Day 3 – Banff National Park
November 7th, 2008 Posted in 2008 Alaska trip2008-06-16, Monday
McLeod Medows campground, Kootenay NP (09:42 MST) to Columbia Icefield campground, Jasper NP
It took us a bit of work to get the stuff packed in the morning, something I am sure we will get better as we go (more practice!). The weather is still pretty good but we can see more clouds now. On the way to Banff National Park we passed the British Columbia and Alberta border, which also happens to be the park border between Banff NP and Kootenay NP, and also the “Continental Divide”. That’s a lot of borders!
We stopped at Lake Louise Village to purchase day passes for the park. The Park Canada system is different than the US National Park system where if you pay for a one time pass it’s good for 7 days. They charge you park fee by the day here, the pass we bought will be valid for 3 days (CAN $58.80 total!).
We drove to Moraine Lake first, which is not too far (about 30 minutes on slow curvy road) from Lake Louise Village. By the time we get there it’s around lunch time so we made some wraps for lunch (left over Korean BBQ from previous night on tortilla wrap and greens). There are a lot of people here, but not so much that it feels crowded. We walked around the lake and took a really short trail up to an outlook by the lake and took some pretty cool pictures.
After Moraine Lake we went to Lake Louise and boy is this a tourist spot! The lake isn’t as pretty as Moraine Lake (I think anyway) but there are tons of people here! This is one of the “must stops” for tour group I guess. Also the nearby Fairmont Hotel is building some new building so there are lots of machinery and noises. The weather was getting more and more cloudy and we got some sprinkles of rains here and there. We did not stay too long. We went back to Lake Louise Village to get some salad and a 12-pack of coke since we ran out. We also picked up some “homemade” fudge. There’s always candy stores at tourist trap and we always feel like buying fudges. The weird thing is we normally don’t eat fudge at home, or even thinking about getting fudge. Since there is cell phone signal here I called dad and let him know we are doing okay. He knew where we are since he’s been following the SPOT tracking on hourly basis. We filled up the truck at the gas station and packed more ice and continue our journey.
Our next stop is Lake Herbert, it has a nice picnic area so we stopped to have some snacks and read up on the tour book about the park. The lake is sort of a sink as it has no visible outlet, we read that the water leaves via underground channels. After a brief rest we continue the drive and arrived at one of the road side scenic outlook – Crowfoot glacier. It says it was named crowfoot because it resembled the crow’s foot with 4 toes, but the lower toe retreated completely and the one above that is retreating as well, making it a really funny looking foot I guess. Maybe years later it’ll be named something else because it will not look like a crow foot anymore!
Peyto Lake is next, to get to the outlook it’s about 10-15 minutes from the passenger car parking lot. But if you are with a tour group on one of those big tour buses the parking lot is right next to the platform. David is not feeling well again and we suspect it’s from the Cheetos he ate earlier. No more Cheetos for him! He stayed at the parking lot (easy access to bathroom) while I hike to the overlook platform. The trail is pretty scenic and sections of it is a bit steep but managable. The lake is a turquoise color and is very pretty. The platform is packed with tourist and it’s almost too much work to stick around for long, as everyone is trying to get to the best viewing spot.
Our next stop takes us to Mistaya Canyon where the river cut thru a channel in the limestone surface and created a whole lot of gorges, potholes and arches on the canyon sides. It’s a 10 minutes easy walk. This would be a good place for lunch or picnic or just to enjoy the scenery. We spent about half an hour here just listening and watching the rushing water before hiking back up to the parking to continue the drive.
Not long after that we passed the checkpoint between Banff National Park and Jasper National Park. We arrived at Columbia Icefield Campground around 5pm and picked out a good campsite. Unlike the previous campground the self registration booth here does not take credit card and it seemed to expect campers to have exact change as the fees for some reason are not rounded up to the nearest dollar (probably due to GST). We decided that we are going to stay two nights here, since we plan to take the Icefield tour bus tomorrow and maybe hike Wilcox Peak the day after. Dinner is salad, Mexican steak and beans. We set up campfire after dinner and just sat around enjoying the view.
The campground is across the road from Columbia Icefield, we can easily see Athabasca Glacier from our campsite. There’s also a waterfall directly behind the campground.
Distance today: ???
No FJ spotted
Wildlife spotted: bear x5, elk x1