#10 Moraine Lake ~ Alberta, Canada
On the way to the Canadian Rockies, I got $5 in the bus station bathroom, we hitchhiked with two interesting strangers, rode in back of an Royal Canadian Mounted Police car (~~ yeah… despite what American TV tells you about the RCMP, he WASN’T riding a horse), camped in a snowfall wearing our extra playa gear to keep warm, and I was given a pair of shoes out of sympathy.
Vancouver to Moraine Lake, Alberta
First, we caught a Greyhound bus to Kamloops. I used the bathroom (umm… sorry, I’m in Canada here) errr… washrooms at the bus station and spoke with a lovely old woman. She must have noticed our gigantic back packs since she asked if we were hitchhiking. When I confirmed she pulled out her wallet and gave me $5. I was dumbfounded. The kindness in Canada was constantly surprising me.
We walked to the highway, carrying our packs in the midday sun. Three cars didn’t pass us before a man in a truck picked us up (a lot better than our two-hours in New Mexico and Arizona!) We got to chatting with this guy and he told us that he is a mushroom picker and was making his way to a certain part of the Canadian Rockies to collect a rare species of mushroom. In just one week, he would collect enough mushrooms to earn $6,000. This guy told us stories of 15 years of gathering mushrooms, like being chased for two kilometers by a cow moose in heat. I don’t know if you know how big a moose is… but here.
New shoes, hitchhiking to Calgary
Mushroom guy dropped us off about two hours from Moraine Lake as he veered in the direction of the mushroom forests. With less than an hour before it was dark, we were picked up and driven to Moraine Lake. We walked into the only restaurant in town fifteen minutes before it closed and ordered food. The waitress started asking us the basics: where were we from and where were we going. We told her we were hitchhiking across Canada and looking to camp for the night. Not knowing us more than twenty minutes, this college student said we could spent the night on her couch… OH and she wouldn’t be home but she would tell her roommates to let us in… ::sigh:: Canada, another point for kindness.
Despite the cozy hostel, the offer to sleep on a warm couch and the threat of rain, Patrick and I were determined to sleep in the tent. Shortly after we started the walk to the camp ground, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer pulled up beside us, “Where are you all going this evening?” We told him our story in so many words before he offered to drive us to the camp ground. We hopped into the police car, me in the back, and the RCMP officer drove us to a camp site in the grounds, which was surrounded by an electric fence (you know, to keep out moose and BEARs).
A kind Royal Canadian Mounted Police and his noble steed… um, the car
Now. It was cold. And it was snowing. I didn’t have *any* warm clothes since I was living out of a back full of summer clothes (and it was September) so we put on all Patrick’s playa clothes (all he had were costumes from Burning Man a month earlier.) After a few whiskey and cokes and a failed attempt to start a fire, we tried to fall asleep in the tent. Due to the dew and condensation on the inside of the tent, we were cold, tired, and soaked. Everything we owned, soaked (including our shoes.)
Patrick managed to get a ride to town with our German neighbors in the camp grounds. They waited as we scrambled to pack our wet clothes, wet tent, and rum and coke mess. We bought breakfast for the girls as we hung our clothes on any available seat in the café. I walked around in bare feet in trying to air-dry my shoes before we went out again. One of the German girls gave me a pair of shoes in sympathy saying she would come to Prince Edward Island in a month to get them back.
The German girls offered to take us to see the lakes. Moraine Lake was a gorgeous color blue. The kind of blue you only thought existed in Photoshop. It was a surreal view of the lake, pine trees, and mountains covered in a layer of fresh snow. Lake Louise was just as magnificent except it was a shade more green than Moraine. Every picture you took would look like a postcard.
TuxedoKatPro 
Comments on: "Moraine Lake, Alberta" (2)
Weren’t these pictures taken in September – what’s with all the snow?
– No! I promise! I was going 15km/h over the speed limit the etinre way. It’s Alberta. Primary goal is to stay on two wheels while rounding corners. Also this totally makes waking up at 5am worthwhile.