Adam and Ashley's Alaskan Adventure!!: Mountains, Rain, America.

We made our way down to Jasper National Park in Alberta and finally got to do some good exploring. After dropping the camper at Whistler Campground for the evening we went out for some sightseeing before nightfall. We started the drive to Maligne Lake and stopped along the way to take photos of the magnificent mountains. Yes, we realize we spent the entire summer looking at mountains every single day, but mountains are all unique and the sun was making these extra appealing. We saw a few moose near the road before we made it to the lake. Maligne Lake was breath-taking and we immediately headed down a trail leading away from the rather large group of tourists nearby. After some great photo time we headed back in the car to visit one more place before sunset. Much closer to the campground was Maligne Canyon which we knew very little about. It was growing dark once we arrived and we didn’t plan on going more than a couple hundred yards but we decided to take flashlights just in case. It’s a good thing we took them because just a few minutes down the trail we realized how amazing it was. The first of six bridges was over a 150-foot deep canyon with a few crashing waterfalls. After that we were hooked and continued down the trail all the way to the fourth bridge. We played with the Mag-Lite along the empty trail, using it to light up some of the darker parts of the canyon. It was fairly dark in the forest so we decided to head back for the night. We started walking back up the trail and noticed a big black shadow blocking our path. It was a big black bear! Adam was quick to spot it and shine the flashlight on the bear. It had no interest in us and immediately headed into the woods. The whole ordeal was less than 3 seconds long but it was enough to make us talk much louder and have our bear spray ready in hand the rest of the walk back. We made it safely back to the Jeep and laughed at how scared we had just been. It was agreed that we wouldn’t go hiking so close to dark in bear country again.

Maligne Lake

Maligne Canyon

Waterfall in the Canyon

Bighorn Sheep in Jasper

Moose spotted in the evening

The view of the mountains

The next day we woke up to rain and lots of it. We explored a few of the shops in the town of Jasper before hitting the road again. It’s difficult to enjoy a National Park when most of the landscape is covered with clouds and rain. But we were able to enjoy a few waterfalls as we continued south. It rained on and off as we toured around Athabasca Falls and Sunwaptu Falls. They we gorgeous but there was a downfall to them; tourists. Apparently, Canadian tourism seasons extends well past September 15^th unlike most of the attractions we’ve come across this summer. There were far more people than we expected, especially on a rainy day. But we got our sightseeing in and continued on the drive to Banff National Park.

Athabasca Falls

The Athabasca River

It was the prettiest blue we have ever seen, this picture cannot do it justice,

This is what you walked through to view the falls and river!

The river had high canyon walls

Sunwaptu Falls

Now we talked to a lot of people over the summer and often asked what other interesting places they had traveled to before Alaska. One place that came up more often than not was Banff National Park. What a coincidence that our journey home would take us right through the fabled place we had heard so much about. It was often described to us as “the most beautiful place I’ve ever been” by other travelers. It was fairly obvious that we were pretty excited to see this park, but there was one obstacle for us; the weather. Call it poor planning or bad luck but we went to Banff National Park at the wrong time. It rained the whole day and from what we heard there was no end in sight for a few days. We managed to get some dry-off time at Cave and Basin Historic Site which felt incredibly similar to the wishing well scene from The Goonies. We timed that right because as we were leaving we were nearly trampled by a tour bus full of people heading for the cave. Crowds of people filled the small town of Banff and we decided it wasn’t our time to see the “beautiful” park. We decided to work our way closer to the most exciting place yet- the U.S. Border!

The sun managed to peak out for a little bit!

So many mountains we could not tell you which one this is...

Cave and Basin Historical Site

The cave and basin...it was pretty tiny. It wouldn't all fit in one picture!

Adam being Adam

We camped for the night in Radium Hot Springs but we too exhausted to go to the swimming pool shaped hot springs. The next day we planned to would enter the United States of America!

We woke to a drizzly morning but nothing could ruin our excitement to be back in America. We hit the road and after about two hours of anticipation we were near the border crossing! At least 20 minutes before crossing a bit of paranoia kicked in so we started rehearsing every answer to a variety of questions we might be asked. We pulled up with our passports ready to go and our hearts slightly racing. The officer looked at them, asked if we had a fun trip, and let us right on into America. He did have a question about the camper; just if we built it. We said yes and headed into the U.S. of A. As we drove away we could not believe how easy that was. We crossed the border 6 times this summer and only twice did we get asked about the camper and both times were just curiosity about it. That was without a doubt the easiest border crossing we have ever had! Hoots and hollers filled the car as we drove into Montana! Our first stop Glacier National Park!

We finally got to the park just after 2pm, found a campsite and were eager to begin exploring! We hit the visitor center to get some Ranger insight and headed down to McDonald Lake, a beautiful 10-mile long lake that was near our campground. The weather was having a hard to making up its mind but we were determined to hike around anyways. We drove along the lake and started hiking at Avalanche Creek which leads to a beautiful gorge. At this point it was raining and we were prepared to hike in our rain coats but soon lightning brought our hiking to an end. In Alaska it was incredibly rare to have thunderstorms. In the 5 months that we lived there we only heard thunder twice so it was almost surreal to hear it in Montana. We turned around and made a beeline for the car. Once we got inside, dripping wet we started to drive back to the camper and about two minutes down the road it started to hail! Man, we were glad we turned around when we did. It didn’t amount to much but it was definitely a surprise to us. True to form shortly after the hail the clouds parted and the sun came out so we stopped at a few view points along the lake and skipped some of the smooth colorful rocks that lined the shore. Lake McDonald is crystal clear and the entire bottom is covered with an array of round colorful rock, it was amazingly beautiful. Soon we were getting hungry and we decided to treat ourselves to dinner at the local café. We had the most delicious meal of Buffalo Meatloaf with mashed potatoes and veggies and for dessert we had huckleberry-peach pie with a big scoop of huckleberry ice cream on top. It was amazing, the day was amazing and we headed back to the camper for some rest.

Tree roots from a tree that fell over

Avalanche Creek

Lake McDonald with its beautiful colored stone floor

The view over the 10-mile lake

Fall colors along the lake

Adam finding good rocks to skip

The thunderstorm clouds rolling through

The next morning, we got up before sunrise and started to drive the Going-to-the-Sun Road in the park. This road is roughly 50 miles long and it cuts across the mountains of the park, reaching 6,647 feet in elevation at Logan Pass. The entire drive we watched the sun rise higher and higher until it finally breached over the mountains. The bonus of going so early was that there were less cars on the road and more wildlife to see. We saw two black bears, a mountain goat, a few grouse, a moose, and several big horn sheep. We were both pleasantly surprised at how calm Ashley was while driving and riding on this road since a good chunk of it was cliff edges and a several hundred foot fall if not more. When we got to the other side we went to the visitor center and proudly became Glacier National Park Jr. Rangers. We eventually made our way back to the camper, hitched up and hit the road. More rain was in the forecast and we will see how wet we get!