Glacier National Park is part of a World Heritage Site called Glacier-Waterton Lakes. Waterton Lakes National Park is on the Canadian side. We couldn't come this close and not see the Canadian part, could we?
Recall from our frustrating rental car experience that we couldn't take Lixojinha into Canada, and that we had to rent another car just for our day in Canada. The Avis place was conveniently located right across the railroad tracks from the lodge.
We popped in to ask how late they were open, and I availed myself of a piece of huckleberry pie. They told us they "closed at 10:00 last night," so we told them we would be back for dinner.
We would later wish that we had never seen nor heard of the Two Sisters, but that part comes later. For now, we were having a great time and figuring on a good meal on our way back to East Glacier Park.
Our first sight in Canada was, unfortunately, not a beautiful mountain, but a Canadian border officer, in that dreadful meant-to-intimidate police stance, wearing a belt full of various weapons, vigorously feeling up someone who was just out of sight behind a building. Et tu, Canada? This ugly picture deflated the elation I'd felt all morning, and left me trying not to spend the whole day fearing that we would face a similar level of disrespect from our own countrymen on the way back.
The ranger gave us a much more detailed trail guide than you get for any American national park without data access. It had a complete list of trails, organized by area and level of difficulty, with the found-trip trail distance, the elevation gain, and an estimated time to complete the trail. She also gave us a beautiful, 44-page visitor guide that actually had some real information along with the ads, and a detailed map of the village. Based on her recommendation, as well as National Geographic's, we chose the Bear's Hump Trail, a steep, one-hour climb, with an elevation gain of 225 meters in 2,800 meters of distance, which Parks Canada had rated as "moderate." Note that that's about an 8% elevation gain, and also note how ridiculously easy it is to calculate elevation gain in the metric system and why all of you Americans should be eager to ditch your stupidly complicated measurement system. See how long it takes you to calculate the elevation gain of 738 feet in 1.8 miles.
Several times, we passed people who assured us that the view at the top would be worth the climb. Eric noted that the American National Park Service's trail guides throw around terms like, "arduous" and "strenuous" like colored beads at Mardi Gras. Meanwhile, we shudder to think of what Parks Canada would classify as "strenuous."
Since this is the sister park to the American Glacier National Park, this is considered the sister lodge to the Glacier Park Lodge where we were staying. Eric read that it was hastily named the Prince of Wales Hotel right before the prince's visit to Canada, in a failed attempt to induce him to stay there.
We were just ten minutes late for the last seating of high tea with a gorgeous view of the mountains.
We bought some sundries from the gift shop, where the counter clerk told us that she and most of the other hotel staff hike up to the top of the Bear's Hump almost every day.
After the hotel, at the suggestion of National Geographic, we headed out to hike the Red Rock Canyon. This is a mountain along the Red Rock "Parkway," which most Americans would describe as a stump road.
This 700-meter Red Rock Canyon loop trail, rated as "easy," was absolutely incredible.
He wasn't the only one. A guy coming from the other way wanted to take my picture, too, to illustrate how a hiker could be dressed for all sorts of weather and prepared for all contingencies.
There was one more road in the park that we hadn't seen--the Akamina Parkway down to Cameron Lake.
The crossing back into the US was actually fairly easy. The agent just asked us the standard questions about where we lived, what we did for a living, whether we'd bought anything (we did buy some cookies and candy), and whether we had any alcohol, tobacco, firearms or large quantities of cash. He took a quick look in the back seat and in the trunk, but did not take the whole car apart. At this point, we thought we could relax, have a nice little dinner in a fun place, get back to the lodge reasonably early and have a nice restful night.
We had greatly enjoyed our day in Canada, seeing the scenery, doing great hikes, and being among friendly Canadians. We were having a great time until we got to the Two Sisters. Although they had told us to expect them to be open until 22:00, when we got there at about 21:15, there was only one car in the parking lot, and the window shades were down. There were both "open" and "closed" signs in the window, so Eric went up to the door to ask. The waitress was cleaning up and, turning the "open" sign around, told him they were closed.
This put us into quite a dilemma, because most of the area's restaurants closed at 21:00. We thought we had solved the miserable "finding a dinner place that's open late" problem, and were distressed to find ourselves, tired and hungry, driving past one after another closed restaurant. Lulu the GPS predicted that we could not get back to the lodge before 22:00, and we were sure the restaurant there would be closed by then. On the windy route back to the lodge, we did not think we could beat Lulu's estimate. So, we kept slowing down in front of one restaurant after another, seeing the closed signs, and moving on, getting hungrier and hungrier. We had had only car snacks for lunch, so we were particularly hungry. We were extremely angry with those hippies back at the Two Sisters.
At last, we decided that we would just have to go back to the lodge, and, while they probably couldn't give us a nice hot meal, they surely had food, so they could at least give us something cold. It turned out, unfortunately, that they could not give us anything more than bread rolls. Apparently, the chefs are required to lock the refrigerators when they leave at the end of the day so that employees cannot steal the food. What a miserable, ugly personnel policy.
Eric had a lengthy discussion with the bartender and the counter clerk, while I sat in the bar trying not to cry. Finally, he came back and told me that the one place in town still open, the Trailhead Saloon, served frozen pizza. We could have walked there, but we drove, because it was cold, and because I didn't want to risk getting there only to be told, somehow, that the oven shut down at 22:30.
So, this is how we came to find ourselves eating frozen pepperoni pizza in a dive bar on a native reservation in Montana.
The bartender, who couldn't have been more than 25, was incredibly forthright and friendly. He told us that all the pizzas had sausage and pepperoni or even more mammal meat on them, but said he could try to pick it off while it was still frozen. I said I was hungry and would just eat the pork, but Eric asked to have the pork picked off. The guy couldn't really extract much of the sausage from the cheese, but he did give it a try.
Eric doesn't like bars and was clearly uncomfortable with the noise from the jukebox. I pointed out that at least it was classic rock and reggae and not country-western. I found the place reasonably pleasant--the gender mix was well balanced, and the music was good. Montana or tribal law apparently requires smokers to do their business outside, so the air was as breathable as it gets at that elevation. At this point, I would have been happy to have been the only woman in a bar full of smoking cowboys and loud country music if it had meant I could have had something to eat, but things were considerably better than that.
What with a frustrating hour and a half spent trying to get ourselves fed, we didn't get back to our room until 23:30, and didn't get to bed until 00:15. It was a very frustrating and unhappy end to an otherwise wonderful day.
Yes, I know people around the world go hungry every day, and, you know what? It really sucks for them, too.
Distance hiked: 2.5 km (I can be really precise here because of Parks Canada's data).
On to Many Glacier area.