Day 6 - Wednesday (7/27)

On Wednesday we decided to drive up to the north end of the park and the Waterton Lakes area. We had a long drive from the west side of Glacier to Banff and decided to break up the trip by staying at the north end of the park for the next night. This area is on the Canadian side of the boarder. It’s actually a Canadian park but many of the trails and other resources are shared with the U.S. side.For example, there are many cruises that leave the park and travel across Upper Waterton Lake to hiking trails on the U.S. side in Glacier National Park. Overall, we saw a lot more wildlife in Canada than we did in the U.S. We passed through the boarder check on our way in and had our first really good bear sighting. We saw a mother and cub along the road from about 10-15 feet away. Overall, we saw about 20-30 bears on this trip. The farther north we went, the more we saw. The campground in Waterton Lakes National Park was full so we stayed outside town in a small private campground. We set up camp and then went hiking in the Red Rock Canyon area. This was a unique area with layers of deep red stone in a small canyon with a stream. We visited the town area and the Prince of Wales Hotel. This is as grand a national park lodge as you would see in the U.S. and stands on a bluff overlooking the lake and facing in towards the mountain peaks to the south. It’s a very impressive sight. We returned to our site and took the opportunity to use the laundry facilities at the campground and also a hike a nature trail at a nature preserve adjacent to it.