Aug 17, 2024 - Hiking in Waterton Park

There is a short 1.2 miles Prince of Wales Loop Trail starting from the back of our hotel and we planned to hike this trail first.  At spilt spot, we did not pay attention and we got on the Townsite Loop Trail (2 miles).  Turned out it was a beautiful trail and we had many wonderful angles to view the hotel, lake, mountains and the township.  On this trail, we were able to view the Princes of Wales hotel from different angles over the lake.  It was magical and wonderful Kodak moments for us.  Then we got the International Park portion with a lot of landmarks to highlight it.

We stalked along the lake and found that there is a lot of lodging options in this area.  They are all have lake front accommodations and easy access to the lake and beaches.  

We also visited the newly built Waterton NP Visitor Center.  It was nicely designed with a lot of educational and interesting displays.

When we passed the Marina, we brought course tickets for Waterton Lake cruise in the afternoon of Aug 18.

After that wonderful hike, we got back across the hotel and got on the Bear’s Hump Trail.  Is is a moderate trail with 1.8 miles continuous uphill climb. Luckily they have a lot of rest points with benches or large stones  (used as bench) for resting.  It took us about a whole hour to reach the top.  

The 180 degrees view at the top provides an unforgettable views of the lake, mountains, waterfront township and the amazing hotel.  We stayed there for quite a long time and just click away our cameras. 

Since there is an Afternoon Tea in the hotel, we pre-booked it for 3PM.  It was in the Royal Steward Dining Room.  It was a typical and traditional afternoon tea.  Their charge $59 pp for a 3 tiers desert tray for selection of Tea Forté varieties and the carefully-crafted squares and sandwiches.  It did provide a taste of royal for us. We had a table next to the window overlooking the lake.  It was magical for us.  The only regarding part was that there were flies flying around out table.  We had to constantly to swiping them away.

After that we drove to Red Rock Canyon to visit this different part of park. We drove over the Red Rock Parkway to the northwest part of the park to visit it. It was created due to water erosion, and this canyon delights visitors with an array of red and green colored bedrock, called argillite, further accented by the surrounding lush vegetation, wildflowers, and mountain peaks in the background. An excellent place for photos, and stalking on the trial along the both sides of the canyon.  

There were a lot of visitors there with bare foot or some sort of crotches to walk in the canyon stream water.  We just walked on the trail and found a nice quiet spot for trying to step on the rock and touch the water.

We also added the Blakiston Falls Trails (1.2 miles) to enjoy the Blakiston falls. It was an easy trail with a boardwalk that leads to two beautiful recently built metal viewing platforms extending out over the gorge. We enjoyed both viewing platforms and just sat there for quite a while to soak in all the natural beauty.

On the way back we ran into a lot of cars in front of us stopping to watch animal.  Turnout it was a Grizzle Bear.  It was in distance, so we did not have any chance to take photo.