Today we saw three bears and two moose!

We awoke to a drizzly cold day. We decided we’d stay another night and have a quiet day. But our spot was booked out for tonight. Knowing we’d have to disconnect our power, water and sewer, we decided to move on,

First stop was the Johnston Canyon for a walk to a couple of water falls. When we were almost there we saw our first black bear for the day which looked like a little one. Its mumma was probably nearby. It made me a little bit nervous about my upcoming hike.

My nerves evaporated when we pulled into the carpark. It was chockas! What were all these people doing out on such a miserable day? Where did they all come from?

We rugged up in layers and wet weather gear. We grabbed our backpack with all our emergency stuff in it. Garmin Inreach, sawyer squeeze water filter, air horn, bear bell, bear spray and I think that’s it. The stuff stays in our backpack and we take it on all hikes.

It was a gorgeous walk through the canyon to the first waterfall. It was one time I was thankful for a lot of people on our walk. Safety in numbers I guess.

The walk continued to a second waterfall and a lot of people dropped off, so I enabled our bear bell, which just jingles away as we walk.

It wasn’t such a stunning walk to the second waterfall being mostly in bush. But the setting for the waterfall was amazing with snow packed into the cliff wall.

After our walk we continued on the back roads to lake Louise. A few cars were parked on the side of the road, so of course we had to stop. There were two moose grazing by the side of the road, a mother and her baby! It was so cool, and first time seeing moose.

Mike noticed cars stopped on the side of the road the way we’d just came. He didn’t want to turn around but I talked him into it and thankfully we did.

Up ahead the cars were parked and a whole family were standing on the side of the road. ‘Won’t be a bear,’ I said knowing parents wouldn’t let their young kids out of the car near a bear.

But it was, and it was no ordinary bear. It was a grizzly bear, just casually strolling along. It was massive!

And if that wasn’t enough, we spotted a large black bear grazing on the side of the road. And this is when you see the idiots. A whole lot of cars stopped and the people got out to look at it. The bear looked down at them and sniffed. Then it started walking down the hill towards them, obviously having picked up a scent.

And then do you know what happened? Even more people got out of their cars to photograph it! You are supposed to keep within 100m from a bear. These guys were within 2-3m of it! Insane. I filmed it, you’ll have to wait for the video.

After all our wildlife excitement we headed for lake Louise campground but it was full. We went to lake Louise but they were going to charge $36 to park. It was 4pm by this stage so we headed back to the campground in Banff which was 45 mins back.

Tomorrow we drive the ice fields parkway towards Jasper.