2800 miles to Canadian Rockies

munchmeister · Post by **munchmeister** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:21 pm

My maiden voyage of any length on the R1150R took me from Fort Collins, Colorado, through Wyoming and over the infamous Beartooth Highway, through Glacier National Park and into Banff National Park in Alberta, Canada. A bit of sightseeing on the glaciers, photos of Athabasca Falls and beautiful Chateau Lake Louise made this a very memorable trip for me and the first of, I hope, many more to come.

Photos at http://f-rider.smugmug.com/gallery/1848481/1/92695540

Post by **DJ Downunder** » Sun Sep 03, 2006 10:33 pm

Wow!...I'm only half way into looking at your pictures...I just want to say..GREAT JOB.

Now I'm back to look at the rest.....they're fantastic pics..

...thanks.

DJ

mnnden · Post by **mnnden** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:51 am

Just Great, A lot to look at, I am going to go back and take another look. Den.

munchmeister · Post by **munchmeister** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:17 am

Thanks for the comments ! One reason for the Hepco & Becker top box on the back of the bike is to make a safe place for my digital SLR camera. I try to tell a story in pictures of the road along the way which is why I include the quirky little stuff I see, the food and the people. I once knew someone who went with me to Negril, Jamaica and she said the photos we took would go in her "nursing home scrapbook," something for those days when she wanted to reminisce about a good life, lived well. I thought that was a great idea.

I'm inspired by the great ride reports on this board (and others, like AdvRider and Horizons Unl) and hope to share more picture stories and create some more memories for that nursing home scrapbook. Need more time and more great rides.

--Doug

Post by **taosports** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 3:06 pm

Wow! Nice job with the photos Doug. Enjoyed every one of them. Going to the Sun Highway is on my list of places to ride to. Thanks for the great photos!

RForestR · Post by **RForestR** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 4:29 pm

Fabulous shots Doug.
Maybe I'll head west next summer....

Cheers,
Chris

Post by **DSKYZD** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 6:37 pm

My favorite pictures are of the Snow Tours to Columbia Glacier. Serious equipment there.

Did you have make reservations for the glacier tour ahead of time?

Thanks for the trip, Doug!!

DSKYZD

munchmeister · Post by **munchmeister** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 8:32 pm

DSKYZD wrote:Did you have make reservations for the glacier tour ahead of time?

Nope. They run these tours pretty much all day, with several snow coaches. We got to the Columbia Icefields Centre, went up to the ticket counter and bought tickets ($37 USD each) and waited about 15 minutes. They bus you over to where the snow coaches are, load you on them and off you go. You first go down a 30 degree slope (yes, 30 degrees) and the driver tells you not to worry. HA ! He said something about it being the steepest slope a passenger tour bus goes down in the world !! I believed him. You can also hike up there or take a guided hike.

Get up there soon. It is melting at an alarming rate. In the late 1800s the glacier extended all the way to where the Icefields Centre is today, across the Icefields Parkway road.

Once there it is faily tame, mostly a photo op, with braggin' rights. But worth the price.

Thanks for checking out the photos.

Grumpmeister · Post by **Grumpmeister** » Tue Sep 05, 2006 3:09 pm

Awesome pics, Doug! I covered alot of the same territory a few weeks ago, and I miss it already. The east coast sux.

I take it you remebered your warm clothing.

Brian

Post by **bmwdave52** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 1:02 am

Those are some very nice pics.
Did you stop at the Cody museum? You can spend several days there.

Lost Rider · Post by **Lost Rider** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:45 pm

Great lookin' bike , fabulous pictures. Well done Doug.

If things go well I will be in that area in a few weeks, I look forward to it even more now.
Looks like it was a great ride, keep the reports coming.

munchmeister · Post by **munchmeister** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:45 pm

bmwdave52 wrote:Those are some very nice pics.
Did you stop at the Cody museum? You can spend several days there.

Sadly, no. I'd been there years ago and it is truly a world class museum. I need to take longer vacations. I'm a big art lover and I could spend two days just looking at the art wing, which is a "Whitney Gallery of Art." Some amazing paintings. And that's just the art work. Next time, I'm gonna stay in Cody a few days and will also do the road up the South Fork of the Absaroka.... one of the most amazing dead end roads you will ever see.

Post by **wncbmw** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 6:21 pm

munchmeister - most excellent adventure! And nice photos to go with it. I like the concept of the nursing home scrapbook!

Yet another trip to make me want to return to the Montana area! I lived in Bigfork for a while. I really want to go back. Damn job keeps getting in the way.

Post by **frozennorth** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 8:39 pm

Hey, you were up in my neck of the woods.

