Banff to Calgary to Montana

July 12 through 14, 2022

After so many days of sightseeing in Banff, we finally got a chance to relax in Calgary. Thanks to an old friend of Art's, we had a lovely lunch near Prince's Island and got an insider's tour of (part of) the city. We enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather and the fact that most of the tourists were at the annual Calgary Stampede (we decided to pass on that for Covid safety 😉). One of the day's highlights was, believe it or not, the chance to do laundry (for free) at our hotel. The timing was perfect!

Wednesday morning we headed south toward the Canada-US border. On the advice of a local taxi driver in Banff, we decided to stop off at Waterton Lakes National Park near the border in Alberta. We loved the Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, a beautiful waterfront UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as the snow-capped mountains and blue-green lakes. Added more to my hundreds of photos 📷

Next stop was the Canada-US border crossing at Piegan / Carway. We arrived around 7pm, only to discover that the border had closed at 6pm (who knew? certainly not Google). No worries, we would just need to continue on to the next border crossing... which turned out to be over 90 miles away! It made for a very long night of driving and we finally pulled into our (spooky dark) motel at 11pm, completely exhausted. We were lucky the motel was still open; the check-in desk was only staffed until 9pm but they left the key for us in our door (somehow that was safe?). So, if you are ever planing to cross the border, you have been forewarned: be sure to double-check the hours of operation 😞 Our motel is a far cry from the top "notch" hotels we had during our Canadian Rockies journey but hey it has wifi (which made Art very happy!) even though we're out in remote Montana.

Happily today was filled with wonderful scenic drives, winding hikes, and gorgeous vistas around Glacier National Park (which allowed us to use our National Parks pass one last time this year, and which had been on my national parks bucket list for a long time!). We got to experience temps high in the 80's, and then down in the 60's, as we climbed in elevation along the Going-to-the-Sun Road up to Logan Pass. And we got to touch snow in July! Apparently there's snowfall in northwest Montana almost every month of the year. See below for a small selection of my photos. We are glad to have two more days here to further explore the beauty of this national park. 🌲

Deena and Art

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Waterton Lakes National Park

 

 

 

 

Glacier National Park