Waterton Camping Trip!
We went on a camping trip!
And it. was. great.
We headed to Waterton from July 16th-18th. We had made a pact to visit all the Provincial and National Parks in the near vicinity. We’ve done Banff, Yoho, Jasper, and Bow Valley, but neither of us had been to Waterton since we were much younger, so off we went!
To be completely honest, this was one of the least well-planned trips we’ve gone on. Usually when we head off, I’ve done research the week before, and looked up the places we might want to go and stay, hikes we might want to do, and places I want to photograph. Not this time. I had been very busy flying and spending time with my host parents in the weeks prior, so I hadn’t really had time. That meant that we did cooking, packing and researching all the night before heading out.
We took our sweet time in the morning, as we usually do, and stopped to get gas and a coffee. I knew I wanted to stop at Lundbreck Falls on the way down south, and thought we might want to sleep at the campground there for the first night, since we hadn’t booked anything in advance. The road we took down took us past the Bar U Ranch, so we quickly stopped to look around.
Lundbreck Falls is very touristy, but I had seen some nice photos on Instagram, and it did not disappoint! It’s in a weird spot, where I’m used to waterfalls in the middle of trees and mountains, this one is just in the middle of the prairies. It’s also right by a cool train track, and a field of beautiful wildflowers.
We debated staying at the Lundbreck campsite, but decided to keep going, because it was quite open, and not the nicest. We stopped at a beautiful overlook on our way south, and got to see what we were in for in terms of beauty, and let me tell you, there’s a lot.
To start, once upon a time, there were only three campgrounds in Waterton National Park. Then the Kenow wildfire of 2017 really did a number on the area. It makes me sad to see the damage it’s done. With that being said, there are now only two campgrounds available; Townsite, in Waterton Village, and Belly River campground, to the East, on highway 6.
We decided to try our luck at Belly River, got there at about 4:30, and were lucky enough to get one of the last two spots. Had we gotten there half an hour later, we wouldn’t have! It ended up being quite a nice campground. We got set up and heated up our chili that we had made the night before.
The next day, our only full day in Waterton, we went to get more cash to pay for the site, then moved over to a nicer site than the night before. After that, we headed over and stopped at the Red Rock Canyon Loop. We walked along for a bit, then headed into Waterton Village itself. Now, I had a whole list of possible hikes that we could do, but a lot of those hikes were near impossible to get to without a bike, since the main road leading out there was closed due to the Kenow fire from two years prior. So, we first stopped at the gorgeous Prince of Wales hotel,
and then at the beautiful Cameron Falls in town and took some photos.
The one hike we were able to find to do was Bertha Lake. It’s 10.4km round trip. We started quite late in the day (at about 4pm), and it took us about four hours. There’s two little waterfalls on the way, and then there’s twenty-one switchbacks up to the lake.
When we got back, we decided to go for dinner in town. We went to the Taco Bar and enjoyed a nice (not made by us and therefore even tastier) meal, before heading back to the campsite. Although we brought our camping gear, we decided to sleep in the van because we were planning on doing a sunrise hike the next morning. The sunset was beautiful!
We got up (late) at 3:30, and packed everything up and started driving to hike Sofa Mountain. On the drive, however, we saw two young cougars running down the road. That, combined with the three bears that we’d already seen on the trip, and the fact that we had forgotten bear spray, made us decide not to do the hike, but just to stop and take some photos on a hill.
If you haven’t made it out to Waterton Lakes National Parks yet, I would definitely recommend it. There are still lots of hikes that can be done, and it’s a beautiful area. You can reach out anytime, if you have questions about anything we did, or recommendations for while you’re there!
Have a great day, and a great time. Take care, now!
