Outwitting the law at Logan Pass

©2013 Lydia Hinshaw

Moon over the Canadian Rockies

 EXSHAW, AB -- We almost got arrested before we left Glacier National Park.

 It seems funny as the time passes, but it wasn’t at the time.  Tuesday morning at Logan Pass, a National Park Service ranger pulled us over and accused us of having spent the night in the parking lot there, which some people apparently do to try to avoid paying for a campsite.

 This was crazy, but it is not always easy to prove where you’ve slept, especially when you have no idea you’re going to be asked for documentation.

 We had packed up all our stuff Monday afternoon in the West Glacier, MT, campground where we had spent the past two months, and set out from there at 6 a.m. Tuesday, bound for Waterton, AB.  The simplest route is over Going to the Sun Road, the one we’ve been driving four times a day all summer.

 We were at Logan Pass by 7:30 a.m. and were planning to have a breakfast picnic in the parking lot.  However, it was uncomfortably cold and windy, so we decided to take a quick bathroom break and head on downhill, looking for a better spot on the east side of the mountains.

 We were about to pull out of the parking lot when the ranger stopped us.  She felt the hood of the Magic Bus and decreed that it wasn’t warm enough to have driven anywhere yet this morning.

 When we protested that we’d gotten up early and driven up from West Glacier, more than 30 miles away, she didn’t believe us.  She was incredulous that anyone would get up before 6 a.m. to begin a trip.  (May she live to be past 60 and discover how difficult it becomes to sleep long and well and at night!)

 Finally, after several minutes of back and forth, Prince Charming pulled out his wallet where, miracle of miracles, there was a credit card receipt for the rent we’d paid to our campground hosts.  Usually he throws these away, but he’d held onto this one as it might possibly be a tax deduction next spring.

 We were allowed to go on our way.

 After this foolishness, we weren’t surprised to find we couldn’t stay in Waterton, because the campground was booked solid.  It’s Internet site had promised sites were available, but would not allow me to make a reservation.

 We spent the rest of the day traveling north through the prairies, looking for another campground.  This was a tough job, as there are not many campgrounds between Waterton and Banff.

 The ones we did see were of the trailer-park variety, little more than parking lots.  One, which sounded good in our guidebook, simply didn’t exist anymore.  It had been left a wasteland by the floods which ravaged Southern Alberta in June.

 Finally we found what we needed, in Bow Valley Provincial Park, a spacious wooded site along the Bow River.  It wasn’t perfect -- it was hard by the TransCanada Highway, which is busy 24-7 -- but it had showers, which is always cause for rejoicing.

 On my walk the next morning, I was treated to a full moon setting as the sun lit up the mountains.  It seemed a good omen, and after Tuesday, we needed one.