We left Wells Gray and headed up in the direction of Jasper. We planned to boondock at a spot just outside of Mt. Robson Park, hoping to catch a glimpse of this elusive mountain in the morning before heading into Jasper to meet our daughter, Emily and her husband, Ben for breakfast. They are up this way on a little road trip. Before that, we needed to stop for a bit to use the wifi at a library. We found one in the little town of Valemont, along with a grocery store and coffee shop – perfect! Sometimes, when we are on the road, it is just nice to sit over a coffee and waste some time on the internet, checking up on things but not getting too serious about anything. It helps us to feel like we are not quite so far away from everyone if we can “like” a picture on Facebook or return an email. Those chores done, we headed out of town, stopping at a park to make and eat dinner before looking for the perfect spot to sleep. Along the highway, we stopped at a lookout to see Mount Terry Fox. For many years as I taught, my students would learn about Terry and his run for Cancer research before partaking in the Terry Fox Run that our school held each year. One of my teaching mates knew the Fox family and so we felt a much more personal and deeper connection to his story from Glyn telling us about him and how he played basketball with him. Terry Fox is a bonafide Canadian hero and so looking out over the mountain that was named in his honour was quite a moment for us both.

Just a few kilometres past the lookout, we found the perfect spot to spend the night. We had identified a couple on ioverlander, but they turned out to be hard to spot, given that the turnoffs from the highway were obviously not marked. However, the road that we ended up on was just perfect. We were away from the highway and near a river, so all we could hear was water rushing. There were a few houses at the beginning of the road, but at the end where we stayed there was nothing. We settled down to our usual movie and then read for a while before turning in. No one bothered us – neither of the human nor bear nature!

In the morning we headed off to Jasper. Even though we were incredibly close to Mount Robson, we didn’t get to see much of anything due to the low cloud cover – bummer!

We arrived in town at exactly 9:30 only to find that Ben and Emily had already ordered and were almost done with breakfast. Hey! What gives???? Oh, yes. It looks like we overlooked the fact that we are now on Alberta time, which is an hour ahead of BC time! When we woke up, we were still in BC but once across the border, the time changed so that we were actually an hour late! Sorry guys!!! Ben and Emily very kindly stuck around and chatted with us while we ordered and at our breakfast before we said our goodbyes. They were headed down towards Banff while we were staying near Jasper for the night.

Ben had mentioned that east of Jasper were some spectacular views, so we headed out in that direction. We ended up staying overnight at the overflow parking for Snaring River Campground. It was a pretty big and wide open camp ground with room for 100’s of campers. However, the mountain views were pretty awesome so we didn’t mind. We also didn’t mind the $15.00 camp fee – bonus! Once we had a spot settled for the night, we continued down the highway towards the town of Hinton. Along the way we managed to spot a bear, some sheep and an elk – wow! Now if only we could see a real live moose!!!! As Ben had said, the mountainscapes along the highway were just amazing and we took enough pictures to fill a book. Good thing we don’t have to pay to develop film anymore!

We were not in any particular hurry the next morning to be on our way, so enjoyed our granola and coffee in the shadow of the mountains before packing up the van and heading down to Banff and our two nights of camping there. You may have noticed that I have not mentioned getting on the bikes as of yet. Although we had hoped to cycle up in Jasper, the timing just didn’t work so we left, thinking that a return another year is in order, when we can better plan a proper cycle tour of this amazing area.

The drive to Banff is about 250 km and on a normal highway would only take a few hours. However, this is Jasper and Banff National Parks and the Icefield Parkway is famous for its scenery and multitude of photo ops, so we anticipated taking most of the day to get down to Banff, which was a good thing because that’s exactly how it turned out. For the entire drive from Jasper to the Columbia Ice Fields, we kept stopping to see one thing or another. In many places the speed limit was very slow to accommodate tourists and their need to stop and take pictures. The following gallery is just a smattering of what we saw. If you have never been to Jasper/Banff, you really do need to come!

When we finally reached the Columbia Ice Field, we fully intended to pay to take the bus up onto the glacier as our good friends, Coleen and Ernie had encouraged us to do. However, the parking lot was a total gong show and we could see that we would be waiting a very long time to have this experience. So, with apologies to our friends, we drove down to the free parking lot and walked up to where we could see the beginning of the Athabasca Glacier. To be honest, I found it kind of depressing, which was the opposite of how I expected to feel. We passed sign after sign, indicating where the glacier used to be. It is receding and pretty soon there will be nothing left for the multitude of tourists to see. Global warming is a real thing and this is just huge proof of the damage being done to our ecosystem. It would be wonderful if one day my grandchildren could come to this place and see how humans had all come together to save our planet and that there was evidence of a positive impact instead of our negative one. Maybe. Maybe. Let’s all hope so and do what we can, shall we?

As we drove away from the Ice Field towards Banff, we managed to stop for one or two more photo ops before a huge rain storm descended on us. As we drove on through the rain, we caught site of lightening in the mountains near us and could hear the thunder rumble. It was pretty awe inspiring and we were both glad that the bikes were on the back of the van and we weren’t riding them! A long while later we arrived in Banff and after having a little coffee break and grocery shop, we headed out to Two Jack Main campground, our home for the next two nights. In case you are wondering why we are not boondocking while in the parks, they are pretty strict about camping only in designated areas here and we are not looking to buck the system and get ourselves into trouble. I have to say, though, that we were a little less than impressed with the camping here. We paid twice what we had up at the overflow in Jasper for a site that has little in the way of privacy and amenities. No showers – boo!!! I’m thinking a hotel room is in our near future!

