We left Banff National Park and headed north on the Icefields Parkway (93) on our way to Jasper National Park. Yes, it was the same highway that we traversed yesterday for a little less than half. We plan on driving back halfway from Jasper in the truck to make all the stops on the other half. We made a stop for diesel at Saskatchewan River Crossing:
I bet we will never fill up again sitting side by side like this. Full service attendant that even did our windshield! I guess at those prices they should!
If my calculations are correct: $2.26 / liter CAD would translate into about $6.32 / gallon. Ouch – gonna be an expensive summer!
We got to see a black bear right on the side of the road:
Very cool!
A little farther down the road we espied another black bear:
Closer into the town of Jasper there were a number of vehicles pulled over so we slowed down and saw a black and cinnamon bear together:
When we checked into the Whistlers Campground they told us not to leave anything outside as we were in bear country – duh! The campground was huge:
They also offered yurts or old-fashioned tents in case someone wanted to camp without camping gear:
But because we were in bear country you needed to store your food in a safe place:
It sure kept our Bear out!
Check out our site for the next four nights:
Katrina and I headed into town to get some groceries and stopped at the Jasper sign:
After getting our veggies and such we headed over to L & W for a Greek dinner.
Next we explored this little town and Katrina did some sale shopping 😉
Back to the coach for rest and relaxation.
The following day we headed back south on the Icefields Parkway for an excursion on the Columbia Icefields. We had the tour on the new Sherp:
That’s not it – that was a picture of vehicles that they used in the 60’s. Here’s the Sherp:
Funky little vehicle with big tires that reminded me of “Banana Splits” show we watched as a kid. Inside the Sherp:
It was loud so we had to wear headsets. Since it only holds six people maximum we got a private tour with James:
We learned a lot about glaciers and icefields from James. An icefield is when multiple glaciers come together. Interesting, I know! Another interesting aspect that we learned was that the mountain Snow Dome acme is actually a Continental Trivide (I think I made up that word):
Which means that the watershed to the north flows into the Arctic Ocean, the watershed to the west flows into the Pacific Ocean and the watershed to the east flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Pretty cool!
Pictures on the Columbia Icefield:
Some pictures from the base:
If you are ever in this area, I highly recommend an excursion up onto the Columbia Icefield as it was a very unique experience!
We took our time on the drive back to Jasper and stopped to see the sights. We got to see a Bighorn Sheep:
Then we stopped at the Tangle Creek Falls:
Next we saw the Sumwapta Falls:
In the parking lot there was a working artifact from some past humanoid civilization:
Our final stop was at Athabasca Falls:
I got this picture of Jeff on a cliff overhang thinking he was being dangerous until he told me that the rock on was taking the picture from looked just like his. Scary!
Then took 93A back into Jasper and saw a reindeer:
We knew it wasn’t Rudolph because his nose wasn’t red so it must have been one of Santa’s other ones. We also saw a Cinnamon and Black Bear:
We drove into the town to have dinner at the Jasper Brewing Company because we had heard that they had Bison burgers. We were able to bring Bear with us because we sat outside.
We didn’t realize that the Edmonton Oilers (only four hours away) were playing a game in the Stanley Cup and the place was very crowded. That may have accounted for our food being overcooked and not very tasty.
The next morning we slept in because we had stayed up late to try to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights as the probability was high. Unfortunately when you are this far north in the summer the skies don’t get completely dark until around midnight. Since we didn’t see any then I went to bed. Katrina was a trooper and stayed up to 2am to no avail.
It was rainy and cold for most of the day so we didn’t do a whole lot of anything. Katrina needed to make a return downtown and I needed to Canada Post to mail a payment. Then we went over to check out the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge to see how it compared to the other two that we recently visited. Nice place – lodgey feel.
Nice enough to grab a drink and play some cards. Nice and relaxing!
We met up with Jeff and Molli for dinner at The Olive and the food was fantastic! I got the Bison burger that I had been craving for a couple of days. Our server didn’t ask how I wanted it done. We learned that it is a National Law that all meat needs to be cooked fully to “done”. Strange rule that I cannot understand the reasoning. Maybe something to do with mad cow disease? We must of been having fun yapping and eating the yummy food because we forgot to get a picture of the place.
Jeff and Molli were having an issue with the coolant on their coach and decided to head up to Hinton because there was a Cummins shop there. Hinton was about an hour in the same direction that we were going to so we split up for the day. I really hope that Jeff doesn’t get separation anxiety!
I took Bear for a long walk and ran into nine elk, two of them babies. I got a picture:
The momma elk started to walk towards us to protect her baby so Bear and I skedaddled out of there pronto!
Then Katrina, Bear and I drove up to Maligne Lake for some hiking. It was about an hour drive and on the way we had our first encounter with mooses or meese (a couple of moose):
Another momma and her offspring.
Quickly after that we saw a deer:
Maligne Lake was very nice and it offered boat tours which we didn’t try, a restaurant that we didn’t try and hiking.
They had a relief that showed the lake and surrounding mountains that was interesting..
The lake was much bigger than we realized, probably the reason for the boat tours (that we didn’t take).
One of the hikes was up to Moose Lake and since we wanted to see more moose we decided to take that one.
Picturesque, but they should rename it to No Moose Lake.
On our return trip we got to see a bald eagle in its’ huge next:
Very cool! I guess that the bald eagle isn’t just an USA thing!
When we got back to our coach we learned that the Wills coach didn’t have an issue at all. They had too much fluid in the reservoir that would leak when heated up. They decided to head on up to our next destination a day early. Since it was a long drive, Katrina and I decided to drive about two hours and then camp. We didn’t leave until about 5:30 because I had a scheduled hair appointment at a cool barbershop. Hair cut, beard trimmed, and face shaved – first time thing for me! I gotta say that I enjoyed it! Wait til you see my pics.
We loaded up and moved onto Grande Cache for the night. We really were looking forward to getting full utilities and doing some laundry!
0 Comments