Glacier Park

After we leave Banff on Day 10, we head south, back to the US, to Glacier National Park. I have a whole day planned for the drive. On Day 11, we take the Going to The Sun Road. Here's what the NPS says about this road.

A Heritage for the Future
The construction of the Going-to-the-Sun Road was a huge undertaking. Even today, visitors to the park marvel at how such a road could have been built. The final section of the Going-to-the-Sun Road, over Logan Pass, was completed in 1932 after 11 years of work. The road is considered an engineering feat and is a National Historic Landmark. It is one of the most scenic roads in North America. The construction of the road forever changed the way visitors would experience Glacier National Park. Future visitors would drive over sections of the park that previously had taken days of horseback riding to see.

Just across the border, in Canada, is Waterton Lakes National Park. In 1931, members of the Rotary Clubs of Alberta and Montana suggested joining the two parks as a symbol of the peace and friendship between our two countries. In 1932, the United States and Canadian governments voted to designate the parks as Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park, the world's first. More recently the parks have received two other international honors. The parks are both Biosphere Reserves, and were named as a World Heritage Site in 1995. This international recognition highlights the importance of this area, not just to the United States and Canada, but to the entire world.

While much has changed since the first visitors came to Glacier, it is possible to relive some of Glacier’s early history. You can take a horseback ride like an early visitor. Miles of hiking trails follow routes first used by trappers in the early 1800's. Several hotels and chalets, built by the Great Northern Railway in the early 1900's, house summer guests to the park. A visit to Glacier National Park is still a great adventure!

I can't wait to see it...!!!

The Next Few Days...

On Day 5, we arrive in Banff, but I am not expecting us to see much other than the inside of the chalet we reserved. We will be exhausted from 30 to 35 hours on the road.  The road between Calgary and Banff is gorgeous and I'm glad we will be doing that in the day. I love to see the mountains in the distance, then have them get larger as wee drive closer. Before you know it, the mountains are looming above us and then we are in them. 

We have four days in Banff. I have not micro-managed them, but instead have chosen some activities for us to do. 

Walk on a glacier. http://www.explorerockies.com/columbia-icefield/

Go to the Calgary Stampede. http://calgarystampede.com/

Soak in the Hot Springs, http://www.pc.gc.ca/regional/sourcesthermales-hotsprings/itm2-/banff_e.asp

Take the gondola to the top of Sulphur Mountain http://www.explorerockies.com/banff-gondola/

Drive up to Jasper NP. http://www.pc.gc.ca/pn-np/ab/jasper/index_E.asp

Or course, walking through the town. http://www.banff.ca/home.htm

We leave on day 10 to drive back to the state. 

Watch for more...

Itinerary

Our trip is scheduled for twenty-one days. Over the next few blog posts, I will post a run-down of the days and what we have planned for that day. 

Day 1 -- Leave home and drive through Michigan to Sault Sainte Marie. We have friends in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan near Sault Ste Marie and we plan to get together for dinner.  We try to see our friends, Fred and Connie, about once every two or three years. Since it's a long drive, sometimes, more years than that go by before we make the drive to the Upper Pen. For the evening, we plan to show the family the locks and visit the museum.  We will spend the night in Sault Ste Marie. 

Day 2 --  Another long driving day. We leave the Soo for a trip around the northern shore of Lake Superior. Although the miles are about 400, the road is not an interstate, so speed is not fast. We have driving this before and we plan on spending eight hours driving. But what a drive! The northern shore of Lake Superior is gorgeous! Rugged wilderness, forests, and glimpses of the lake shore. Our day ends at Thunder Bay. 

Day 3 -- We take a break from two days of driving to spend the day sight-seeing in Thunder Bay. This city was created when the cities of Port Arthur and Fort William combined in 1970.  One sight to see is the Sleeping Giant, a peninsula of rock extending into the lake that resembles a giant laying on his back. Fort William, an historic trading fort, an amethyst mine, and Kakabeka Falls are also on the list of things to see. We spend a second night in Thunder Bay before heading out. 

