British Columbia and Banff

October 2017 – Trip to Canada

Overview:

On this page, you will find some amazing places to explore in British Columbia, Banff, Lake Louise, Invervemere, and Panorama.

• Amtrak from Portland to Whitefish, MT

• Uber Driver from Train Station to Kalispell Airport ($20) where we picked up our rental car.

• Be sure to have your passports. They are required to enter Canada. When you approach the border have your hats and sunglasses off and all the car windows rolled down. You can take bananas, packaged cooked meats, cheese, bread, crackers...into Canada. You can't take raw meat unless it's in in packaging and shows it's country of origin. You can't take apples or citrus into Canada. We had some potatoes that we bought in British Columbia with us when we came back into the states. That was alright. 

•  Amtrak roomette is great - it includes meals and the car is more secure.

• The Hot Springs are affordable.

• Be aware – many activities stop the end of September. Also, Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October.

Day by Day - 

We booked a Room-ette on a Superliner train. They are located in the sleeper cars. It’s basically a small room with two roomy chairs. The chairs fold together to form a bed and a murphy bed folds down from above for a top bunk. There’s room to stow your luggage in the hallway. They have bathrooms that only those traveling in the sleeper cars can use. There is a nice shower room. The porter makes down your beds. They are very comfortable. The top bunk gets cold, but we didn’t know about the temperature controls. Meals are included, but the dining car doesn’t join the train until Spokane and so they give a nice cold dinner on the train. We had a salad with chicken breast and a salad with steak. The chicken breast dinner was the best by far. You need to be in the dining car when it opens at 6:30 am if you’re getting off at Whitefish. You can order whatever you want off the breakfast menu, including additional sides. We all had the omelet. It was quite good. The train sways from side to side quite a bit so my parents had a difficult time walking to the dining car. We didn’t stay in coach, but they did have a good amount of space. We weren’t able to connect to the internet on our train.

We arrived in Whitefish early Sunday morning. We rented a car out of Glacier International Airport in Kalispell. We were thinking that there might be taxi’s waiting outside of the train station, but that wasn’t the case. We used the Uber app and got a driver there in just a few minutes. It cost $30 including a tip to be taken to the airport to get our car. The rental car counters are located inside the airport. The airport is small and easy to navigate.

Crossing the border was very easy and uneventful. We really wish we’d stopped and bought a few packages of meat as well as purchased some other groceries before we crossed the border. You cannot bring fresh produce of any kind into Canada, but you can take some meat as long as it shows the country of origin and is still sealed in its original packaging. Dried cereals, teas, coffee, chips, cheese are all ok to bring across the border. The border guard didn’t even ask about what food we had other than asking about fresh produce. I did have a banana that I declared, and they let me take it in with me.

Questions we were asked at the border:

• Do you have any weapons including mace?

• How long are you staying?

• Are you bringing in anything that is staying in the country?

• Are you bringing any gifts to anyone?

• Where are you from and where are you going?

  Our lodging was at Horsetheif Lodge in Panorama, BC. We were quite happy there. My only complaint was that the hot tub wasn’t – hot that is. The drive from Invermere to Panorama is just gorgeous. Unfortunately there are very few places to safely pull off the road to enjoy the view.

 Places of interest that we passed along the way –

Campbell Meyer Lake – we captured some beautiful reflections of the mountains and fall colors. The mountain peak visible from there is called Fischer Peak. It’s located at a Rest Area. The fishermen that we spoke with told us they’d seen elk, deer, turtles, and osprey that day. We just saw the views – and them. It was definitely worth the quick stop.

 Canal Flats was a very pretty area. It is in the southern part of Columbia Lake.

Columbia Lake – the Source of the Columbia River. There is a rest area that has a nice picnic area that overlooks the lake.

Dutch Creek – beautiful bridge over a small river. There is also a very large cliff that’s white rock. It was a pretty area.

Invermere has pretty photo opportunity and a nice grocery store. There is a cute downtown area across the river and up the hill.

Be aware – many activities stop the end of September. Also, Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October.

Below are pictures of the inside of our unit at Horsetheif Lodge, Panorama.

The views from Horsetheif Lodge are incredible. The complex has several restaurants that were closed while we were there. The store was well stocked and open during our stay. If you are into skiing our hiking, this is the place to stay. There were ski lifts right ouside our unit.

Day 2 – Canada’s Thanksgiving

We didn’t even think to check for major holidays when planning our trip. We had planned to go to the Banff area and ride the gondola at Lake Louise. We asked many of the locals which gondola ride is the best. They agreed that Lake Louise gave the best view of the lake and also had the best activities (a nice tea house/restaurant) at the top. There are three gondola rides in the Banff area – the Banff, Lake Louise, and Jasper. There are also many chairlifts, but they all closed the end of September and don’t re-open until the ski season. There is a chairlift at Panorama which is where we are staying. It looks like it would be a great one to ride. The gondola rides are in the $50 price range.

Day 3 –

Today we drove to Banff and Lake Louise. Along the way we stopped at Marble Canyon and Johnston Canyon. At Marble Canyon you walk on top of the canyon with views to the bottom. The water is a gorgeous milky blue The path is easy and there are several bridges that pass over the canyon allowing you a fantastic view of the canyon walls and the water below. We hiked all the way up to the waterfalls. They were gorgeous! We were astonished to see people in the water at the bottom of the canyon. Later we came upon their gear and saw where they repelled down into the canyon.

