Day 23 Jasper

We spent a very quiet day at the hotel enjoying the facilities.

The hotel is a very popular wedding venue, which made it great fun people watching. Guests of all shapes, sizes and styles paraded before us going to and returning from their respective ceremonies.

There were a couple of very interesting cars at the hotel that were vying for interest with our Morgans. One was a Ford GT 40 replica, which looked very smart and the other was a Canadian made Buick called a McLaughlin.

Elaine’s birthday continued and an ad hoc champagne reception had been organised in one of the cabins followed by dinner in the hotels main restaurant. The champagne buyers turned out to be very enthusiastic supplying much more than was needed, but we made very good inroads into the surplus.

Dinner was excellent; the party were split into groups of four or six and we were fortunate enough to sit with a local Morgan owner and his wife, both of whom had been to the “Centenary” in Cheltenham. The meal and company were excellent. Pudding was a birthday cake for Elaine and Carolyn. Instead of candles we put sparklers onto the cake lit them and just a few seconds later all the fire alarms went off! Oh what fun! A wedding party in an adjacent room were evacuated, other guests in the restaurant complained that their romantic dinners had been ruined and sparks from the sparklers melted the table-cloths. The farce and chaos disappeared along with smoke and the drama subsided to calm. I think the hotel were happy to wave us off the next morning.

Lake Louise to Jasper Day 22

July 2^nd 151 miles

Elaine’s Birthday

Calli and I decided on an early start. We were on the road before seven thinking we were first away, but at the petrol station we found out that at least two cars had set off well before us!

With the hope of seeing some wildlife we drove at a fairly slow pace, but picked up the pace when the road became busy. Mike and Ardith (Morgan and MGB) joined us as we drove along the Ice Fields Parkway and became our guides for the day. We shared a very pleasant breakfast at a lake side lodge. Mike showed us where the glaciers had shrunk back to their present positions. On the way to the Glacier visitors centre we were caught in a flurry of snow! The first and last of the tour.

Our visit to Athabsaca falls in Jasper National Park was turned into a dramatic event by a Black Bear emerging from the forest and devouring a family picnic twenty-five meters away from the car park. These bears a very dangerous and are capable of very rapid attack, however, this bear was more interested in sandwiches and crisps. Bears who make a habit of confronting people are removed to a remote location, but if they persist in being a nuisance they are shot. Our bear managed to finish “his” meal and vanish back into the forest before the Park Rangers arrived.

Our hotel was set within Jasper Park. The hotel manager had organised a special parking area for us and was very helpful throughout our stay. The accommodation was in the form cabins and quite comfortable.

We celebrated Elaine’s birthday first with a champagne reception and the a meal at The Jasper Brewing Company – great fun and a great evening

Cranbrook to Lake Louise Day 21

Canada Day

172 miles (Trip 4020mls)

We set off towards Lake Louise with the addition of two extra Canadian Morgans and a very pretty white MGB. The route took us north through Fort Steele, Skookumchuck, Lake Windermere and we entered the Kootenay National Park at Radium Hot Springs. Our first destination was Marble Canyon, which is a deep narrow gorge with a spectacular display of fast moving water provided by the Vermillion River. A few of us decided to have lunch in Banff and on arrival nearly gave up as the town was packed with holiday makers making the most the national holiday, however we did find places to park and enjoyed a very relaxed lunch.

The main road from Banff to Lake Louise was very congested so we took a longer, but more scenic and pleasant journey. There was a small herd of Long Horn Sheep at the side of the road, which was the only wildlife we caught sight of for the rest of the day. We found out later that a large bear had been seen on the road a few minutes after we had passed.

Our hotel was the Chateau Lake Louise, which has one of the most spectacular views in Canada. Lake Louise is surrounded by forests and above the trees snow capped mountains, which reflect with great beauty back from the surface of the lake.

The hotel itself was a disappointment; large, impersonal and for all the staff employed inefficient.

Kalispell to Cranbrook BC Canada

Day 20 147 miles*

Kalispell is very close to the Glacier National Park and although not on the route plan. A seven car posse decided to drive through the park and cross over into Canada about fifty miles more to the east than recommended.

The Glacier NP has a very steep and winding road going through it called the “Road to the Sun”, which has fabulous of mountain peaks, rivers, valleys and lakes. We were very fortunate in many ways; the weather was good; the snow had yet to melt and there were frequent road works, yes this was a plus as well! The Road to the Sun is very narrow and busy and in normal circumstances there would be no time to stop and admire the views, but the resurfacing work gave us plenty of opportunity to pause and take photographs. On leaving the Parks east gate we headed north looking for a customs post. We found one on the Chief Mountain Highway, not a very busy spot. We were rather sternly greeted by customs officers wearing very dark sunglasses and stony expressions. All the formality quickly evaporated once we were all cleared and the afore mentioned guards dashed over to us at took photos of the cars.

