nev
Super Térrarist
Columbia Falls is on the western edge of the Glacier National Park. There is a road which runs through the national park and into the high mountains, with apparently spectacular views, but again, the penalty for coming so early in the season is that the road is not yet open and they are still snowploughing it. So we can go the length of Lake Macdonald, but then we must come back the same way and run the loop around the southern and eastern edges of the park.
some time for something more than point and shoot photography
On the south east corner of the NP there's a little squiggle which hardly shows up at all on maps, but it was a gem of a road views and corner wise, although the road condition itself was quite poor in places.
Back on the Hwy the road improved. Would love to come through here in summer on something a bit sportier..
Some wild horses
Chief Mountain.
We turned off the main hwy onto a more minor road and crossed the border into Canada on a Sunday around lunchtime. There was noone in the queue ahead of us. Living my life in Australia crossing borders is something that you do at an airport with a stern looking official scrutinizing you. Life is much different on a road crossing into Canada. Flipped up the front of the helmet and handed my passport to the man in the booth. We weren't asked to take our helmets off. I think I was a little too relaxed about the whole thing because he warned me that I was being evasive in my answers which were probably a little too informal for the occasion. Apparently the answer to "where are you going?" is not "we're just riding around for a few days mate". So anyway I gave him some city names of our planned itinerary and I was through. Jo got through the same process with the answer "I don't know, I'm just following him, it's a mystery ride".
Alberta looked like this
and it was a windy windy windy windy place. A few miles north of the border, we crested a hill to see a string of wind powered generators from horizon to horizon. Canada is a windy place, and they are generating a large percentage of their energy needs from wind.
A good friend of ours originated from Alberta before she moved to Australia, and years ago had told of a place called Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, where the original inhabitants of these lands had hearded buffalo over a cliff to kill them and to butcher them for their meat and skins. It cost a few bucks to get into the visitor centre/display here, but it was amazing. 5 levels of displays built inside the cliff, and even a bus to save you the 200metre walk up and down the hill to-from the carpark.
This site was also the first professional archeological dig in Alberta. In 1948 a team from a US university uncovered several thousands of years worth of habitation by nomadic tribes as well as an earlier permanent civilisation.
We stayed the night in Fort Macleod. Fireworks seem to be the main selling attraction at the local milkbar.
some time for something more than point and shoot photography
On the south east corner of the NP there's a little squiggle which hardly shows up at all on maps, but it was a gem of a road views and corner wise, although the road condition itself was quite poor in places.
Back on the Hwy the road improved. Would love to come through here in summer on something a bit sportier..
Some wild horses
Chief Mountain.
We turned off the main hwy onto a more minor road and crossed the border into Canada on a Sunday around lunchtime. There was noone in the queue ahead of us. Living my life in Australia crossing borders is something that you do at an airport with a stern looking official scrutinizing you. Life is much different on a road crossing into Canada. Flipped up the front of the helmet and handed my passport to the man in the booth. We weren't asked to take our helmets off. I think I was a little too relaxed about the whole thing because he warned me that I was being evasive in my answers which were probably a little too informal for the occasion. Apparently the answer to "where are you going?" is not "we're just riding around for a few days mate". So anyway I gave him some city names of our planned itinerary and I was through. Jo got through the same process with the answer "I don't know, I'm just following him, it's a mystery ride".
Alberta looked like this
and it was a windy windy windy windy place. A few miles north of the border, we crested a hill to see a string of wind powered generators from horizon to horizon. Canada is a windy place, and they are generating a large percentage of their energy needs from wind.
A good friend of ours originated from Alberta before she moved to Australia, and years ago had told of a place called Head-Smashed-In-Buffalo-Jump, where the original inhabitants of these lands had hearded buffalo over a cliff to kill them and to butcher them for their meat and skins. It cost a few bucks to get into the visitor centre/display here, but it was amazing. 5 levels of displays built inside the cliff, and even a bus to save you the 200metre walk up and down the hill to-from the carpark.
This site was also the first professional archeological dig in Alberta. In 1948 a team from a US university uncovered several thousands of years worth of habitation by nomadic tribes as well as an earlier permanent civilisation.
We stayed the night in Fort Macleod. Fireworks seem to be the main selling attraction at the local milkbar.