The next morning we got up early to head up towards Lake Louise. For part of the way we drove along the very scenic Bow Valley Parkway. We wanted to check it out in hopes that later in the day we could cycle along its 50km of winding roadway. It was quite beautiful but the shoulders are nonexistent and as it was a Sunday, quite busy. We would have to decide later in the day about cycling here on this day. We got over onto Highway 1 and saw signs that indicated that parking in Lake Louise was already full so we would have to park in the overflow and take a shuttle up. At this time, it began to rain, so our hopes for cycling were once again looking dim. We arrived at the Overflow parking to discover that it is possible to stay in your van or motorhome overnight right next to the parking lot for only $10.00!!!! Rats! Wish we had known about that before we booked in for 2 nights at 2 Jack Main. We parked in the overflow lot and got ourselves ready for a day in the rain – boots on, warmer jackets out and toques on. We put the camera and a few snacks in the backpacks and went to pay for our shuttle. As we were considered seniors (yay!!!), it was only $4.00 for the two of us. We happily paid and then hopped on the bus for the 15 minute ride up to Lake Louise. In order to get up to Lake Moraine we would need to take another shuttle and it was suggested that we get our tickets to that first before seeing the lake, so once we arrived in the parking lot we got into a rather long lineup for this shuttle. They had specific times you would sign up for, so the going was pretty slow. As we stood there, the rain really begin in earnest. We had a little snack and endured for about 30 minutes before it was finally our turn. The time was 10:30 and our shuttle was scheduled for 11:40, which gave us an hour to check out Lake Louise in the pouring rain – oh joy! The only good thing I can say about it was that the many many tourists were, like the mosquitos, being kept at bay by the rain and we were able to walk right up and take “the” photo of ourselves without having to wait. We walked around for a bit but the rain was really pelting down on us by then and so we took the easy way out and headed up to the Chateau Lake Louise hotel for some very expensive coffee and a chocolate croissant.

In a while, the rain subsided slightly and we headed back out to go for a short walk before getting to our shuttle for Lake Moraine, hoping against hope that the rain would cease and we could enjoy this lake at least. The ride up was nice. Sitting in a warm bus, looking out the window, I didn’t really want to get out when we finally arrived, but out we went, back into the rain. We walked around the lake for a bit and in the trees it was actually quite pleasant. There is a lovely hotel up there, the Moraine Lake Lodge, which if we could afford the price, we would definitely stay there!! Ah well, maybe in another life? As we walked over to go up to another viewpoint, we saw a helicopter swoop down from the mountain. It seemed like they had been searching for someone and as we walked up, we saw it take off again, this time equipped for what looked like a long line rescue. We found out later that someone had had a pretty bad fall up on the mountain and that a team had indeed been dispatched to take them off the mountain. A good reminder that these mountains are beautiful but also dangerous, even to those who are well equipped to be there.

From the viewpoint we had, we were able to take some spectacular pictures of beautiful Lake Moraine. The colour of the water here is a little more blue than that of Lake Louise, but apparently they both get that glacial green quality from the silt of the glacier brought in by the river that feeds them both. The silt is called “rock flour”. The tiny bits of rock that have been scraped by the glacier are very light and float in the water. They absorb light and reflect back the greenish colour that we see. Pretty cool! Despite the cold and rain, we really enjoyed out time up there!

Finally, we had taken enough pictures to satisfy ourselves and headed back to grab the next shuttle. It was, again, very nice to sit on the warm bus and just relax and enjoy the ride back to our van. Once there, we headed back to Banff to grab a hot coffee and think about the rest of the day. While having our coffee and looking out at the rain, we decided that we were due for a hotel stay. Our plan is to camp for most nights, but overly 10 days to 2 weeks we will stay in a hotel, just so we can spread out and relax. We looked at places in Canmore, but the prices at this time of year are way up there, so we settled on Airdrie, about 100 km from Banff and on the way to our next destination of Drumheller. That done we needed to plan the rest of this day. It was pretty wet till, so cooking at our campsite did not appeal (in addition to dealing with the many mosquitos!). We decided to treat ourselves to dinner out and before that, to spend some time in the library getting the blog up to date. We found a spot to park and walked in, fully intending to work, but as we came in we saw a couple giving a book talk. The slide they had up was one of them and their two children on bikes somewhere, so we were immediately interested. We listened for a bit and then abandoned our ideas of work to settle in and enjoy listening to Daria Salamon and her husband, Rob Krause talk about their year spent travelling with their two children (aged 5 and 7!). Their story was captivating and we stayed behind to chat with them before purchasing a copy of their book, Don’t Try This At Home. It is a highly entertaining read and we would recommend it to anyone, even if you don’t want to trek around the world with your kids in tow!

After this, any thought of working went out the window and so we had an early dinner at a local pub before heading back towards Two Jack. Of course, by this time the rain had passed by, the sun was shining and we did not want to just go and hang out at our dark campsite. Instead, we headed further along to Lake Minnewanka, which is located just past our campground. Our original intention was to park in a clear space and spend a bit of time getting out tiny home sorted out, but it was such a nice early evening, we went for a walk along the lake first. It is a very pretty spot and if you come this way, you can go on a boat tour of the very large lake. We satisfied ourselves with walking along the shore and enjoying the views.

Eventually, we went back to the van to get our chores done before going to our campsite for our last night there. If we were to come here again, we would first try to book at Two Jack Lakeside, which would be a much nicer place to be I think. Oh well, some things you just have to learn by doing. Back at the campsite we settled in to watch a movie before turning off the lights. One thing I have to say for this place, it sure is quiet! The next day we were heading down and out of the mountains.  Although we were sorry to be leaving all this beauty, we were hoping to finally leave the rain behind us!  I guess you will have to wait for our next post to see!