Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I could see that we would be roughing it.
Day 1: Missoula to Banff
What possessed us to drive 431.3 miles our very first day? Possibly it was the drive-
through popcorn in Kalispell. More likely it was the mile after mile of stunning scenery,
through the Bitteroot and Mission Valleys to crossing the border at Roosville, continuing
to Radium Hot Springs, Kootenay National Park and barely pausing for breath into Banff
National Park. The mountains are all cracked and cragged and spurred and the peaks lean
drunkenly back and forth and some are covered with evergreens while others boldly bare
their gray granite breasts to the sun and be damned to you. Sharyn calls them “newborns”
and she's right, it looks like the glaciers just this minute receded from them. We weren't in
Kootenay twenty minutes before we saw our first black bear sow and cub, elk, and white-
tailed deer.
Day 2: Banff to Jasper
It's a good thing Sharyn and I weren't with Lewis and Clark; we got lost on the way
from Banff to Lake Louise. First we tried to go to Golden and then we tried to go to
Jasper, and then a Parks Canada warden who was too kind to say what she was undoubt-
ably thinking got us on the right road. Lake Louise is stunning, even when it's cloudy,
even when the lake is still mostly frozen: a long alpine lake surrounded by tall snowy
peaks and glaciers, with a toweringly Teutonic hotel at lake's edge that looks like it was
designed by Hermann Goering.
Then up Canada Highway 93, straight through the heart of the Canadian Rockies,
which vary in shape and mood every time you go around a corner. One group looks like it
was picked up from Monument Valley and plunked down whole in Alberta, the second
cluster together conically like a wizard's convention, a third would look right at home in
Giza. A stop at the Icefield Center, with a tremendous view of the Athabasca Glacier, and
on to Jasper, 209.2 miles total, and an early night, hallelujah. There's only so much sun-
shine and gorgeous scenery a girl can take.
Day 3: Jasper to Fort Nelson
