The 2010 summer mountain excursion was made with a friend who had never before been to Canadian Rocky Mountains. Together we proved that if you are willing to give up on a few “luxuries” (especially if you are traveling during high tourist season) it doesn’t have to be an expensive.
She flew out from Toronto, for a week. Just like any road trip, a mountain road trip means being well equipped. This means bringing items that a person may for a week to survive in the mountains. As the planner, I had more wilderness experience then my travelling partner and I decided to ditch the money saving idea of camping and instead optted for a more comfortable indoor “hostel stay”. Reason: I didn’t want to be the one hitting pots and pans to scare away the bears.
The car resembled that of campers (minus tent and sleeping bags):
- Cooler (with food and beverages)
- iPod (with maps, music and email reservations); and,
- our bags of clothing.
The first stop on the road trip was Jasper for two nights. Summer is a busy time of the year so I booked all our beds in advance. We saved extra money by staying dorms instead of private rooms. We arrived quite late on our first night and had just enough time to set our things down and make our beds before it “lights out”. Hungry and tired, we shared a box of KD before going to bed in preparation of exploration the next day.
I hope the rest of you don’t get pulled into the tourist trap that we did (especially if you have access to a vehicle). Sure, you will get tempted by “tour” signs and shinny brochures. But before booking go to the information booth and double check all the details. You may be able to do it for the fraction of the cost. That’s what we did for the wilderness tour. Instead of booking one, we found out which hiking trail was around the area that the tour bus was going to take and drove out instead. So, not only did we see wildlife on the road, we enjoyed a nice scenic route around Maligne Lake. After our self guided tour we decided on a quick gondola trip up Whistlers peak for a bird’s eye view before sun down.
We weren’t so lucky with the next travel brochure that razzled and dazzled. We both wanted to visit a glacier since it is a life time experience. The tour was scheduled to leave the next day. The experience was spectacular, but it was a mistake that could have saved us each over $50 and a lot of time backtracking.
But we didn’t do our research or even bother to look at a map. The bus left Jasper early in the morning and the tour took us to Glacier and a mid-way stop to Athabasca Falls. After returning to Jasper in the afternoon we headed back in the same direction we had just been in to see the Glacier and made our way to Banff.
Banff was our adventure stop. We spent two nights and enjoyed white water rafting and the hot springs. Banff is a lot bigger and more commercialized then Jasper seeing how it was our first time there for the both of us we took in the city including the tourist shops and restaurants. After our fun filled stop we headed down to Calgary.
The drive to Calgary was a shorter one compared to the other day hauls. On the way there we discussed our visit to Drumheller and we were both excited for the room that was booked in Calgary with air mile redemption. The hotel had a pool! As luck would have it, our rooms were pool side. When we got there we unloaded our stuff into the hotel room and visited some friends, called it an early night for our next adventure to Drumheller.
I hadn’t heard of Drumheller until I moved out west. So those of those that don’t know about it, you should Google it. It’s so much fun. It resembles a desert and there’s dinosaur stuff everywhere including the museum. There’s something to do for everyone. We hung around there for a whole day felt like a kid again looking at huge dino stuff! After feeling minuscule against the giant bones, we headed back to Calgary for the last night of our Mountain Trip before my Toronto friend was to fly back home and me back to the reality of Northern Alberta.
