July 8 - East Glacier, MT to Canmore, Alberta - 260 miles

Well, here we are in Canada.

 Riding up from East Glacier to the border of Alberta, Canada was beautiful, with our passing along the side of Glacier National Park.  Then as we entered Alberta, we were running along the side of Canada's Waterton International Park, for more beautiful scenes of the Rockies as they extend into Canada.  The day was absolutely perfect, with blue skies, moderate temperatures, and just enough white clouds.

As beautiful as that was, the next part, riding along the Canadian Rockies south of Banff, was even more spectacular.  We ran out of superlatives, talking on the CB as we went along - beautiful, wonderful, spectacular, fabulous, awesome, etc., etc. The combination of high rocky peaks, lots of pockets of snow (some large enough to be considered small glaciers), heavily forested pine and fir up to the tree line, lime green patches of bushes and aspens, and unparalleled ruggedness combined to make this range of mountains more spectacular than anything we have seen in Colorado, Wyoming,  Montana, or anywhere so far.

This was Highway 541 from Longview, AB, connecting to Highway 40, and ending up at about Canmore, AB (near Banff).  If you have a map of Alberta, look up this highway, and if you ever come up here, BE SURE to drive this road.  It is at least equal (maybe more scenic) to the famed highway between Banff and Jasper (which we will ride tomorrow), there is almost no traffic, and much more wildlife can be seen here.  This highway has to be Canada's best kept scenic secret!  We met some local motorcyclists from Calgary, and they said the same thing.

Then, big thrill of the day, we saw our first Grizzly Bear!  And a black bear, and two mountain sheep on the highway described above.  The Grizzly was on a hillside opposite a Rest Stop where we just happened to stop.  He was huge, and we could easily see him digging on the hillside about 500 yards away.  He was just ambling along, finding enough to eat, digging roots or something.  Luckily, we had some binoculars, so we could see him well.  Then we saw a smaller black bear, just running off the shoulder of the highway after he had crossed.  The two mountain goats were closer, one on the highway, so we could see them shedding their winter coats.

Boy, what a day!  We'll write more after we get up to Jasper.

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