Nice shots. Good color. What are you shooting with, I need to buy a new point and shoot digital.

Nice post!

munchmeister · Post by **munchmeister** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 10:54 am

frozennorth wrote:Hey, you were up in my neck of the woods.

Nice shots. Good color. What are you shooting with, I need to buy a new point and shoot digital.

Nice post!

Hey Frozen: Nice country, man. I'm jealous of you living up there in that kind of beauty. Simply amazin'

As for cameras, when I went looking to replace my early vintage P&S Olympus, I realized after much research on the 'net that, just like film, it is the sensor that makes the most difference and the small cameras, handy as they are, are at a disadvantage compared to a digital single-lens-reflex. I have used SLR film cameras for years, got into digital cuz I'm on this computer all the time anyway and the things you can do on the computer with a great program like Adobe Photoshop Elements are just amazing. So, I went back to SLR's, got a Konica-Minolta Maxxum 7D at Christmas time, just in time for KM to get out of the camera market. Luckily, they sold their camera assets to Sony so the investment is still a good one.

DSLRs are big and bulky but they are as good as it gets for the film sensors, the light capture, etc. It is still about the "computer" behind the camera and learning about composition, lighting and the like but I thought if I was gonna try for really good pics, I'd spend the $$$$ and buy a DSLR. The KM 7D is a fantastic camera by the way... a "real photographer's" camera. Anti-shake, beautiful viewfinder, lots of lenses available and ergonomically it just feels great in the hand.

Good luck with your purchase and thanks for the compliment on the photos. They did turn out pretty good.

Post by **LonestaRR** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 1:17 pm

Doug:

Thanks for the report. I enjoyed the photos immensely. My favorite was inside the Virginian. I liked the lighting coming from the window coupled with the furnishings from the past. It gave it a haunting feeling.

I've travelled those roads in the past. It went near my favorite place in the world. Dubois, Wyoming. Just a lot of great memories and life changing moments and realizations were born there for me. AND, you can flyfish many different waters all within an hour.

How long were you on the road? I imagine it was hard not to stop every 3-5 miles to take photos. The trip looked like a great journey. Great photos all the way.

munchmeister · Post by **munchmeister** » Sat Sep 09, 2006 3:47 pm

Kristi wrote:Doug:

Thanks for the report. I enjoyed the photos immensely. My favorite was inside the Virginian. I liked the lighting coming from the window coupled with the furnishings from the past. It gave it a haunting feeling.

I've travelled those roads in the past. It went near my favorite place in the world. Dubois, Wyoming. Just a lot of great memories and life changing moments and realizations were born there for me. AND, you can flyfish many different waters all within an hour.

How long were you on the road? I imagine it was hard not to stop every 3-5 miles to take photos. The trip looked like a great journey. Great photos all the way.

Kristi: Thanks for the compliments on the photos. This was my firt motorcycle trip of that length, first with the DSLR, and I was aiming for a ride report in pictures, as much as anything. Also, it was a chance to revisit some places I had visited years ago when my oldest daughter (now 23) was about 9 and we lived in Wyoming. One of the things the schools did was to require kids to do a "Wyoming History Tour" and write about it. We went to the Virginian and stayed in the Owen Wister room, very Victorian, very cool. And we visited the fossil house. So the Virginian in Medicine Bow has a spot in my heart and I want my daughter to see these.

The trip was way too short, essentially 8 days, 7 of those were riding. I made stops to take photos, but not too many, and tried not to worry too much about arrival in Banff, where I met up with some new friends and we got out on Columbia Glacier and saw the sights up and down the Icefields Parkway. What an awesome place.

I thought about going the Dubois route as that is a favorite of mine, too. Togwotee Pass is spectacular but the Wyoming Dept. of Transportation is starting a multi year road rebuilding project on that road so that kind of dictated another route. As it was I got stuck in a construction project around Kalispell, MT that I wish I had missed. Oh well.

Thanks, again, for the favorable comments and for taking a look. It's great seeing the reports of board members and I'm hoping to contribute lots more of them.

Post by **Beemeridian** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 10:33 pm

Post by **wncbmw** » Tue Sep 12, 2006 6:52 am

Hey munchmeister - my wife and I just saw the Lake Louise Chalet on the travel channel and I mentioned your trip and said I would rather go there like you did than how they did! She didn't appreciate it! (But it was true

)

tor1150r · Post by **tor1150r** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:00 am

munchmeister
Sweet!!!
I like the Beartooth Hwy and the Road to the Sun in Montana.
Fantastic trip and great pics

Thanks for posting. Always nice to see where the R's go !