure it would still be open, and go into the park after 3pm to talk to somebody about our options.  

The line to get into the park wasn’t as bad as we anticipated from the dire warning on the sign, and a ranger was standing near the end of the line and letting anyone who has an America the Beautiful National Parks Access Pass bypass the line, so we didn’t wait at all.  We tucked ourselves into the last available RV parking space and went to the visitor center, where there was a long line at the manned information kiosk.  As we were deciding what to do, a shuttle pulled up and the driver got out, and since it was late in the day nobody was waiting there to get on the shuttle, Tom approached the driver to ask if we would be allowed to ride our bikes into the park the next day without a vehicle reservation, and she said yes.  Then she told us that a better plan would be to just get to the park before 6am, and because we have the access pass, we could just come in and park and be in the park for the day.  We wanted to see the Going to the Sun Road, and our camper is too big anyway, so we had planned to park and ride on the free shuttle.  She told us the shuttles start at 7am, and it’s better to get on an early shuttle because the lines get longer later in the day, so we’d only have to wait an hour anyway if we entered the park before 6am.​

This was a brilliant plan.  We went back to the campsite which was also a trailhead for a trail running into the National Forest, and took a very scenic walk.  We had an early dinner and went to bed with the alarm set for 4:45am.  We packed up the camper and left the campsite and drove into the park around 5:15.  We were among the first vehicles in the park, so we parked in an RV spot and had breakfast.  By the time we cleaned up and walked the dogs it was getting close to 6:30, so we got in the shuttle line.  The driver was absolutely correct about the lines, and even that early we were on the second shuttle, although each shuttle carries only 15 passengers since big vehicles don’t fit on the road.

​We spent the day exploring the park along the Going to the Sun Road.  The shuttle took us directly to the Logan Pass Visitor Center, where we hiked the very accessible trail to the Hidden Lake Overlook.  Even at 8am the parking lot was almost full, and a lot of people were on the trail.  The trail is some boardwalk and some very smooth gravel, but even with all the people who are obviously there all the time, we saw a lot of wildlife.  I found out that I’m apparently a marmot whisperer, since both the large hoary marmots and the smaller Colombian ground squirrels approached me for some reason.  It was odd enough that other hikers noticed and asked if I had peanuts in my pocket, which I didn’t, and all I could think was that I hoped the bears wouldn’t find me equally appealing.  We also saw big horned sheep and mountain goats, and lots of birds.  I fortunately didn’t find out about bears because the trail was closed after the lookout due to bear activity, so we didn’t see a bear.

​After the hike at Logan Pass, we got back on the shuttle and headed west on the Going to the Sun Road.  We got off at the St. Mary Falls stop, and hiked to the St. Mary Falls and the beautiful Virginia Falls, which was an out and back.  We then passed the St. Mary Falls stop and hiked down to the beach of the lake for lunch, then hiked past St. Mary Falls shuttle stop to go see Baring Falls.  We picked up the shuttle to head back to Apgar at Sunrift Gorge, and started the long ride back to the west entrance.

​Like many of the other major national parks we’ve visited, Glacier is at a crossroads between keeping the park accessible, managing huge crowds of people, and not disturbing the natural history of the area.  The reservation system I mentioned above is part of it, and the free shuttles are also part of the effort.  However, they’re still figuring out the logistics, and the shuttle system was frustrating at the end of a long and tiring day of hiking.  The shuttle from Sunrift Gorge to Logan Pass was fine, and had room for us.  We had to change shuttles at Logan Pass to continue west, and then again at Avalanche to get all the way to Apgar.  These west bound shuttles from Logan Pass were a nightmare.  There were too few shuttles and too many people, and everybody thought they had some good reason to get on the next shuttle.  We were among the first few people at the Logan Pass stop, but there wasn’t a line, so when a shuttle pulled up, people who had just walked up would go in front of us.  We waited politely for two shuttles, then decided we needed to put our Belize bus riding skills to use, and when we saw the next bus coming we elbowed our way to the curb and boarded.  That bus got us to Avalanche, where the situation repeated itself, although this time we made sure we stayed near the boarding spot even when the crowd got pushy.  We finally got back to the camper around 4:30, and headed back to the same campsite as the previous night, which was fortunately still open.  We decided to not do the early morning thing again, and made a vehicle reservation for the Two Medicine entrance at the other side of the park, as well as reserving a campsite at the St. Mary entrance for the next night.

The drive to the Two Medicine entrance wasn’t as stress free as we had expected.  It was scenic and easy driving from the West Entrance to the East Glacier Park Railroad Depot, but then the road to Two Medicine was signed as prohibiting vehicles over 21 feet in length.  We’re 24 feet, so Tom continued driving on Rt. 2 and I looked at the map to see if we could approach from the north.  Only one road goes by Two Medicine, and the north approach looked worse than the south approach, so we did a U turn and went back to the Railroad Depot.  I looked at the campground limitations for RV size, and they allowed campers up to 40’, so we figured vehicles over 21’ must be able to get to Two Medicine, but Tom went into a hotel in town to ask.  The desk clerk told him big delivery trucks and RVs go up that road all the time, so we went.  It wasn’t a problem in the end, and a much longer vehicle could have easily navigated the four miles to the Two Medicine turnoff, but we decided we’d retrace our steps at the end of the day and come out the same way.  ​

​We found Two Medicine to be much less crowded than the Going to the Sun Road areas of the park, but it was still a trick to park.  The rangers were very helpful and were letting people park pretty much wherever they fit, and we found a spot in a ragged line of cars parking tail in along the side of the road.  We took a nine mile hike, all the way around the Two Medicine Lake for which the area is named, and saw two waterfalls.  As usual, we talked to people along the trail, and were surprised to find that people were recognizing us and our vehicle, and asking questions after we responded positively to the “Are you the people from Belize with the big colorful camper?” question.  So much for stealth.

