Waterton Lakes National Park

Today was a travel day to Waterton Lakes National Park. The town was a total mess with construction and very poor signage. We went in the same loop 2 times before we stumbled across the temporary National Park visitor center on some back street. I went in and was give a map of the town and how to get to the campground. The town is only 4 blocks by 4 blocks but what a mess.

Not one sign leading to the campground. Without the map we would never have found it. 

The campground is brand new. Canada is putting money into their parks and rebuilding the parks for todays campers. Canada is rebuilding a 400 site campground in Jasper, was suppose to be done this year. We had driven past it and thought they were dreaming. Today it was announced that the campground would be closed another year.

The location of the Waterton campground and the town is right on the lake. Views of the mountains all around.  

A waterfall next to the campground

Some of our daily visitors

The next few days we had planned to do a few nice drives and small hikes. Plans are useless. There was a major forest fire last year that melted the roads and they are closed until rebuilt. Then we decided to go for the boat ride on the lake, high winds had that closed down. We need to put this park back on our list for future years.  

Waterton Lakes Lodge

Driving to Banff from Jasper

Today we left for Banff from Jasper. The weather looked pretty good, encountered some fog 5 miles down the road but the weather cleared up at 50-75 miles. Once we were out of the fog the scenery really improved. Drive was easy, not much traffic which surprised us as this was Monday of Labour Day weekend in Canada. Once to get to Banff we need gas, dump the tanks and get water. There was a long line in our Jasper campground so we decided to wait until we were in Banff.  

The drive down the Icefields Parkway to Banff was not as spectacular as it was 17 years ago, so much has changed.

Low clouds do add some interest

Always need to watch for animals

We call this glacier poop, looks like the rocks were placed

We arrived at Banff and went into town to get gas. The one thing we don't understand in both Banff and Jasper is why the only gas stations are in the center of town, not much space for any RV. If we were in an area with few RVs I could understand, but there are RVs coming and going on a constant basis. We filled up, stopped traffic across 3 lanes so we could get out and proceeded to the campground. 

We asked for a better site for our solar than what we had reserved. No problem and we ended up in a pretty good site, still with a lot of trees so our solar worked but we still had to run the generator during generator times.

After we checked out the site we dropped the car and drove back to the  RV dump. This is always a 30-minute process so we were happy there was no line. Did all this and called it a day.

9/3

Laundry and a local drive to Bow Falls on the Bow River. Both Jasper and Banff is tourist land and is no joy to drive around. Traffic all over, not much parking, hard to get around, etc. etc. 

An Elk on our drive

Bow Falls

Fairmont Banff Springs

With the number of RVs you would think it would also be more RV friendly for gas and diesel, it is not. 3 gas stations, all downtown and all tight to navigate.

Even the laundromats in both towns are downtown with no parking. Luckily I found one in Banff that was on the outskirts. Restaurants are the same, all in downtown, none on the outskirts.

Banff is gorgeous. It is nestled in the mountains with high peaks surrounding it.

9-4/7

Today we drove up to Lake Louise via a secondary road. Thought we would stop at Johnston Falls, no parking, and this was early. Lovely day for a drive. Lake Louise had no parking so we just turned around. We will stay out of tourist areas from now on, plenty of other things to see and visit.

9-8/9

Today was a travel day to Waterton Lakes National Park. The town was a total mess with construction and very poor signage. We went in the same loop 2 times before we stumbled across the temporary National Park visitor center on some back street. I went in and was give a map of the town and how to get to the campground. The town is only 4 blocks by 4 blocks but what a mess.

Not one sign leading to the campground without the map we would never have found it. The campground is brand new. Canada is putting money into their parks and rebuilding the parks for today's campers. Canada is rebuilding a 400 site campground in Jasper, was suppose to be done this year. We had driven past it and thought they were dreaming. Today it was announced that the campground would be closed another year.

The location of the campground and the town is right on the lake. Views of the mountains all around.  

The next few days we had planned to do a few nice drives and small hikes. Plans are useless. There was a major forest fire last year that melted the roads and they are closed until rebuilt. Then we decided to go for the boat ride on the lake, high winds had that closed down. We need to put this park back on our list for future years.   

Drive to Jasper and Jasper

Friday-Saturday 8/23-24

Easy drive to Valemount, British Columbia, 75 miles west of Jasper. We had been to this campground previously so planned to do laundry, dump, get propane, etc. We know the campgrounds in Jasper have no services.   

