Alright, woke up late (the sleep in was nice) in Priest Lake, cleaned up the cabin and headed on my way. (Thanks Tanner, Barry and Madeline!). Headed into Montana and as the sun was going down realized I needed to find a place to sleep for the night. I had just entered the Kootenai national forest, so I ducked down a few forest service roads and found a nice place to camp. The downside was that it was just about freezing out. This was the first time I’d camped when it was this cold, so it was time for some new techniques. I set up the tent on top of the storage deck I have in the bed of the truck, put in my double thickness sleeping bag and, for the first time, brought out the comforter as well. I was warm! I woke up early as the light came out, and it was snowing lightly! After that I headed off for Glacier National Park in Montana. Unfortunately the road I wanted to drive (the “Going-to-the-Sun” highway) wasn’t cleared, though I was able to drive the first 14 miles or so (up to Avalanche). It was beautiful and I’d really like to come back and drive the whole road.

After exploring Glacier National Park, I drove though Whitefish, had lunch and saw if I could get a place for the night, rates weren’t cheap enough so I decided to head back into Canada! Hoofed it over the border, then headed for Banff. I had always heard about how awesome the road though the park was on the way to Banff and I wasn’t let down. Lots of wildlife, mountains and snow. Apparently a few weeks ago the temperatures got up into the 20’s, not today as they were back around freezing again. Rolled into Banff and found a Starbucks and used their internet to find a place to stay for the night, struggled a bit with priceline and ended up with a place in Lake Louise for a few nights, this wasn’t bad, but I didn’t realize how small lake louise was, or that the ski hill there had already shut so it was very quiet there (and 65km from Banff).

Next, time to explore Banff national park!