​After the hike, we headed east to avoid the 21’ limit road, and then north to the St. Mary entrance of the park where we had reserved a campsite.  That drive also took longer than expected because we hit a thunderstorm as well as construction delays, but we found the entrance and the campground with our campsite without any problems.  The campground is surrounded by mountains, and although the weather was gray and cloudy, it was beautiful.  We had planned to take a walk there in the morning, but it was still raining, so we packed up and headed for Alberta and Waterton Lakes NP, which abuts Glacier NP in Montana and is considered the other part of the International Peace Park.

​We could have driven across the border within the park, but because we’d been diligent about using all of our produce so we wouldn’t have to throw it away at the border, we went to the border crossing on the road to Cardston.  We were a little worried about the border crossing between traveling with all of our food, the dogs and cat, and using our US passports while crossing in a Belize plated vehicle.  When we got to the border, we had only a small bag of carrots and one lemon, and we had all of the paperwork for the animals and the vehicle ready.  We pulled up to the kiosk, and the officer asked us where we were going and if we were carrying any firearms.  We told him we were heading for Alaska, and didn’t have any firearms, and he asked about bear spray.  Tom told him we had one canister of bear spray, and two small canisters of pepper spray.  That was what prevented us from just driving right on through, because they didn’t care about anything other than the small pepper sprays, which are considered concealed weapons and are illegal in Canada.  In the end, it was just a convenient rest stop, since all we had to do was give them the two small pepper sprays, get a receipt, use the rest room, and we were on our way.  They never even asked about produce, or wanted to see papers for the animals or the vehicle, and were very friendly about the whole process.  We drove into Cardston and found a grocery store and restocked before heading for Waterton Lakes.

​We stopped at the entrance of Waterton Lakes and purchased our Canada National Parks pass and drove into the village of Waterton.  We hadn’t done a lot of research on this side of the International Peace Park, and were pleasantly surprised to find that it was much less crowded than the US side.  We easily found a place to park on a village street, and got out to walk around.  We went to the visitor center to see what there was to do in the park and what the deal was with camping, and found a very helpful ranger who not only explained the park, but also explained general camping and boondocking rules in Alberta and British Columbia.  We walked through the village and along the lakeshore with the dogs, until we saw a storm brewing in the valley south of the village.  We retreated to the camper and headed for the Belly River Campground which had been recommended by the ranger.

​The Belly River Campground is a National Park primitive campground, with 24 sites with no amenities other than bear proof garbage bins.  It’s first come first serve, and it turned out to be a good thing that we got there relatively early in the afternoon.  We had our choice of sites, and found a nice spot along the river, but by dark most if not all of the sites were full.  It’s honor system self pay, and it seemed like everybody there was following the rules.  The campground is only a few kilometers from the in-park border crossing, so a lot of the people there had either just crossed into Canada, or were on their way out but had to spend another night because of the weirdness of the uncoordinated open hours of the border crossing, where the immigration and customs offices open and close at different hours on either side of the border.  I forget which is which, but one closes at 6PM and one at 10PM, so depending on your nationality and which way you’re heading, you might be able to cross until 10PM, or you might be stuck where you are at 6PM.  But, it’s all pretty laid back and nobody really cares, so everybody just relaxed at the campground.

The next morning we drove back to Waterton and took a hike to Bertha Falls.  The trails certainly weren’t empty, but they weren’t as crowded as the hiking trails in Glacier NP.  The waterfall and the views of the valley from the mountainside were well worth the hike, and we met a couple who drove to Alaska last year, and had lots of tips and advice for us, which really made it worth it.  We got back to the camper in time to eat lunch and take the dogs for a short walk around the village, where we saw more wildlife in the form of ground squirrels and semi-aggressive deer than we had seen on the mountain hike.  ​

​Our next stop was Calgary.  We still weren’t entirely happy with how the truck was running, and the tuner Tom had been working with from Missouri was getting frustrated because it’s difficult to tune it remotely.  He had recommended finding a shop that could do it, so Tom had called our friend Mike who knows people in the area to see if Mike had any recommendations.  Mike’s guy didn’t do it, but recommended another shop.  Tom talked to the shop, who seemed to know what they were talking about, so Tom made an appointment for the next morning.  We drove to Calgary and parked in their lot for the night so we’d be there first thing in the morning.  It was strange to spend a night in a city industrial park after half a week in national parks, but it was actually pretty peaceful.  Working on the truck in the morning was a little weird, because most of the work happened on a computer in the shop while we hung out in the camper in the parking lot.  Just after lunch, they installed the tune on the truck, and we headed for Banff.  However, we got about 50 miles out, and there were still a few things that weren’t quite right, so we turned around and headed back to Radical Diesel so they could tune the tune the next morning.  We spent another night in the parking lot, and the next morning’s tune was a lot quicker.  We were on the road and heading west shortly after 10AM