Day 4 -- Westward Ho..!!  We leave Thunder Bay and head towards Winnipeg. Yes, it's a long drive; about eight hours. We plan to eat dinner in Winnipeg and see some of this prairie town. We leave after dinner and drive through the night and next day (Day 5) until we reach our destination of Banff. There, our chalet awaits..!  The drive from Thunder Bay to Banff is almost 1300 miles.  Pure drive time with no stops is about 24 hours. So, we have built in enough time to stop for food or other reasons.  We can check in after 3 pm on Day 5. 

More later. . . 

What Do You Want to See or Do?

I have posed that question to my family over and over again. What do you want to see? What do you want to do? 

This is not just ~my~ vacation; this is the family vacation. I don't want to be making all the decisions. 

One son wants to bathe in the hot springs in Yellowstone? Can we do that? Banff has natural hot springs. That the main reason the town is there.The railroad workers would bathe in the hot springs after their day was complete. The town and national park sprung up around the hot springs. In the town, one commercial area is available for "taking of the waters," the Upper Hot Springs. The Cave and Basin National Historic Site shows the history of the hot springs. In the plans is time for soaking in the hot springs. 

But what about Yellowstone? Hot springs abound in the park. Is there anywhere to bathe in the springs? Most books warned about staying on the paths so you don't get burned. Legend has it that fisherman use one hot spring to cook their fish. However, diligent reading has produced paydirt.

On the road from the north entrance of Yellowstone to the our lodging at Mammoth Hot Springs, a sign markes the Forty-fifth Parallel, the line of latitude midway between the equator and the North Pole.  If we take the trail that leads upstream a quarter mile to the Boiling River, a stream empties into the Gardner. Although the tributary itself is off-limits, people can soak in man-made pools surrounding the confluence. 

A natural hot tub... what could be better!

Scenic Drives

Going through the guidebooks has been very exciting, but one scenic drive caught my eye. This, we need to do.

The road that goes through Glacier NP is called "Going-to-the-Sun Road". Is that an awesome name or what?

From Fodor's, here is a description. This magnificent, 50 mile highway--a National Historic Civil Engeering Landmark--crosses the crest of the Continental Divide at Logon Pass and traverses the towering Garden Wall. Arguably the most beautiful drive in the country, Going-to-the-Sun Road connects Lake McDonald on the west side of Glacier with St. Mary Lake on the east. Turnoffs provide views of the high country and glacier-carved valleys.

The guidebook does warn the traveller that the drive is jammed packed with tourists in July and August... and we will be one of them..!

Hiking

I love hiking as long as I have something to look at during the hike, something interesting, not just trees and grass and shrubs. I like to look at mountains, waterfalls, lakes, etc.

I have been the Yellowstone NP guidebook and all the day hikes they have within the park. They have many beautiful hikes with lots of stuff to see. How does this one sound?

"Tucked away in the northwest corner of the Midway Geyser Basin, 197 ft Fairy Falls receives relatively few visitors, even though it's only a short jaunt from Old Faithful. Beyond Fairy Falls the lollilop loop trail continues to a hidden thermal area at the base of the Twin Buttes, to conspicuous bald hills severly charred in the 1988 fires. The geysers are undeveloped, and you're likely to have them to yourself - in stark contrast to the throngs around Grand Prismatic Spring."

Don't you want to go there? I can't wait!

Accommodations

After getting our itinerery set, my first concern is lodging in the national parks. As I suspected, lodging is at a premium. I was able to book four nights in Yellowstone and five nights in Banff. 

Last night, I booked two nights just near Glacier National Park. I am not concerned about Thunder Bay or Saute Sainte Marie. Neither of these cities are tourist towns and hotels and rooms are plentiful. We are only staying one or two nights. 