Sunday 8/25

Today we drove to Jasper and planned to stop at Wapiti Campground. The sign said Full. This phased Tom but not me. The ranger confirmed they were full but gave us a map to the overflow area to stay the night. Told us to come back tomorrow at 8 AM to get a first-come, first-serve site. We essentially had to drive the entire campground to turn around. As we were driving out she waved us down and said someone had canceled. We paid for our site, had to drive several miles outside the park before we found a turnaround spot again.

We went to our site, not very level but, surprisingly, we had 30a electric. Totally unexpected. We did notice the sites further own were better so we talked to a rig there, found out they were leaving the next day. The couple were from Edmonton and we hit it off, talked for several hours and enjoyed each other. We hope our paths will cross again. Drove back to the ranger station and tried to “reserve” that site. No go had to show up at 8 AM the next day.

We had a surprise tonight. An Elk heard showed up in the playground/picnic area across from us. The Ranger was as a program was scheduled. Another ranger showed up to help protect the Elk. The kids were told to leave the campground, the picnickers had to give up on their picnic. One left behind some items that the Elk promptly ate. Elk hung around for 1-2 hours. 

Keeping an eye on things, maybe 20' from us

He gathered his harem and they all left

George watching the excitement

Monday 8/26

Next day we showed up at 8 AM and joined a line of 5 people looking for a site. She recognized me, opened the window and asked if we had a site number. Told her 21 and the gal next to me wanted our site 18. She made a note to hold those 2 sites, took care of everyone ahead of us. The gal who wanted our site and I walked up to the window together. Everything worked out fine. We both ended up with sites and were happy. 

This park is very unusual, if you cancel early you can get a refund with no extra charges. Never heard of that before. Knowing this, we signed up for 8 nights. We don't like traveling on weekends and this is Labour Day weekend in CA. We are in an especially in high tourist areas and our next stop will be Banff. Another high tourist area. 
 

We didn’t do much our first day in camp, kept raining on and off. The next day we moved to our new site, much better and this site had 50a electricity, a rare find. The first-come, first-serve sites all have electricity. The reservable sites have no amenities. OK, they are in the woods and have big sites. We are in essentially a parking lot and a bit cozy. No one is around during the day, everyone comes in at supper, eats, sleeps leaves again.

One additional benefit for Tom, he had satellite service for the first time in months. We have had no TV most of the time in BC and AK. He suffered withdrawal pains.

Tuesday 8/26 

Headed North from Jasper, beautiful valley drives with a few side roads to explore. We also checked out the overflow parking that we almost ended up at for one night. Not bad. Wide-open, great views, level sites. Just no hookups.

As usual, this was a drive of visual beauty.

The overflow campground

Bald Eagle just hanging out

Punch Bowl Falls, looking down from the top, 3 punch bowls

Wednesday 8/27

Heavy fog this morning. Great day to clean the inside windows. I was all set up to clean and noticed the fog was lifting. Cancel window cleaning, off we go exploring.

Today we headed south toward Banff. We like to travel from a base camp 50-75 miles in any direction. We also like to go to our furthest point first and work our way back. We didn’t do that because we could see the fog further down the valley.

All the brown trees you see is damage from Pine Bark Beetles, pure devestation.

There are 2 roads south, the main Icefields Parkway(93) and a side road that parallels 93 called 93a. We took 93a but it was foggy, we hoped we would drive out of it and we did. There are several side roads to take so we took them and these were well worth it.

Each day the scenery is amazing.

Fog down the rod

After we took the side roads we started heading south again but the fog didn't lift so when 93a intersected with 93 we headed back to camp. The weather was clear north of amp was clear so did some additional drives.

8/28

Today south had clear weather so we headed south again. We stopped along the way as we saw some weather south of us and thought we might need to turn around again. We made it as far as Columbia Glacier, our planned turnaround point.

Athabasca Falls

8/29-9/1

We just puttered around camp, very cloudy with some rain. Went food shopping, did some research on Banff, our next stop. We had a reservation in Banff, a much more popular park than Jasper. I was reviewing the reservation and saw it was for a tent, no big deal. Many times all the sites are pretty much the same size. The CSR never asked what size rig we had.

I decided to check with Banff Reservation and discovered our site was too small for us. After many random calls to different people, changes in the reservation several times(each time a charge) we had a spot in a different campground. I then asked for a credit for the “change” fees. I explained to the CSR the history of my morning and she called someone in charge of refunds. She then told me I would hear from them but if I didn’t call again and she gave me my reservation number for the refund. Said it would be 5-10 days.

We lucked out. The supervisor heard our CSR call and realized we had a big mess with our reservation. The supervisor called back 2 hours later and gave us a full refund for our fees since it was their error. Yeh!!! The supervisor actually listened to the recordings of all our conversations with reservations! Wow!