Our complete Waterton trip team
Hey folks, sorry for delayed update and long post again.So, what was going on? As I already mentioned, I went with another UofC exchange students to Waterton National Park for a weekend. It was great!!! We were nine together and rented two cars for the trip.
Although we planned to leave for a hike early in the morning (10 am) we were kind of slowed down after demanding night. We decided for hike along Upper Waterton Lake and return trip by boat. The only problem was that our final destination was 7 km behind the Canada - U.S. border. But we were assured at the visitor center that it's gonna be no problem. We bought a ticket for the boat trip and finally left shortly before 12.
The weather was amazing - sunny and 28°C (86°F). That was another great luck because they have some years 3 feet of snow at the end of August.
The hike was a little boring - we walked about 15 km and most of that was through the woods. But we had really nice view couple times, had a lunch at bay and saw some waterfalls as well.
Having about 8km behind, we got to Canada - USA border. How easy was it to cross. Just two border stones and about 10 metres of cut down woods. The park is on the territory of the U.S. called Glacier NP [W]. At the end we almost passed the ranger station and went to dock wait for our boat.
I saw the ranger riding pretty old school red ladies bike. He asked me where and from where are we going and when I explained him the situation he said that he needs to check our IDs because we have entered the US. It was really funny story. No one had passport, somebody had just driving license and somebody didn't have anything at all. I gave him Czech driving license and he asked me about where do I stay and what is my date of birth. He had some jokes about some violations and then said something like "I'm withdrawing you from the USA". The only consequence for us was that we had to get on the boat and ship back to Canada which we planned anyway. Altghough the name of the ranger station was Goat Haunt we unfortunately haven't seen any mountain goat (MG is even official symbol of Glacier).
Another state conquered - I've been to Montana :-).
Boat trip was good relief and took about 50 minutes. We went out for a dinner later in the evening.
We were more disciplined on Sunday and left almost on time after rich ham & eggs breakfast.
The plan was to go by car to Cameron Lake and then hike to Wall Lake. Round trip was this time only about 13 km including visit of Forum Falls which were out of the way. I wish we didn't go there! I've slipped when crossing a creek and had to walk another 10 km in completely wet shoes.
It was great to watch snow remains when we got to Wall Lake.
We rode through buffalo paddock on the way back to watch some buffalos. Bad but funny ending of the trip was my order at some restaurant. I ordered (after consulting with the others but not with the server) ham steak in believe that I will get steak with slice of ham over it. To my great surprise and to terrific fun of the others the meal was something different. They brought me huge piece of roasted ham (cca 6 cm thick!). Grrrr! I swear that I've never eaten that much ham since I was born :-). Especially not along with pineapple. I can't still believe that something like that can be included in regular menu and someone can order it intentionally.
Sport
Another news is that I've finally arranged my membership at UofC Health & Recreation Centre. Annual all access membership is $565 and I got it for free. Sweet! I went to play squash first time yesterday and put all efforts in it. My ass pains still now:-). I definitely need more exercise. I was thinking that it would be nice to go swimming every morning because Aquatic Centre is just about 150m from my residence but I'm obviously too lazy to do that. I've became a member of Ski Club this week as well. The fact that they only needed to know how good skier and what bar persona I am says a lot. The club is well known for huge parties. One of the best benefits they tried to attract new members to was the fact that they managed to get permission for drinking booze on the bus to the mountains:-).
Loonie hits par
School went smooth this week. I've became part of another team for some project and made an agreement on topic with other team. Have to start working on assignments already.
Today was a big day in Canadian history. Canadian dollar (Loonie) hit par with the U.S. dollar today. It's something that hasn't happened since November 25, 1976. And we've been watching FX market trading on my Finance course real time online.
Traditional conclusion: Yay! I'm going to Banff National Park [W] tomorrow. The only problem is the weather. Today was snowing (yes, it really was) in the morning nice during the day and raining in the evening. But I hope it's gonna be fine.... The bad thing is that I will miss Ski Club Icebraker party (free eats & drinks :-)) because of the trip .