Johnston Canyon is a wide canyon that has a river running through it. In this canyon, you walk in it following the water. There are two waterfalls. The lower falls are very stunning. We opted to not hike to the upper falls. The water was crystal clear. The pools of water at the base of the waterfall was  beautiful shade of blue.

Oh my goodness! The hotel and Lake Louise is stunning. We’d heard there was a nice (not fancy) restaurant option in the hotel and so we set out to find it. We had to wait a bit, but it was well worth it. We had a beautiful lake front table (inside). The food was delicious.

Banff is a beautiful little tourist town. There are many many restaurants and gift shops. We ate dinner at Melissa Missteak House. https://www.melissasmissteak.com/ It was reasonable priced and the food and service was good. The town is very tourist friendly, and we had no problem finding parking.

The Fairmont Banff Springs hotel is not to be missed. They have a nice restaurant, but they also have a cafe offering wonderful desserts, pastries, sandwiches, and drinks. The hotel is like a museum. It’s gorgeous inside and out.

We made many other scenic stops along the way. The first was just outside of Invermere. As you head up the hill toward Radium Hot Springs there are several scenic pull outs that have beautiful views of the water below.

It’s worth the time to pull out at least one of them.

There are so many places to pull out and take photos of the mountains. They are well marked. It was a 2 hour drive to Banff from Panorama, so we only went to a few of them.

Things we’d do differently – leave town sooner. We didn’t get home until mid-night. Driving on the winding roads at night is nerve wracking because there is a lot of wildlife to watch out for.

Day 4

Today we ventured into Invermere and just laid low. We went to The Bakery again, this time taking my mom with us. She loved the pastries as much as we did. The coffee is very good here too, and they have brewed decaf. We went to several of the city shops. One of the locals told us about the beach located in town. We drove down to check it out. It’s a nice area, but not like the beaches of the Pacific Northwest. The railroad track and the quaint pond are right at the beach also. I’m sure in the right weather and lighting, some nice pictures could be had. We intended to go back to take some photos, but opted to head back to Marble Canyon.

After dropping my mom back at the condo’s we explored more of Panorama. The road to Panorama follows Toby Creek. The creek runs through a canyon. At places are very deep canyon. We found many beautiful places that we wanted to photograph, but very few pullouts and safe locations along the road. I guess we’ll just have to keep the memory of the beautiful places we saw. There were some great ponds that offered some nice photo opportunities.

Panorama Drive continues past the resorts. Shortly after the resort the road turns into a gravel one. It does continue to follow the creek. There are several nice photo ops, but none that compelling. Do be careful though.

Day 5 –

It snowed the night before and so we chose to head back to Marble Creek this time with our tripods. We stopped at several places that time had not allowed us to visit on our previous visit. Below are some pictures of Olive Lake, one of the many beautiful places to explore.

Below are some of our Marble Canyon take two photos. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

We stopped to check out Numa Falls, but the bridge was washed out so we didn’t see them. We did crawl around the rocks along the river and took a few nice shots. Use caution if you venture out on the rocks. They are slippery, especially when it’s icy.

Vermillion Crossing was a great place to stop. The jewel colored river flows through a small canyon of very interesting rock formations. Our favorite photos of this location were taken from the road. The first one is from the road, the other two are taken from underneath the bridge.

 The Dog Lake pull out was another great stop. We didn’t hike all the way to the lake, but we did walk to the walking suspension bridge the crosses over the Kootenay River. The water was such a gorgeous blue.

Several of the pullouts and trails were closed this time of the year.

We saw a big horn sheep and a herd of mountain goats in Radium Springs. They seem to be pretty comfortable with people.

We stopped to check out the Hot Springs at Radium Hot Springs. At this point, the thermal water is being diverted to the outdoor swimming pool. The entry price is just under $6/adult. I sure wished we checked this place out sooner. We were expecting the prices to be much higher after visiting the Hot Springs in Iceland.

Day 6 - Heading Home

Well, there was a crash involving two freight trains which kept our train from getting to Whitefish. We opted to drive home. Amtrak was quick to refund our tickets so we used those funds to pay the way.

We set out for Kalispell, Montana, because we had to swap rental cars. One thing we learned was that there are fleet cars and franchise cars (not sure if these are the right terms, but one car belongs to the company and can be dropped off at any location and others have to be returned to that location only). Unfortunately, we had the one that had to be returned to that location.

Just before we arrived at the border, we happened across this coffee shop. It’s definitely worth the stop.

On the recommendations of friends, we ate dinner in Kalispell, Montana at a place called HOPS. Reservations are probably a good idea, especially if you are visiting on the weekend. We were able to sit at the bar. It wasn’t the least expensive place to eat, but the food was good. http://www.hopsmontana.com/

We headed toward Spokane after a quick dinner at Hops in Kalispell. We stopped in Coeur d'Alene for the night. We ate breakfast at Golden Corral (a treat for my parents) and headed to Spokane. We spent a bit of time in Spokane taking my parents around to see some of the sites. At one time, they lived in Spokane and it was fun for them to see some of the places that were important to them. The falls in downtown are a great place to visit.

Our next big stop was at Country Mercantile just north of Pasco, Washington.  https://www.countrymercantile.com/   This is a great place to visit. They make wonderful sandwiches and their soup is good too.

Other than gas and coffee, we didn't stop again. We were more than ready to be home and out of the car by this time.