Bellevue near Crowsnest Pass and the B.C. border

Monday November 5...8:45pm

Well today was yet another interesting day! It's never boring, that's for sure!

Waterton Lakes National Park is absolutely beautiful.  It was a blue sky day, with no wind...yet still a little cool. We decided to hike from the townsite up to Bertha Falls...about a 5.8 km hike there and back. There was a few cm's of fresh snow on the ground, so it was fun to try and guess what animals had made tracks. None of them were bigger than my shoe, so we weren't worried about grizzly bears.

The view out our window when we woke up this morning

Entering the village of Waterton Lake

The view of Upper Waterton Lake from the Prince of Wales Hotel 

View of the townsite and Upper Waterton Lake from the Prince of Wales Hotel

The Prince of Wales hotel 

Scenery hiking up to Bertha Falls 

Scenery hiking up to Bertha Falls 

View of the Prince of Wales hotel while hiking on the Bertha Falls Trail

Kevin on the trail  

By the time we got back and had some lunch we decided to go to Pincher Creek and do some groceries. Not too big of a store there, but had we driven another km or so, we would have come upon the new Wal-mart Supercentre where we probably could have saved $5 or so. I can't figure how any of the local stores survive once Wal-mart moves in. And this in a town of about 3,800 people.

We had read in a guidebook that the village of Lundbreck Falls had a campsite with power for $17 a night. Finally found it, and when we got there it turned out that although the campsite was "open", the power boxes were all locked shut. On another note, our furnace problem has returned again! So, now we had no electric, and no gas furnace. THIS IS NOT GOOD. So we figure that will pass on the "open, but not really" campsite at Lundbreck, and drive on to Crowsnest Pass where there is a more likely spot to find power. It is dusk as we drive into Bellevue, and as we enter the town they have a free municipal campground. But there is no power at the sites. However, I check at the closed up information booth near the entrance, and sure enough I find an electrical outlet buried near the foundation of the building. So there is nobody else around, and we have power...and funny enough we also have internet. It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to find internet in the middle of nowhere.

Now, we have to get the furnace working again. Without going into detail, I know what the problem is, and I'm pretty certain as to how to avoid the problem occuring again. We just need to buy a $26 switch that I can now change myself after having watched the last guy do it. So when we get to Cranbrook, we'll take care of that. In the meantime, we have another free spot we're hooked up at, and we're nice and warm for now.

Looking forward to another hike at the Frank Slide area tomorrow. Then it's on to British Columbia!

Total Nights Sleeping in the RV... 23...

November Fuel $ 201.84

November Grocery $ 123.69

November Overnight Costs $ 62.38