Day 10, Waterton Lakes Rest Day

Dinner last night was a great curry pizza at the local pizza joint.  Chicken, onion, sweet potato, spinach and curry sauce.  Unusual, but very good.  Add beer to the menu, too, and it was a nice dinner.

A great curry pizza

Moon from the Waterton townsite, post pizza

Today is an unscheduled rest day, which we’ve decided that while it wasn’t planned, we really need.  Not that we lounged around the pool on our day off (there isn’t one here in Waterton).  Instead, we are did several hikes.  The first was to Cameron Lake at early thirty – we wanted to see wildlife and the best times are early morning and late evening.  Nothing.  But the lake is gorgeous and there are good hikes around it.  The signs say that the lake has the highest snowfall in the area owing to the peculiarities of the mountains and it was quite cold at that hour.

Early morning at Cameron Lake

Back at the townsite we rode the beautiful boat that runs from Waterton Lakes to Goat Haunt, which is in the US.  The boat is a 1927 fantail with twin screws that reminds me a lot of the Ranger 10 that we had so much fun on (hey, Steve and Shirley!).  The boat is called the International and it takes a leisurely 1 hour cruise due south down the lake, across the Canada / US border to Goat Haunt, which is a US port of entry that has 2 people there.  Since it is accessible only by boat, there isn’t a lot of cross-border traffic!  Why the US Customs has a border crossing there at all is a good question.  Typically, when you re-enter Canada from Goat Haunt to Waterton the Canadians could care less.

The boat ride is fun as they narrate along the way, explaining the geology and natural history. We saw a good sized black bear along the eastern shore and the boat pulled right up along side; the bear did not seem to notice since there were lots of berries to much on.

Black bear along shore of Waterton Lake, munching berries

At the US /Canada border the trees are all cut in about a 10 meter swatch.

I wonder why they would bother to do that?  Protecting the homeland perhaps against illegals trying to dash across.  I feel safer.

Clear cut along Canada / US border...maybe a fence would be better?

We also went close by to see some unique geological formations, including a chevron fold that is apparently much admired by geologists.

A chevron fold

We disembarked at Goat Haunt and headed through customs and then up toward Kootenai Lakes.  Most people stay on the boat, but there are boats about every 4 hours and we planned in catching the return trip later in the day.  

US Customs at Goat Haunt

Kootenai Lakes is about 3 miles from the dock at Goat Haunt and is said to be the best moose area.  The hike was beautiful with several alpine meadows, but no animals.  

Kootenai Lake

When we got to the lake we bumped into a Nat’l Parks Ranger and she said that there is a cow and a yearling calf around, and that we should keep our eyes open.  We traversed part way around the lake, saw a good size black bear on the opposite shore, but unfortunately no moose (although we did see some fresh tracks and lots of fresh bear scat).

The beavers have been busy...

We had a nice lunch at the lake and then headed back for the boat trip back to Waterton.  The weather is glorious, although the wind still rips down the fetch of the lake.  I talked to the captain and he said that the daily average wind speed is 22 to 25 mph.  That’s every day of the year.  I bet that it is really cold in the winter when the lake freezes over toward the end of December.  The park actually closes in mid-November, but there is a skeleton crew who live in town (ala The Shining), and they are in charge of organizing back country skiers into the park boundaries.  The kids who live in town go to school at Pincher Creek, which is about 60 km away.

Doug chaatting up Captain Tom 

This butterfly hitched a ride on our day bag all the way from Goat Haunt to Waterton Lakes

Tomorrow we leave Waterton early for Fernie, climb back on Das Bike and head to the US through Roosville and down to Eureka, Montana.  From there we ride south through Whitefish to Columbia Falls, then on the Bozeman and Yellowstone.  We are looking forward to all of that.  Hot weather is forecast.