We woke up at our last morning at Apgar Campground and decided to take the bike trail into town for breakfast before packing up and heading to Waterton / Glacier in Alberta. We forgot to bring our bear spray so Donna spent most of the ride singing loudly. Lukily we didn’t run into any bears.
We really enjoyed West Glacier but we are also excited to explore the o the areas of the park. Because the Going to the Sun road was still closed to vehicles and we likely wouldn’t be able to tow our camper over it even if it was open, we headed out on route 2 south of the park for the 3 hour drive across the border to Alberta. It was a beautiful drive and we saw Chief Mountain from far away. Chief Mountain is a 9085 foor high very distinct looking mountain on the border of Glacier National Park and the Blackfeet Indian Reservation. It rises up 5000 feet from the plains and can be seen for miles. It is a sacred site for the Blackfoot people and native americans from all over North America travel to the base for sacred ceremonies.
We reached the Chef Mountain border crossing which is only open seasonally and went into Canada after a few brief questions. We made our way into Waterton Glacier International Peace Park and found our campsite. The campground was large with over 200 sites in a variety of fields. It sits on Upper Waterton Lake. It has full hookups and the bathrooms were spotless and showers were free 😀.
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The weather was a mix of sun and clouds and very very windy with sustained wind of 30 mph and gusts up to 50 MPH. During the evening it started raining and snowing and it rained hard and was windy all night long. We felt like our camper could be lifted off the ground. We hung out in our camper and watched Netflix for the first time on our trip. We woke in the morning to wind chills of 24 degrees and temperature of 32.
We walked around town all bundled up wearing our rain gear and checked out the shops and coffee shops. The next day we woke up to a beautiful blue sky and went for a hike up Bears’ Hump. It was amazing. The sun was out, the lakes were blueish green. It was a perfect day. We met a couple from Fort McMuray, Alberta at the top who were outspoken about Trump and his policies. We had a long conversation and a lot of laughs. They were there on their 45th anniversary.
That night we walked around town again and decided to go our for pizza. The owner of the pub told us where to go the next day to look for wildlife.
We drove down to Red Rock Canyon and went on a great hike there. We saw deer but no bear. We then went down the Alkamina Parkway and finally saw a black bear eating dandelions at the side of the road. We really liked Waterton, it has a great low key vibe and everyone was super friendly. We would definately return in the future.
