Tripometer – 6040 mi
Gas Gauge – 476.551 gal
Location – Whistlers Campground, Jasper National Park, AB, Canada
Lodging – $33 CAD
Cans of OFF – 4
Banff and Jasper are connected by the ‘Icefields Parkway’. A scenic route that takes you as close to the Columbia Icefields as you can get by car (more on those icefields later). The route follows a series of valleys north to the little town of Jasper. The weather was fairly cloudy and drizzly for most of the way up the parkway and we found ourselves skipping a few destinations knowing that we would return when the weather was a bit nicer. The most striking aspect of this drive is the severity of the mountains themselves. We have been told all of our lives about continental shelf collision, about the overlapping and upward thrust of continental plates and how this forms mountain ranges. This park demonstrates that with the shape of the mountains in a way that we thought very impressive. The mountains themselves retain the shape of fragmented sea beds so well that they look like jagged knife blades thrust into the air.
TODAY WE SAW MOUNTAIN GOATS! Being stark white against a mountainside of greyish brown, these guys were fairly easy to spot with the naked eye and then zoom in on with binoculars. Their more well disguised cousins, the Big Horn Sheep, still elude us.
The Athabasca Glacier and Canadian Glacier Discovery Center were high on our list of things to see on this leg of the trip and we even stopped at the glacier to make the ½ mile walk out to the observation area. We bundled up in all of our cold weather gear, leashed up the dog and headed out. I think we made it about 50 feet before we decided this too would wait. The temperature gauge on the truck said it was a balmy 36 degrees and the wind was blowing a mean 25-35 MPH, making the idea of walking up to the glacier somewhat less than appealing. Honestly, since we entered Kootenay National Park we find that we have exhausted the limits of our cold weather gear. We flat out didn’t pack much for this kind of weather.
We did take a walk down to Athabasca falls. A quick google search will show you pictures of the somewhat unimpressive falls themselves; however, the canyon area on the down stream side of the falls was spectacular. Paul says he can’t remember a more beautiful sight in all his years. The foliage on the sides of the complex canyon walls were amazingly lush for the area and in such a state of continual new growth that the canyon walls looked staged or planted. The picture above does not do it justice.
We arrived at Whistlers Campground in Jasper National park (we have two nights reservation) in the early evening. All of the Canadian parks we have stayed in to date have very restrictive times for generator usage. Most of the sites we’ve stayed at do not have electrical hookups and consequently we are relying on our generator to keep the batteries topped up. All of the Canadian parks we’ve stayed at the past few days have restricted generator usage to 8-9:30am and 5-7pm. We missed the window today and broke the rules to top off our power. Will have to do better tomorrow.
Due to dire warnings about grizzly bears, tonight will be the first night we try sleeping together on the dinette bed with the tent ends of the trailer closed…