Once in Canada we went to have a look at the Prince of Wales Hotel that occupies an idyllic position overlooking the Waterton Lakes. Unfortunately we were not allowed to line the cars up in front of the hotel for a photo. At this point we all decided to press on to Cranbrook, which because of our meanderings was still about one hundred and twenty miles away; off we shot “pedal to the metal” and Fiona got stopped for speeding – no ticket just a warning. It was the start of a national holiday weekend and the main roads were very, very busy, busy and slow. Our brave party of seven Morgans all arrived in Cranbrook completely frazzled. We showered and managed to get a meal in a restaurant just before it closed.

*I think we nearly doubled the mileage for the day.

Deer Lodge to Kalispell Day 19

186 miles. Hot, hot, hot.

We left Deer Lodge and at first drove through Ranch land with lots of cattle, horses and cowboys. The landscape gradually became one of forest and lakes. Logging trucks and sawmills replacing horses and cattle.

Feeling peckish we spotted a few Morgans outside “Pops” restaurant where we stopped and joined them. The food and coffee were good, but the service was a bit slow mainly because our party of ten upset their usual flow of customers.

Our journey continued for another couple of hours when we stopped for a picnic lunch at Swan Lake. The lake is manmade having a dam at the north end. Swan Lake is a very picturesque location with a little marina and the steep hillsides and shoreline dotted with some very grand looking log cabins. Just as we were packing up our lunch a chap walked by and asked if we would like to have a quick trip out on his boat and we soon found ourselves skimming across the surface of the lake at high speed. The boat owner was, it turned out, an engineer at the dam and it was only the second time the speedboat had been out.

Arriving at the outskirts of Kalispell our satnav had a brainstorm and took us on a nine mile detour giving us a good look at all the suburbs and industrial estates around the town. Kalispell sits in the county of Flathead so named after the river and lake, which dominate the region. The Grand Hotel, our lodgings for the night, was charming and very friendly. We were treated to coffee and homemade biscuits on our arrival and made to feel most welcome. The girl on reception told us that the “Moose Saloon” would be an interesting place to visit, so six of us duly did. The Saloon was about a twenty minute walk away. The entrance to the Moose was not very inspiring with expletives scratched into the door and blacked out windows, but having walked that far in ninety five degree heat we thought we would give it a go. What a contrast the bright light outside was replaced by total darkness until our eyes adjusted to the gloom. The floor was covered in a mixture of sawdust and peanut shells and there were no windows. There was nothing to do but order two jugs of beer and a large bowl of unshelled peanuts – we had a wonderful hour or so scattering our nut shells and drinking beer.

Day 18 Yellowstone to Deer Lodge

28 June 231 miles.

We had a very pleasant drive out of Yellowstone about thirty miles, during which we saw Bison, Deer, an Eagle and a Black Beaked Swan.

Unfortunately just outside Yellowstone we lost Pat Miles’s +4 with a blown piston. Ken and Pat had to arrange shipping for the car and fly home to pick up a replacement car a very handsome early +8. They will be out of action for about a week.

The rest of the journey was straightforward with no detours. The weather was very hot and dry with a very blue sky.

We shared a coffee and a piece of cake with the Lacey’s at Gallatin a very pleasant café next to a river and stayed about an hour. Our arrival at the Budget Inn left us time to visit a fine motor museum based in a redundant prison. The collections, were mainly American, but with one or two “exotics” including a Morris Minor.

There was a laundry close to the hotel, which gave us a much needed suitcase refresher; we also managed to clean the car!

The party had a very good meal in the Broken Arrow Restaurant and Casino the menu was very simple – Beef! The variations were quite broad, but beef it was, well we were in Montana. The local airforce was making its presence felt in the form of very aggressive Mosquitoes, which we fought off with insect repellent.

Day 17 Yellowstone National Park

Yellowstone was established as a National Park in 1872. The Parks name reflects the gold colour of the dramatic cliffs lining the Yellow Rock River. The Park also has the largest concentration of geothermal features on the planet and is a about the size of Wales.

We set off early in two cars to stay a head of the Sunday rush and with the hope of catching sight of some interesting wildlife. At our very first stop to photograph some bubbling pools we came face to face with a very large Bison who fortunately was more interested in ruminating than being aggressive towards us.

The steam, gushing geysers and wonderfully coloured mineral deposits combined with the excitement of catching sight of the wildlife kept us amused all day. We saw herds of Elk, which often stop traffic as they wonder across the road. The late thaw gave the Yellowstone Grand Canyon a spectacular waterfall, which a few brave souls clamber down a couple of hundred feet to get close to.

The Sunday hordes gradually overwhelmed us and we went back to the hotel to escape. The Old Faithful Inn is quite a strange looking hotel, its interior looking like some mythical Norse home of the gods. A towering open space held aloft by thousands of interlocked pine beams disappearing into the dark roof space. The hotel also has a few restored 1930’s tour buses, which lend a “retro” look to the outside.

As we gathered to exchange tales of the day we found that one of our party, George Tollworthy, had had a close encounter with a large bear and his vivid description of hearing its claws rapping on the tarmac gave us all goose pimples.