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Dik

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May 7, 2014
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St. Albert
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Well Cathy and I finally completed this trip. I had originally planned to make this run back in July 2019 but did not make it to Waterton Parks due to my customers priorities. No problem, no customers, no Corvettes!

Our trip took off Tuesday morning, August 4 with plans to return Saturday, August 8 but we cut out a one-night stay at the Blackfoot Inn in Calgary and instead we drove from Waterton Park to home Friday. On with the car pictures ….

I purchased four soft bags for the car. We had made over-nighters with hard luggage before and since then I promised to get bags instead. They are pretty big and two each was more than enough capacity for a four- or five-night trip. We did not bring our hiking boots, hiking gear or any type of dress clothes. This was our first stay in Waterton, so it was mostly exploration of the region and its amenities. These bags were perfect!

1. - Loading the trunk.jpg
2. - Trunk loaded.jpg
3. - Trunk loaded.jpg
4. - Clean, packed and ready to go.jpg


Our first stop (other than fuel in Jasper) was along the Athabasca River on highway 93A. There are some Adirondack chairs on the river bank placed by the lodge located across the road. We packed a lunch for this stop and used two chairs for our lunch break.

5. - Lunch stop on 93A.jpg
6. - Lunch stop on 93A.jpg



The weather was 30+ so the rest of our driving was with the top down. We were in absolutely no rush, so I did the speed limit OR 10 UNDER as much as possible.

Cruising through Glacier National Park - 006.jpg


WARNING!
WARNING!
WARNING: .... Extreme close up of my mug!

I sunburned my forehead, nose and bottom lip pretty bad. I hate wearing hats, but once I burned I had no choice and put on a C7 ball cap!

Cruising through Glacier National Park - 007.jpg


You have to love Glacier National Park with clear blue skies ….

Cruising through Glacier National Park - 001.jpg
Cruising through Glacier National Park - 002.jpg
Cruising through Glacier National Park - 003.jpg


Tuesday night was a stay at the Chateau Lake Louise. We have been to L.L. and the chateau a number of times but we never stayed or had a meal in the hotel before. The room was …. pretty nice (500 bucks per) but the restaurants were ALL really busy. People and cars everywhere. Line ups of cars and people started by 8:00 AM. Reminder to self; continue to stay at the Sawridge in Jasper or at the Rimrock in Banff.

7. - Checking in at the Chateau Lake Louise.jpg
8. - Checking in at the Chateau Lake Louise.jpg

Lake Louise.jpg



Wednesday morning, packing to up and heading to Kananaskis….

9. - Loading to hit the road.jpg


Cathy had never even seen the Kananaskis golf course, so we made a long stop at the pro shop and looked around a bit. Yeah, it looks great after the re-build. We need to book a round there this summer/fall. We also had a brief visit in the Kananaskis campground with one of Cathy’s coworkers. The campground roads were paved so no challenge getting in or out with a Corvette.



Ice cream stop in Longview. It was 34 C.

10. - Ice ream in Longview.jpg




The town of Waterton shot from our hotel.

Waterton and Emerald Bay - 001.jpg


Okay, we really liked the town. Small, walk-able, beaches, boards, boats, trails, golfing, deer, elk, birds and mama grizz and a cub. Yeah, we will definitely be back.

We stayed Wednesday and Thursday nights at the Prince of Wales hotel. Its only a couple of blocks out of town. We had a 5th floor room with a balcony looking over the lake. It was a small, windy old room with an excellent shower and super hot water. 300 bucks per night and I’d stay there again in a heartbeat except I’m booking room # 608 next time. We really enjoyed the hotel lobby and gift shop. The staff were really friendly and we had a few laughs with most of them. Lots of hotel history to check out.

12. - Prince of Wales Hotel.jpg


12b. - Prince of Wales Hotel.jpg




After about a four hour walk around town we had supper at Vimy’s and watched some hockey. There is no issue leaving your car on the street in the late evenings.

11. - Downtown Waterton.jpg




No, that’s not the valet parking lot! The paved parking lot was packed probably by hikers (a couple of trail heads are just across the street….) on Thursday so I did some free-range parking.

13. - Hotel parking (no door dings).jpg
14. - Hotel parking (no door dings).jpg


We got up early Friday morning and headed home. Uneventful so no pictures.

Final notes; my car was really popular. I fielded a lot of positive comments, thumbs-up and conversations broke out everywhere we went around the town.

