North to Alaska - The Ultimate Road Trip

Driving by car to Alaska had been a personal dream since my childhood. In the summer of 1986, circumstances permitted me to take this trip. Living mostly out of the back of a pickup truck with occasional nights at motels, we spent an incredible 56 days on the road, a tour de force of the American - and Canadian - West.

This series will present my journal of that trip in one week increments as shown on the map at left. Many of the places visited will have their own pages with more information and photos. For example, visit our pages on the Gates of the Arctic and Denali National Park.

Week 2: Glacier National Park, Montana through the Canadian Rockies

July 8, 1986. Visiting a major national park during the height of the summer tourist season can be very stressful in terms of traffic and congestion. The approach road to Glacier National Park is very busy. I was also suprised at the extent of commercial and industrial development in the area, having expected northern Montana to be more rural.

At the park we are advised that most of the developed campgrounds are full. We try for a primitive campground at Bowman Lake (photo, right), at the end of a long dusty, dirt road. The campground is patrolled by some exceedingly tame deer.

It has taken most of the day to get settled in here. We spend the rest of the day exploring around the camp and the very pretty lake.

July 9, 1986. Today's project will be a day hike to nearby Lower Quartz Lake where hopefully we will do a little fishing. As is the case in most national parks, once you leave the road and hit the trail, most of the crowds get left behind. This trail offered almost complete solitude the whole day.

This up and down trail through heavy woods provided a good workout before reaching Lower Quartz Lake. The fishing yielded a few tiny cutthroat trout but the solitude and scenic beauty made up for it.

The weather deteriorates rapidly in the afternoon, and we end up hiking back in steady, pouring rain. We end up eating dinner in very soggy circumstances.

Years later, I read one of those "first-person" stories in Reader's Digest about a couple who had been hiking the same Lower Quartz Lake trail, and they were mauled nearly to death in an unprovoked grizzly bear attack. The couple survived due to the wife's heroic efforts. Food for thought...

July 10, 1986. Today we will visit Glacier's feature attractions. The Going to the Sun Highway is one of the west's great scenic drives. Open only in the summer, the road winds up a huge ridge before reaching the continental divide at Logan Pass. There is still plenty of snow, and its melting creates spectacular waterfalls everyhere on the mountainside.

Unfortunately the bumper-to-bumper traffic makes it difficult to enjoy the views. Most pullouts are full so we can't stop for pictures here.

Logan Pass is cold, windy, and rainy. It is above timberline, and has a harsh Arctic look. Fortunately, there is a nice warm visitor center. We bundle up and take a short hike to view the remnants of the glacier.

We continue on to Waterton Lakes National Park, Glacier's sister park on the Canadian side of the border. The Canadian parks seem to focus more on tourist services. American parks generally minimize commercial development within their boundaries. Many of the Canadian parks we visited had townsites with every sort of commercial service. This did not appeal to me, and I thought the prices were extremely high.

The scenery is spectacular here but the continued cold, rainy, and extremely windy weather makes it impossible to stay outside for long.

July 11, 1986. For the first time ever, I got "ripped-off" while camping. The thief however was very courteous, taking only my breakfast supplies (milk, eggs, bread).

There is no relief in the dismal weather so we headed for the large city of Calgary, Alberta, where we hoped to stay in a motel and visit the Calgary Stampede, the world famous rodeo event.

The weather improved away from the mountains. However it turns out there are no vacancies in Calgary during Stampede Week. We eat out, buy groceries, and push on. Bow Valley Provincial Park, west of town, had an excellent campground (great showers) and good weather. Nice hiking along the Bow River.

July 12, 1986. This morning is for "sleep-in and cleanup". Later, we head back into the mountains and Banff National Park, home of the world famous Lake Louise (photo, left). The townsite of Banff is a huge tourist area. (My journal reads "gigantic tourist trap".) We pick up maps and literature for the four national parks in the area. Since this is a weekend we decide to visit the less well-known Kooteny and Yoho parks first. We find spectacular mountain scenery combined with continuing rain. We are tired of the inactivity so we don our rain gear and go hiking and fishing in the pouring rain.

July 13, 1986. The main road through Yoho National Park offers great mountain scenery and very exciting driving. We stop at beautiful Emerald Lake and rent a canoe. The lake is in a basin surrounded by mountains on all sides, a stunning setting. (Photo of Emerald Lake at right.)

Later, we head back to Banff and Lake Louise. The rain had held off while we were in the canoe but now it pours. Combined with the tourist crowds and road construction the result is total chaos. We finally make it to Lake Louise just as the rain stops.

The vista at the lake is certainly one of the greatest in the world. It is bordered on two sides by steep tree-covered mountains. The background (from the main vista point) is a valley with a glacier which feeds the lake creating its beautiful aqua color. Behind the viewing area was the Chateau, a spectacular classical hotel (photo, right).

We push on to Jasper National Park and its famed "Icefield Parkway". One mile past Banff, the road is virtually deserted.

July 14, 1986. Jasper National Park features perhaps the most rugged section of the Canadian Rockies, including glaciers and the Columbia Icefield, one of the few remaining in North America.

We take the hike over Parker Ridge to the Saskatchewan Glacier overlook in the next valley to the west. The ridge top is tundra, a barren alpine environment: windy, cold, and treeless. The Saskatchewan Glacier (photo left) is an awesome, unworldly sight. The area where the glacier has retreated in the last 100 years is a rocky wasteland.

Further up the parkway the Columbia Icefield comes very close to the road. You may walk up to its edge or even sign up for a tour on a tracked vehicle. The environment here is surreal, very cold and very barren with a unique stark beauty.

This concluded our tour of the Canadian Rockies. We now headed to a motel in Prince George, British Columbia, on the road to Alaska.