Travels with haRVy

Waterton Lakes National Park (Canada) and Glacier National Park (USA) joined to form the world’s first International Peace Park in 1932. We headed up there to complete our circumnavigation of the combined park. It turned out to be a wet and wild visit with lots of wind and rain to contend with, but still worth the time and effort.

The view along the road to the Canadian side included Chief Mountain.

View of Waterton Lake from Prince of Wales Hotel – best we could get given the weather conditions.

Set-up for High Tea in the hotel.

Prince of Wales Hotel

Given the permanent tilt of these trees, we should have expected high winds.
This shot was taken from our lake-front campsite, which was great for the view,
but put us in the front row for the brunt of the gusts.

Away from the lakefront the wind wasn’t so bad and we managed to hike
around the village, to the hotel, and to Cameron Falls.

The winds brought the temperatures down and the first snow of the season fell at higher altitudes. Since our AT&T Mi-Fi doesn’t work in Canada, we spent some of our spare time utilizing the community-wide (!) free WiFi network. We also enjoyed the unlimited HOT showers provided by the campground (very rare in the USA). The extremely clean bathrooms even had stainless steel sinks and granite counter tops!

A little rain (actually quite a lot) wasn’t going to keep us (or many other tourists) from seeing the sights, so we headed out to Red Rock Canyon for a hike.

The first fall foliage we’ve seen – on September 3rd

Blakiston Falls

Staying warm and dry as best we can

After leaving the park, we headed a bit deeper into Alberta, Canada to stay with Boondockers Welcome hosts Bev and Garry at their beautiful farm outside of Pincher Creek. We swapped travel stories and advice for a few hours after dinner. Thanks for the warm hospitality.

Cool, clear skies revealed fresh snow on the distant Rocky Mountains

Breakfast table view

Bev and Garry’s farm