Cheers and thanks for looking at my thread.
 
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Great recap Richard... yeah.... Stayed at the Chateau LL once and decided it was overpriced. There are nice places to stay in town or part way up the hill for half that. Ok ,,, I'm frugal.... lol...
 
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Nice trip. Love the "get what you pay for" experience. Good for you both.
Ya ... I would skip the Blackfoot Inn too ... there is much better & newer now in South Calgary.
Quiet nice new Hotel near Deerfoot and Ring Road - see the start from Calgary to
Meet in the Middle a few years back for the place. A few others are under construction soon.
Thank you for sharing the Waterton Corvette Trip that you had with your girlfriend :angelic: :thumbs:
 
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Hey thanks for looking at my thread fellows. We hit some fantastic weather that's for sure and it is going to be hot again starting this Sunday too. We may have to slip away for a day trip ....?

Blackfoot; this hotel goes way back for me. I once took a short contract working for an automation engineering firm in Calgary so rather than rent a condo I booked weekly rooms at the Blackfoot. It was really close to the office and shop. As usual in my business three months turned into eight plus so it was another home away from home for almost a year. The upper floors have nice big rooms with a private lounge on the 7th. I will have to check out the Quarry Park region next time though.

:Cheers2:
 
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Thanks guys. Jasper has always been my favorite park since I was a kid but man, Waterton really caught us by surprise....a very pleasant one.

If you want a beautiful and relatively quiet mountainous spot with plentiful wildlife (not the party kind) then Waterton is historically the place to go. I always think of it as one of Alberta's best kept secrets. When the world was "normal" so before COVID, tourists would flock to Banff (mostly) then Jasper, and in that order. Banff is known world-wide and really developed with all sorts of businesses that cater to tourists. The trails, lakes and campgrounds around Banff are very well used. Jasper less so but it's still fairly developed. Then for some strange reason, we have Waterton which is relatively non-developed and still holds much of its "small-town" charm and it's surrounded by similar great mountain ranges and hiking, fishing, horse riding, etc. areas as the other two. So if you're looking for a more relaxing commune and better connection to Mother Nature, I think Waterton is the place to go. For example, I'll recommend the Carthew-Alderson Trail just outside of Waterton if you're into a 6 to 8 hour intermediate difficulty scenic hike that will take you by 4 aquamarine-coloured glacier-fed lakes with trout...and it ends at the waterfall in the Waterton townsite where you'll be happy to soak your feet at the end of that hike.

I was just in Jasper 2 weeks ago for the August long weekend and with COVID shuttering people within their local areas or restricting travel, it wasn't as busy w/o the usual out-of-country tourists, but there are now more local Albertans who are looking for a get-away and I noticed some BC licence plates as well. So if you go, book ahead for campsites or hotels and don't expect a "ghost town" but I found it a more pleasant experience w/o all the usual crowd. I wasn't in Waterton but suspect it's still far less busy.
 
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Great replies and information. Thanks again.

I totally agree with you netsinah about the parks being less busy this year and I'm good with that. There two things we do to reduce the crowds; travel to the parks on weekdays. This tactic has made even Banff .... tolerable. We visit Banff about every three years and stay at the Rimrock which is just outside of town. FWIW we stayed at JPL in late July. There was a couple of deals for Albertans' offered in June. Golf for $139/person, stay at the lodge second night for free. (1/2 price sorta...). We booked two rounds of golf (Cathy shot the lights out) and stayed four nights for the price of two so it was only "really expensive", not obscenely expensive. :Biggrin: We took in the entire JPL resort experience with close friends so it was a lot of fun. Lots of food, wine, beer, golf, laughs, fresh air, walks and plenty of sun!

Hiking; I'll add Carthew-Alderson Trail to my list for future exploration. Cathy bought new light-weight hikers last year and we are making shorter hikes for now. They are getting longer with each trip but we are not ready for a seven hour trip just yet. Oh I'm sure we can do it, Cathy is a jogger, but I think she has a hidden fear of the bears which is weird because in our younger days (with two young girls) we spent a couple of decades camping in northern and very remote places? :Confused5:
 
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Great photos! Nice picture of Mount Athabasca. My daughter and I climbed that in 2017. I was just down in Canmore climbing last week. Definitely the number of staycationer’s has increased the crowds in the mountain parks. Lots of people needing to be rescued!

Waterton is one of my favourite places to hike in Alberta. My wife and I need to do a road trip in our new C8. It looks fun.
 
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