We planned to spend our last full day in Golden visiting Glacier National Park, but our plans took a bit of a turn once we stopped at an information exit and were told that almost all of Glacier was still impassible due to avalanche risks. I love a good adventure as much as the next girl but freezing to death in a snow drift is not how I want to go. We decided that we’d see what we could from the road and instead make our way to Revelstoke.
Revelstoke was a darling little ski town surrounded by beautiful mountains.
We enjoyed wandering in and out of shops and picking up a few souvenirs.
We left Revelstoke and headed back to Golden to grab an early dinner and check out some of the sights we hadn’t yet gotten to at our home base.
We started our third full day bright and early and headed towards Jasper, the furthest north of the parks we planned to visit.
Jasper, the largest of all the National Parks in Canada, famous for it’s glaciers was gorgeous. It was covered in snow which continued to fall heavily as we drove along the Icefields Parkway.
Our first stop was Crowfoot Glacier, where we encountered a very knowledgable  photographer with the largest camera lens I’ve ever seen who was scanning for bears! Gulp.
Crowfoot Glacier certainly lived up to it’s name, beautiful blue ice in the shape of..you guessed it, a crows foot!
We continued our trek along the ice fields parkway and stopped next at Bow Lake.
We began our second full day in Canada well rested and ready to hit the parks. Our destination for the day was Kootenay National Park, which turned out to be one of our favorite places!
We began at the Continental Divide between Kootenay (British Columbia) and Banff (Alberta).
Next we headed for Stanley Glacier. The snow was heavier than it had been the day before and we met a hiker who informed us we may not get too far without snow shoes.
We hiked out as far as we could and found a few miles in that he was right…
Whoops! On to Marble Canyon!
If you are in Kootenay, Marble Canyon is a must do. We both agreed that it was our favorite hike of the trip; snow shoes not required 🙂
Marble Canyon is full of limestone and dolomite leftover from when the area was once covered by a tropical sea.
Our trip to Canada started off with a bang. Or perhaps a better word is ‘bust’. I woke up at 3:30 AM to an email alert from United that my 6:30 flight had been canceled and I needed to call to reschedule. My original flight was supposed to take me from Savannah to Chicago where I would meet Michelle, then Chicago to Calgary where we would arrive in time for lunch. The problem was the weather in Chicago, so the only option they could offer me was an even earlier flight (6:00 AM) to Newark, Newark to Houston (wrong direction!!) and finally Houston to Calgary where I would now be arriving around 5 PM. Poor Michelle got an even crazier re-route through San Francisco and didn’t get in til nearly 8! So much for exploring Banff on our way to Golden that first day. Disappointing but luckily we had built a free day into our itinerary just in case, and after all, we did both make it to Canada, with our bags! No small feat after all that rescheduled nonsense.
We stopped for a late dinner at the Cactus Club Cafe. Our waitress raved about the Prawn Ravioli which she said was the winning dish in a Canadian version of Iron Chef. We ordered the appetizer version and it was definitely delicious as was the rest of the meal.
Cactus Club Cafe: Dark lighting<delicious food
Post dinner we stopped at Wal-Mart to pick up a few groceries and then hit the road for Golden, arriving just after 2 AM and immediately going to bed after 24 hours of travel.
We woke up the next morning to discover that our Air BnB was really adorable and incredibly well appointed. The owners had left us toiletries, coffee, candy, a bowl full of fruit and even a dozen eggs! So yes, the stereotypes are clearly true, Canadians are really nice.
After breakfast we packed our lunch and headed for Yoho, our first park of the trip. As we drove we got our first daylight glimpses of Golden, a cute and fairly quiet little ski town surrounded by huge snow capped mountains.
Here, I feel it’s appropriate to take a minute and get this out of the way, as I’m sure to be repeating it 8 million times throughout these posts: CANADA IS BEAUTIFUL! Like breathtakingly, mind blowingly beautiful in a way that only mountains and wilderness can be. If you want to see a piece of the world that still looks exactly as I believe God must have intended it, go to the Canadian Rockies. You won’t be disappointed.
Ok, so back to Yoho. Our first stop was a short walk to the Natural Bridge.
The Natural Bridge is a natural span of rock over the Kicking Horse River that houses a small waterfall.
Kicking Horse River
The water, like most of the water we saw throughout the parks, was the most beautiful shade of green/blue due to mineral deposits that run off from the glaciers.
Pool at the foot of the Natural Bridge
Our next stop was Emerald Lake, which just so happened to still be frozen solid. Continue reading →
Good day eh! My google search informs me that this is a common Canadian greeting, so I’m practicing. I realized that I got so wrapped up in beef tacos and Mexican food menus last week that I forgot to share that Michelle and I were no longer hypothetically going to Canada, we ARE going to Canada. Tomorrow!
I used that exclamation point after tomorrow to denote both excitement and panic. Excitement because of course, Canada! and poutine! and beautiful wilderness! Panic because if you’ve been reading for any length of time you know that I am quite the planner, and this trip has been particularly difficult to plan in great detail. And also bears. Always bears.
This trip came together quickly and I feel like I am as prepared as I can be, but not quite as prepared as I would like to be. The weather looks like it will be in the high 40’s low 50’s which is great, I certainly prefer cold to freezing. I did purchase these babies just in case..
Atastytrip 