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Phase One

Madison - Glacier Park – Banff Park – Yoho Park – Jasper Park – Vancouver

June 15 – July 5

I packed up the car and drove by myself for three days to Glacier National Park, where I camped for two nights. The glaciers are almost all gone from the park, and they are estimating that in a few years they will completely vanish. The one glacier I saw was very unimpressive. Though there are hardly any glaciers left, the park was still very scenic with many majestic mountains and impressive glacier fed alpine lakes. Unfortunately, I was limited as to what I could see in the park. Even though it was late June, the part of the road passing through the higher elevations was still snowed in. So I was only able to do the lower elevation hikes. I did one hike to a glacier lake and another one to a series of waterfalls.

On one of the hikes, I saw a family of bears cross a trail I just walked on 20 seconds previously. At the time I thought it was very cute. I was not yet aware of how utterly paranoid I needed to be about coming in contact with bears. We were later informed that on rare occasion hikers are killed by bears. We were instructed how to react if we came in contact with a bear and if it became aggressive. As a last resort we were told to spray them with bear spray, which is a strong chemical that you do not want to come floating back into your face.

I have to be honest, when I heard this, it totally freaked me out. So we chose to only hike trails that had lots of people on them. And whenever I saw someone carrying bear spray, I made it a point to try to keep them in sight. Even on the popular trails, we would be often by ourselves. On these occasions we were instructed that before every blind turn we were to clap our hands and yell out “Yo, bear”. This is because bears are only threatening when you startle them. If they know in advance that you are coming, they usually get out of the way.

Rising Sun Campground

Saint Mary Lake

After Glacier, I drove to Calgary to pick up Sandra at the airport. Our first stop of our adventure was Banff National Park where we camped for four nights. Banff is a long lush valley surrounded by impressive jagged mountains, most still having snow on top. Because Banff is so far north, and because we were there at the time of the Summer Solstice, sunsets were at around 10:00. This took a little getting used to.

It was completely sunny only one of the days we were there. The rest of the time it rained at least four hours a day. What a drag. It was good we had the big tent. Sandra said that if we were in a small cramped tent, she would have insisted we get a hotel room.

At the campsite we were given more bear instructions. Everything with a scent, including toiletries the utensils, and the grill we cooked on, had to be locked in the car. The food preparation and eating areas had to be completely cleaned every time we ate, and the tiniest piece of garbage had to be collected and disposed of in bear proof garbage containers. After a while this became very tiresome. For example, I went to bed one night with a bottle of scented body wash still in my pants pocket. After realizing this, I had to jump out of the warm bed into the cold night to put in the car. I had no intentions of waking up with a bear in the tent.

We lucked out and were able to complete all of our hikes between outbursts of rain. We hiked to the top of a small mountain overlooking the city of Banff, through an amazing canyon with waterfalls, and our longest and most incredible hike to the Plain of Six Glaciers. The seven mile round trip hike began at Lake Louise which is a huge pristine glacier fed lake. We could see the glaciers we were to be hiking to far off in the distance framed perfectly behind the long lake. The trail began by hugging the lake through a lush forest. On the other side of the lake it began it's rise of 1,200 feet and quickly the terrain changed to a rocky mountainside void of any vegetation. This allowed us to have great unobstructed views of the glaciers above and the lake below. Twice along the trail we needed to cross snow fields, one of which was quite steep. Sandra found the experience to be exhilarating, while I was scared silly. The trail finally reached a mountain tea house. This tea house which was built in the 20s, was based on the old Swiss model, and was a total delight to experience after a long hard hike.

Even though I love to camp, and that this was the most luxurious camping I ever experienced, three to four nights in a single stretch appears to be my limit. Sandra whole heartedly agreed with this. So for our next destination, it was so nice getting a cabin with a comfy bed and indoor kitchen and plumbing.

Tunnel Mountain Hike

Plain of Six Glaciers Hike

Johnson Canyon Hike

Plain of Six Glaciers Tea House

After Banff National Park, we drove to Yoho National Park for two nights. Yoho is yet another beautiful area with majestic mountains towering above a valley floor. This park which is off to the side of Banff, is much smaller and less traveled than its big brother, but it is still worth seeing . In Yoho we did two hikes to waterfalls. One of them, the Takakkaw falls was by far the biggest we saw on the trip. We could hear and see it from far away, and when we finally got close to the falls, we had to turn back because we were getting sprayed with cold water.

After Yoho we backtracked to Banff and then proceeded straight north to Jasper National Park. Jasper is on the other side of the mountain range, so it was much drier there. Because of this the vegetation therewas much sparser, and was made up of different species. The drive to Jasper was totally breathtaking, and consisted of a variety of topographies at different elevations going up and then going down on the other side, including the massive Athabasca Glacier at the very top. It is probably one of the prettiest roads I have ever been on. Jasper itself is yet again, another picturesque valley. Even though all three valleys we visited had the same basic type of views and offered similar hikes, we felt that each of the three valleys had their own unique identity and were worth exploring individually.

Wapta Falls Hike

Takakkaw Falls Hike

Old Fort Point Hike

Athabasca Falls

Valley of the Five Lakes Hike

Maligne Canyon Hike

In Vancouver we stayed four nights at an Airbnb. Vancouver is an awesome city with waterfront and mountain views where ever you turn. It is considered by many to be the most livable city in the western hemisphere. One of the attributes of this city is that it is very pedestrian friendly.. We decided to take advantage of this and only visited one museum, on this trip. We usually average a museum a day. on our vacations. Also, being it was sunny our whole time we were there, we spent the rest of our time walking through the neighborhoods and parks of the city. The most interesting was the Main Street area which boasts over 60 impressive street murals.

Granville Island's Giants

Museum of Anthropology

Main Street Mural

House Boats

As you can tell from my writings, we spent a lot of our trip on the go. This is very different than our average life style. And to tell the truth, after three weeks of our active vacation, I was worn-out and ready to go home and relax.

To give you an idea of how our vacations days compare to our stay at home days, Sandra wears a fitbit to monitor her activities including footsteps. It is recommended for optimal wellbeing to do at least 10,000 steps a day. On days she does not go to the gym, Sandra averages around 5,000 steps. Most of the year, I probably do not do any better than she does. Even on the one or two days a week she goes to the gym, she only averages around 10,000 steps. On this last trip we averaged 21,100 steps, with our most active day being 36,500, which is around 15 miles. I’m tired just thinking about it.