Day 31

Our mountain home was pretty dark in the morning until about 8am, but my internal alarm went off and I got up to start packing for our drive. We were also pretty excited to get moving to our hike this morning. After breakfast we were derailed quite a bit on a search for Brayden's glasses. They weren't in the car, in Grammie's RV, at the campsite, in the tent, they had just disappeared. We all retraced the steps of the previous day and decided to pack up and search the couple places we'd stopped. We had the responsibility talk again on the way and didn't find them anywhere.

After a quick stop at the post office for Canadian stamps, we were on the road to Alberta. Our first stop was another of my most anticipated hikes of the trip to Stanley Glacier. The smoke was all around us still, but I was hoping we would at least be able to see it once we got there. If we didn't my people were going to strangle me as it was about a 5-mile hike!

This hike was rated "moderate" by the park service and I could certainly see why within the first 2 kilometers of straight up switchbacks! Our altitude-challenged crew were needing quite a few breaks as we kept going up and up. We got a peek at the cascades of the Stanley River on the way up as we recovered.

About an hour later, we made it to the river crossing and I promised Laney we would stop there for a snack on the way back. Our next 30 minutes were on the trail through a meadow where we tried to spot some wildlife but with no luck.

The trail then became very rocky as we climbed the last kilometer to the glacier viewing spot. Dave was the first to spot the waterfall off the side of Stanley Mountain so we knew we were close. The smoke had settled in quite a bit since we first parked but we could still see the glacier nestled in the mountain. Ryan wanted to go touch it so I contemplated adding at least an additional 2 hours to the hike while Grammie and Dave waited for us.

The kids were already tired, out of snacks, and we still had the trek back so I decided against it. Dave took a picture with strategic placement of Ryan's finger and the glacier to prove that she "touched" it.

I decided to hike in a little further to show the perspective of the mountain and glacier. It was difficult to capture with the camera because of the smoke, but we are the little people waving on the trail about 1/4 from the bottom of the picture. This place made me feel so small!!

We enjoyed the view for a little while longer then decided to head back. We still had a drive to our next campground today. We were much quicker on the return making it to the river in record time even with Brayden stopping briefly to take pictures.

The kids immediately all took off their shoes and stepped into the freezing glacier water. The look on each of their faces was priceless as their feet immediately and painfully froze.

The kids thawed their feet while I captured a visitor lurking in the woods hoping we might be having a snack. When I turned around to capture them they didn't even roll their eyes!



















We zoomed through the switchbacks with ease and very quickly because we all needed to pee by now! Ryan paused to watch her stick in the river then we headed to the car for the remainder of our drive. We all emptied what was left in our backpacks so they could be put away. Ryan decided to make a little design with her remaining water. How could you not smile seeing this?

I was actually not smiling at this point. After this long hike I was so ready to change into flip flops but I couldn't find them. It seems I was so frustrated and consumed with taking to Brayden about losing his glasses that I lost my flip flops. Life has a way of always keeping me humble. 

Before much more time on the road, we were crossing the border into Alberta. We were surprised to be able to see two of the highway wildlife overpasses along the way!

We were following Grammie through Canada because my GPS didn't allow download of Canada maps. When we arrived in Banff we stopped to take a picture at the sign and she promptly lost us. We were in Banff National Park but also in the city of Banff, Alberta so we drove around a little bit until I spied the park information center. I ran in and grabbed a map of the area to see if we could find our campground.

It took me a few minutes to figure out where we were supposed to be going but I finally got us to the area of the lake where we would be staying. This pretty girl was blocking the road for awhile, but we enjoyed watching her!

As we pulled into Two Jack Lake Dave and I were both taken aback by the large "closed" sign at the check in station. I thought maybe the station was just closed so we drove into the campground a little bit to find other roads closed as well.

It all seemed wrong to us so we went back out and stopped at the maintenance area where we saw a few trucks. I was worried the campground had been unexpectedly closed and was resigned to asking if we could stay on Grammie's site.  A man greeted us to help and he cleared up everything for us. Apparently we stopped at "Two Jack Lake" and we were supposed to be stopping at "Two Jack Lakeside". Crisis averted.

We were setting up within a few minutes at our assigned site nestled in the trees of the campground just off the lake. I was already excited to see the sunset or sunrise if the smoke cleared. Next we headed over to Grammie's spot to cook dinner but she'd already started tuna burgers. It was perfect timing as it was ready shortly after we arrived and we were all stuffed about 10 minutes later. Ryan and Brayden claimed they had a separate area for storing dessert so Grammie obliged with the rest of the peach and blueberry cobbler. Now we were really stuffed!

We headed back to the campsite and visited the lake for a few minutes before Dave and I immediately went to bed and Brayden and Laney went to read in their tent. I believe I woke up a little while later and told them to go to bed or I may have dreamed that!