Day 9: Banff to Waterton Lake, Alberta

Banff to Waterton Lake, Alberta - 335 miles

(NOTE: We are staying at the Prince of Wales hotel in Waterton Lake, a 100 year old hotel. While lovely, the technology appears to be 100 years old as well. It tool like 30 mins to upload a few photos, so today's blog will be short. I will make up for it tomorrow when we travel the "Going to the Sun Road" in Glacier National Park.)

Kate and I smoked 13 packs of cigarettes today. Each. 

But first - a proper breakfast and latte.


We headed out of Banff on Hwy 93 thru Kootenay National Park, where we crossed the Continental Divide (the sign has seen better days).





A good portion of our ride today was in very heavy smoke from a number of wildfires started over the last several days in British Columbia and Alberta due to lightening strikes. Visibility was very poor, and trying to breathe in our helmets was difficult. We were very lucky that the roads we were traveling on were not closed. 

At one point, a fire helicopter flew directly over us to dump water on a fire that wss about 1,000 yards from us.

Things cleared up as we got into Alberta, where we had a fantastic ride on ....


Passing thru Alberta, I could not help but think about the Big Boned Girl from Southern Alberta, none other than kd lang, who grew up in these parts. 



The hotel reminds me of the Ahwahnee in Yosemite.




Pre dinner cocktails:



It started pouring after we checked in, so I only got a few shots from our room window:







Here is our route for the day:


Tomorrow we cross back into Montana and ride Glacier !!

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