Team was purely European - Swedish-German-Polish-French-Austrian-Czech.
We left quite late and went shopping first. The trip to park itself was lot of fun. Just when we passed the park entrance we've seen a lot of cars parked along the road. We stopped as well and what a luck! We saw three grizzly bears! Now I can leave Canada with a clear conscience. It's a pity that I was unable to capture some good photo (it was already too dark).
The town of Waterton was nice. Deer just hanging out on the streets... They are really proud of bears. Even the motel we stayed had all the linens bear styled (see the picture) . Ladies made a great dinner and boys (me & company:-)) took care of the dishes.
The weather was amazing - sunny and 28°C (86°F). That was another great luck because they have some years 3 feet of snow at the end of August.
The hike was a little boring - we walked about 15 km and most of that was through the woods. But we had really nice view couple times, had a lunch at bay and saw some waterfalls as well.Having about 8km behind, we got to Canada - USA border. How easy was it to cross. Just two border stones and about 10 metres of cut down woods. The park is on the territory of the U.S. called Glacier NP [W]. At the end we almost passed the ranger station and went to dock wait for our boat.
I saw the ranger riding pretty old school red ladies bike. He asked me where and from where are we going and when I explained him the situation he said that he needs to check our IDs because we have entered the US. It was really funny story. No one had passport, somebody had just driving license and somebody didn't have anything at all. I gave him Czech driving license and he asked me about where do I stay and what is my date of birth. He had some jokes about some violations and then said something like "I'm withdrawing you from the USA". The only consequence for us was that we had to get on the boat and ship back to Canada which we planned anyway. Altghough the name of the ranger station was Goat Haunt we unfortunately haven't seen any mountain goat (MG is even official symbol of Glacier).Another state conquered - I've been to Montana :-).
We were more disciplined on Sunday and left almost on time after rich ham & eggs breakfast.The plan was to go by car to Cameron Lake and then hike to Wall Lake. Round trip was this time only about 13 km including visit of Forum Falls which were out of the way. I wish we didn't go there! I've slipped when crossing a creek and had to walk another 10 km in completely wet shoes.
It was great to watch snow remains when we got to Wall Lake.We rode through buffalo paddock on the way back to watch some buffalos. Bad but funny ending of the trip was my order at some restaurant. I ordered (after consulting with the others but not with the server) ham steak in believe that I will get steak with slice of ham over it. To my great surprise and to terrific fun of the others the meal was something different. They brought me huge piece of roasted ham (cca 6 cm thick!). Grrrr! I swear that I've never eaten that much ham since I was born :-). Especially not along with pineapple. I can't still believe that something like that can be included in regular menu and someone can order it intentionally.
Another news is that I've finally arranged my membership at UofC Health & Recreation Centre. Annual all access membership is $565 and I got it for free. Sweet! I went to play squash first time yesterday and put all efforts in it. My ass pains still now:-). I definitely need more exercise. I was thinking that it would be nice to go swimming every morning because Aquatic Centre is just about 150m from my residence but I'm obviously too lazy to do that. I've became a member of Ski Club this week as well. The fact that they only needed to know how good skier and what bar persona I am says a lot. The club is well known for huge parties. One of the best benefits they tried to attract new members to was the fact that they managed to get permission for drinking booze on the bus to the mountains:-).
Loonie hits par
School went smooth this week. I've became part of another team for some project and made an agreement on topic with other team. Have to start working on assignments already.
Today was a big day in Canadian history. Canadian dollar (Loonie) hit par with the U.S. dollar today. It's something that hasn't happened since November 25, 1976. And we've been watching FX market trading on my Finance course real time online.
Traditional conclusion: Yay! I'm going to Banff National Park [W] tomorrow. The only problem is the weather. Today was snowing (yes, it really was) in the morning nice during the day and raining in the evening. But I hope it's gonna be fine.... The bad thing is that I will miss Ski Club Icebraker party (free eats & drinks :-)) because of the trip .
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