Banff - Jasper

Playlist
Various – Holiday Hits Vols 15, 14 & 13
Roy Harper – HQ

Day five and another day on the road – but what a road...

Known as the Icefields Parkway, it was to take us today from Banff up to Jasper, our base for the next couple of days...

Up at 7 and breakfast just after 8 then packed, paid, to Safeway again for sandwiches, the Gas Station for petrol – then out onto the long road up to Jasper...

We drove beyond yesterday’s farthest point at Lake Louise and headed on up into the Rockies, north through the snow-capped mountains into Jasper National Park...

Countless lakes and, apparently, over 100 glaciers lined the route....

We stopped at Hector Lake, from which we ought to have been able to see Mt. Balfour and the Waputik Range to the southwest, but the weather was less than clear unfortunately...

We did however see the Crowfoot Glacier, which once resembled a crow’s foot, with three large toe-like extensions....

One of them's now disappeared but it's still mighty impressive...

Then, on to the highest point of the Parkway, Bow Summit, which offered up a superb panorama down onto Peyto Lake below....

Then, to the Mistaya Canyon, where we walked down a steep hill to see the river run through some tight rocky formations....

We stopped for lunch at the Saskatchewan River Crossing, from where we continued northwest to the Columbia Icefield and the Athabasca Glacier...

We decided not to take the bus onto the glacier but to walk to it on foot instead where, despite all the warnings of impending death by freezing after falling into a crevasse, everyone seemed to be walking around on the glacier...

So, of course, your correspondent had to follow suit – I was promptly up to my ankles in glacial mud but did make it onto the glacier, if only briefly...

I then had to sit by the freezing stream alongside it to try and clean my boots – I was convinced I had frostbite in the fingers of my right hand as we walked back to the information centre a half a mile or so away for a warming hot chocolate...

I soldiered on gallantly (after being an idiot of course) for the last 60 miles to Jasper...

What a great little town, much more “natural” than the tourist trap of Banff...

We had our own basement flat here, but without breakfast – and, after dumping the bags, we took a walk around the town, stopping in at the Whistler Inn for a couple of drinks...

We met some retired ladies from Scotland who advised they’d seen deer down at the railroad tracks last night – so, off out we went and, sure enough, there they were, two Elk ambling along the line before heading into town to chomp at the municipal flowerbeds...

To celebrate, we went by the Jasper Pizza Place for tea - a very fiery Mexican Pizza was your correspondent's possibly unwise choice - though it could not be faulted tast and texture-wise...

We headed home to bed around 10pm...

I managed a record sleep to 4:38 am...

We saw some absolutely wonderful scenery today along with some reasonably sized wildlife at last – but Blogger.com is playing silly buggers with the picture posting so here’s a wee collage...

I’ve been trying to post this for three days now but the server won’t seem to allow my individual pics to go up and I can’t be bothered waiting any longer...



The pizza was better than it looks!

Highlight of the day : Everything except the glacial mud...