My next concern was the Blackhills of South Dakota. It seems there are plenty of hotels in the cities of Sturgis, Deadwood, Spearfish  and Rapid City and the area. Hubby doesn't want to book anything ahead of time. Even Fodor's guidebook says "Towns with services are plentiful, so you needn't worry about how much gas you've got in your tank or where you'll find a place to stay at night."

Also from the guidebook:

This region has the highest concentration of parks, monuments, and memorials in the United States qualifying the Blackhills and badlands as more than just a stopover on the way to and from the huge national parks of western Montana and Wyoming. 

So, we are probably set with accommodations for now. Next, planning our stay in each region.... what to do, what to see, where to hike.  Which book should I look at first? Yellowstone, Glacier, Banff, Jasper, Black Hills? So many trails, so much to see! 

The Planning Begins!

Planning a vacation is really fun...I think it's almost as fun as taking the vacation.

For planning, you get to pour over maps and choose destinations, read guidebooks and book hotel rooms.

So, the planning begins....

This July, our family embarks on a three week tour out west. We are driving from our house in Ohio to just over the continental divide in British Columbia and Montana and coming back.  We are driving out through Saute Sainte Marie, around the north shore of Lake Superior, to Thunder Bay. We get a day's break to explore the town before going west from there through Winnipeg, Saskatoon, and Calgary to Banff National Park where we will soak up the scenery for five days. 

Our drive turns south to Glacier National Park in Montana, then on to Yellowstone National Park for four days. We head east toward home, but not without a stop at Devil's Tower for a day. We plan a few days the Badlands of South Dakota and want to see the Mall of America in Minneapolis. 

Whew...! That itinerary should keep us busy driving. We will grab the cameras and post our adventure as we go. 

We have already done some planning and I just need to write down everything we have booked and decided. 

First thing was a calendar. We needed to plot out our twenty-one days. How much can we drive in a day? How far do we WANT to drive in one day? Where do we want to stay? Where can we afford to stay? What is on the "have to see" list? What is on the "nice to see" list. How much of both lists can we do? Lots of questions, lots of decisions to make. 

As we made decisions, more sights made it onto the "must see" list and some dropped off. We found we had to make some park lodge reservations quickly or miss them. 

We booked four days at the Mammoth Hot Springs Lodge at the north entrance of Yellostone National Pak. The rooms promise no amenities, no air conditioning or even attached bathrooms. Those are down the hall. But we will be in the park. Funny enough, these "rustic" lodging were all that were available in when we booked in Janauary. One guidebook suggested booking two months in advance for the busy months of July and August. Huh?  How about nine to ten months in advance. No, the book was not old; just published in 2008. 

I started looking at lodging in Banff and was shocked. Hubby and I had been there in the mid eighties and remember a quaint little town. Now this quaint town has become a huge tourist attraction and rooms were quite pricey... like, real expensive. Using a popular "cheap travel" website, I found rooms in the $150 to $250 per night price range...! Yikes..!

I kept looking, trying other websites, AAA, and Entertainment book. Then we started looking at hostels. Even those were pricey. If just one person is travelling, the cost for one bed per night was only $38. But multiply that by four, and for the same cost, you can rent a hotel room. 

Discouraged, I just kept looking every day. For what? A miracle? 

Then a miracle did happen. One of the travel website had a chalet for a great price. Was that real? All day, I kept checking and looking and the price was still there. It had not disappeared. So I booked it. . . !

I am still pinching myself. I have checked back at the same website and now the chalets have gone up $15 per night. My great deal must have been for just that one day. I am so happy I scored them! In the chalet, we will have a kitchen, living room and a bedroom. Upstairs is an open loft with two double beds for the boys.  Plenty of room to relax for the five nights we will be in Banff. 

Last night, hubby and I were driving by Barnes and Noble and he suggested stopping in to buy some travel books. Me pass up a chance to go to BN? Not on your life! We perused the travel section and came home with seven books. One never knows what one will find at BN.  

So now we are more closely looking at the "must see" list. So many sights!

I'll keep you all posted on our planning as we make more decisions and map out our route.