So, how was our trip to Glacier NP and Banff NP? It short, it was worth it! Beautiful places, amazing hike, unbelievable lakes – just unbeatable beauty! Highly recommend it!
We saw and did so much during this trip that I will break the summary into two parts: Glacier NP/Radium Hot Springs and Banff NP/Vancouver. But I will provide the total financials in Part one.
Dates:
– Jul 25th to Aug 6th, 2022
Itinerary:
– Drive to Whitefish, Montana
– Stay four nights at Whitefish/Kalispell KOA
– Explore Glaciers NP for three full days
– Drive to Radium Hot Springs, CA and stay for two nights at Prestige Radium Hot Springs Resort
– Explore the area or just stay and enjoy Hot springs
– Stay in Village 1 campground in Banff for three nights
– Explore Banff NP for three days
– Drive to Vancouver and stay at Hyatt Regency for two nights
– Explore Vancouver through hop-on/hop-off bus
Costs:
– Accommodations: $912 (seven nights at both campgrounds and one full night at Radium Hot Springs, the rest was covered with points and travel credit)
– Restaurants/Food: $1,145 (groceries and restaurants as cooking in campgrounds and hotels is limited)
– Transportation costs (gas mostly): $764
– Entertainment/Other : $630 (access to both parks, hot springs, travel insurance, gondola ride, hop-on/hop-off bus ride in Vancouver)
– Total out of pocket: $3,452
– CC travel award savings: $1,088 (24% of the total costs)
This time CC savings represent only about 24% but it’s mostly because most of our accommodations were in campgrounds, so we did not have a chance to save more on hotels. But when we stayed in hotels, it was good hotels and worth all the points we spent on them!
Glacier NP
We spent three full days in the park, which was a good introduction but we could have spent more time there as there was so much more to do and see!
One thing to note: you have to have a reservation to access Going to the Sun road. The reservations become available about 90 days out, but if you missed that window (like we did), you will have another chance to score a reservation – early in the morning the day before the intended visit. The reservation is for three days, so we started looking the morning before our departure and on the day of the departure. We were one of the first ones on both days and got us the needed reservation. Without it, your trip to Glaciers NP will be very limited or you would have to rely on shuttles to take our around.
Day 1
We started by entering the park through West entrance, south of Lake Macdonald but decided to drive all the way to Saint Mary’s lake and hike along the lake, explore a couple of waterfalls along the way. That was a smart decision because most people enter from West Entrance and parking near attractions on this side of Going to the Sun road were full in the morning, but when we arrived at Saint Mary’s lake, there were a lot of parking spots available.
This was when we drove the Going to the Sun road as well. What can I say – it’s very beautiful, very narrow and very scary. Again, there was no parking available at the summit (neither on the way there or back), so we left the exploration of the summit for another day.
Once we parked at Sun Point Nature Trailhead, we went on the trail along the lake, all the way to Virginia falls, passing Baring falls and Saint Mary’s falls. The hike ended up being about 8 miles, though relatively flat. Quite a way to start our trip!
Naturally, upon return to the campground, we crashed and took the rest of the day off, venturing out only to have dinner. Conveniently, the KOA we stayed at was located a couple of miles away from Whitefish town, which had its own lake, and we visited this lake a couple of times during our stay.
Day 2
We had enough of driving the Going to the Sun road on our own, so on Day 2 we decided to take a shuttle to the summit (Logan Pass) and hike a trail or two there: Hidden lake overlook trail and a little bit of Highline trail.
The description of Hidden Lake overview trail stated that the length is about 2.7 miles round trip with the elevation gain of 551 ft. Should be easy, right? Wrong! The hike turned out to be longer if you add the distance from the Logan Pass visitor center, about 4 miles, and for about three quarters it was covered in snow! At the end of July! On my birthday!
Climbing up the hill while wearing hiking sandals (at least I had wool socks on!) was fun, coming back was even more fun… That’s taking into account that it was less than 4 months since my ACL knee surgery…. However, once we climbed that hill and walked on a relatively flat surface, we’ve been graced with presence of many mountain goats, sometimes very close, which made this hike very memorable!
After this snowy challenge we were all wet to our knees and no-one in their mind wanted to do another hike, so we waited for the shuttle to drive us back to our car, so that we could change and go to dinner to celebrate my birthday!
Day 3
This time we decided to hike Avalanche Lake trail, not far from Lake McDonald. This hike was 6 miles round trip, with elevation gain of 757 ft – relatively challenging but nice. There was a lot of people on the trail, even more near the lake but we managed to find spots with not so many people around and take some breathtaking pictures. That’s what matters the most, right, the memories?
Again, we took the shuttle since we knew that finding parking would be impossible (we’ve experienced that on the first day). Taking a shuttle was easy and convenient, so we are thankful for this service provided by the park.
After coming back we visited Whitefish lake, had some dinner in town and packed for the next day trip: to Radium Hot Springs, Canada!
Radium Hot Springs
After spending four nights camping, having a luxurious hotel room with two separate rooms for two nights was very welcome. The town also has been stylized for an Austrian village with, well, Austrian restaurants. It’s also located right next to Kootenay National park, so it has gorgeous mountains as its backdrop.
The hot springs were amazing with two pools – one hot and the other pool with colder water, so that people can cool off after their session in a hot pool and then go back for another dip. All that in the outdoor setting, surrounded by beautiful mountains. My youngest kid asked to go there three times in two and a half day that we spend in Radium Hot Springs 🙂
In general, our time in Radium Hot springs was nice. We started with a visit to hot springs and a dinner at one of the Austrian restaurants. Since we have a “Bavarian” village next to our vacation home, the Austrian cuisine was nothing new but it was a nice change in what we were eating lately. The next day we took free mountain bikes from the hotel and attempted to bike around. We went down the path suggested for 1.5 miles only to realize that the steep and very dusty road is not going to get better and that we would need to come back up the hill. So we turned back and endured the hell of essentially carrying the bikes up that steep hill since we weren’t able to drive up. After coming back we were so exhausted that the rest of the day was spent inside, relaxing – men in the hotel room, I in the spa on the premises. In the evening we went to the hot springs to continue relaxing before the upcoming trip to Banff NP next morning.
Stay tuned for the second installment of our Road trip 2022!