o canada

on monday it was supposed to rain. all day. so we decided to forsake a second day of hiking in glacier and instead decided to drive north to the waterton lakes national park side of the international peace park. it was pretty neat! we actually crossed the border inside the park, crossing over into alberta. of course, much of what we saw was like the picture at the top of this post--mountains poking out occasionally from clouds. we drove into waterton lakes park via an indian reservation, got there, went to information, and then headed directly for the prince of wales hotel. this beautiful hotel is located on a hill overlooking one of the main lakes in the park--stunning from a distance, and quite gentrified up close. it was even beautiful on the inside, all open spaces with huge windows overlooking the lake. we went in and had a delicious lunch, peering out the window through the rain. after lunch it was still drizzling, and we didn't have the energy to do much other than leave the park--we still had a full day of driving ahead of us. below is the view over the lake from the hotel, although in the sunlight it looks like this.
we circled around the park to the north on highway 3, and in the crow's nest pass area we came upon this massive, massive rock slide, called the frank slide. it had happened in 1903, completely covering a mining town of 600 people at 4 in the morning. apparently to build the highway they just sliced through the fallen rocks, and by rocks i mean boulders. theodore got in the way of the picture. we then circled around back to the west, crossing into british columbia and heading south towards idaho. where we saw one of the world's largest trucks--used for carting coal, it can carry 2,000,000 tennis balls and is called a titan 38-19. by then the sun had begun to come out and we could really see the mountains around us. they were absolutely beautiful. it's different out here--i mean, i know the mountains are bigger, and more untouched, but it's more than that somehow. anyway, both southern alberta and southeastern bc were stunning. and had very expensive but well-regulated gas. we crossed from bc into idaho, which is filled with mountains and lakes in the northern panhandle (which should have gone to montana, incidentally). we came down the panhandle of idaho, crossing the border into washington state and headed to spokane, where we spent a couple of days relaxing and recovering from sports camp, hiking, and driving. as well as doing laundry, planning ahead, etc. the pic below was taken in bc.