Miles Driven Today: 0   Miles Driven Total: 2016

We had breakfast in our room: cereal and coffee.  Our cooler box is working really well for us.  Every morning we empty the bags of melted ice into the sink and fill them again from the free ice machines that are on every floor of the hotel, or always in some convenient spot.  Our food is staying perfectly fresh and nice and the cans and bottles of drink are just right.  It has saved us a lot of money on breakfasts and lunches and we are hardly roughing it in what we eat.  We managed to acquire plastic cutlery from the Residence Inns and we have bought some paper plates and bowls.  Napkins and salt and pepper we also got from the Residence Inn.

We had to be at the boat dock right by the hotel at 9 for our boat trip with guided hike.  The day was brilliantly sunny and warm – the rain cleared away overnight.  The trip cost $27.95 each and that included a boat trip across Swiftcurrent Lake (right outside), and then a quarter mile hike through some woods to Lake Josephine, where we got on another launch to go across that.  We then had a 2 mile hike to Grinnell Lake, just below the glacier.  And back again.

Met some nice chaps from Georgia in the boat line.  They had the best accents.  Very jovial.  Our guide was a young lady called Marina who gave us a good commentary throughout.   When we started across Lake Josephine there was some excitement as there were two moose (es) right at the water line.  We’d never seen a moose before so we were probably more excited than some of the Americans.  What a strange looking creature, like a cross between a big deer and a horse.  Both of them were female I think as they didn’t have antlers.  The guide said that in some ways they were more dangerous than the bears as they are more inclined to charge you.

The hike through the forest to Grinnell Lake was very nice, very pretty woods.  The lake when we got there, was very blue due to it being glacier melt water.  We had a good view of the glacier above which had a black line through it.  There was a lot of geological detail given on this hike because of the glaciers and also the very interesting coloured rock visible.  Even the pebbles in the stream were highly coloured and pretty.  I didn’t understand it all but apparently a lot of the stones and rock are the result of sedimentation when this area was under a shallow sea millions of years ago.  The glaciers that formed millions of years later (but still millions of years ago to us) carved the valleys and the strangely narrow mountain ridges that divide some of the valleys.  Bob’s cousin Susan should have been here to explain it all to us!

We got back to the hotel at about 130 and had lunch on our balcony overlooking the lake.  A cheeseboard (all horrid processed cheese but the best on offer) and a nice bottle of cold Pinot Grigio.  Of course if you take exercise + wine + hot sun, the result is zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz and the next thing we knew it was 530!!!!  Well… we must have needed the rest…..

We had a short walk along the path that runs around Swiftcurrent Lake from the hotel but it was getting to be dusk and we were aware we were out without our bear spray so we headed back.  Sat outside the hotel and watched the sun set behind the mountains.  Lovely.

Dinner tonight in the Ptarmigan Restaurant, the main hotel dining room.  We both had prime rib which was nice but not by any means the best we’ve ever had.  The view from the table was really sublime though.