July 6 Day 6

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Today's ride will take us from Whitefish Montana to Banff in Alberta Canada.  Another good looking weather day ahead!

We slept in a little longer today than normal, it is vacation, after all.  We were finally packed and on the road by around 10 AM.

A quick 100 mile run through northern Montana, and we were at the border crossing of Canada.  There was a bit of a line at customs, mostly due to the fact that there was only one booth open, and the fellow working the booth was a chatty Kathy.  I cannot remember crossing the border and being asked more questions than we were asked today.

Ultimately, our answers made the customs man happy and he decided to let us into his country!!!

If you are planning a vacation to Canada, especially the Banff area, be prepared with a full wallet, or an empty credit card!!  

"Crazy cost #1" - Our first fuel fill up in Canada.  Prices in Canada today have been anywhere from $4.85 to $5.35 a gallon, ouch!!

We crossed the Canadian border into the province of British Columbia.  After traveling north for about an hour, we needed to head west across the Kootenay National Park.  This is the only reasonable way to get to Banff from the west.  We were greeted at the park entrance by a delightful park ranger who informed us that our 3 day visit to this area would require us to buy a $60 park pass ("Crazy cost #2") !!  So $60 later and we are allowed to travel through the park toward Banff.

I must admit, the scenery in Kootenay and Banff National Parks is pretty spectacular.  Mountains all around, deep gorges to drive through, and a lot of roadside wildlife to look out for.

We saw a lot of mountain goats along the road in the park.  We also saw a ton of deer out grazing all along the park road.

We saw signs indicating there are bear in the park.  In all the parks we have been in, and all the bear signs we have seen, we have NEVER actually seen any bear !!  Until today.  This little guy was just hanging out along side the main park road.

The road through the park runs along the foothills of the Canadian Rockies.

We travel through Kootenay National Park, and into Yoho and Banff National Parks.  Our route takes us from British Columbia, into the province of Alberta.

We are now nearing the town of Banff, and the mountains engulf us on all sides.

Banff is a quaint little town, with tons of shops and restaurants.  It is also a big vacation area, and finding parking, even on a weekday, can be difficult.  And now we get to "Crazy Cost #3", lodging.  We are staying at the Fox Hotel in Banff.  The Fox is a modest hotel, but will set you back $300 / night during the summer months.

After checking into our hotel, we take a ride on the local town bus up to the Sulphur Mountain gondola.  At the Gondola base, is a large Glacier bus.  These buses will drive you and about 50 of your closest friends out onto the Columbia Icefield Glacier about 2.5 hours north of Banff.  This glacier is about 233 square miles in size, and is roughly 984 feet thick.

The glacier ride will have to wait for another time, but we did ride the Sulphur Mountain gondola up 2300 feet, to a final elevation of roughly  7500 feet.

From the top of Sulphur Mountain, you get a great view of the famous Banff Springs Hotel.  If there were snow on the ground, this would be a perfect postcard shot.

A couple more photos of the area beyond the Banff Springs.  You can see the Banff golf course along the river.

In the photo below, you can see downtown Banff.  You can also see the Canadian Rockies for as far as the eye can see.

We spotted a little bit of wildlife atop Sulphur Mountain.  This family of mountain goats were curious about us.  Looks like mom and dad are losing their coats?

We also saw a ton of these little guys.  Hard to tell from the picture, but these look like our chipmunks back home, but they are much larger, about the size of a large squirrel.

Seems odd, the chipmunk looking guys are pretty big compared to back home, while the squirrels in this park seem to be pretty small ?  This one was pretty brave and let me get within a couple of feet for a picture.

Sorry for the small amount of information today...  With all of the activities today, I got a pretty late start at putting this info together.  

It is now 1:45 AM local time, and I need some sleep !!!

Tomorrow we will spend some time looking around the Banff Springs Hotel, including the grounds.  There are usually a huge number of Elk hanging about the hotel property.  We will probably eat lunch in town, and then head over to our next destination, Lake Louise.

Our stats for today indicate that we covered 299 miles, bringing our trip total to 2424miles.  It took us about 7.5 hours, including gas and food stops to get to Banff.  Below is a map of our route from today.