Day 9 Part I: Breakfast in Jasper

We were happy that the rain was lifting when we packed up to depart from the Sawridge Inn where we'd stayed for two night.  We went right away downtown to hit the bakery treats at "The Other Paw", owned by the same people who own "The Bear Paw" that I reported on yesterday.  Same wonderful sticky buns, and Laurie says she had the best breakfast sandwich she'd ever eaten.

Day 8 of 14: Canadian Rockies: Jasper

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Today's Itinerary: Stay around Jasper today and hope for some breaks in the rain.

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This was perhaps the rainiest day of the trip.  First are a couple of rainy-day shots around this active town.



We drove from our hotel down to the Bear Paw Bakery in the center of town for breakfast.  It is highly recommended.  Tripadvisor has it rated with 4.5 stars!

A bit of grocery shopping.  I love the Canadian cereal boxes with both English and French.



What do you think of this Mercedes RV/motor home?  It looks like it's ready for a safari!



Lunch in the car at Pyramid Lake (too much rain to move to a picnic table.)



Wildlife on the drive to Maligne Canyon where there were some nice waterfalls.  These are Elk, below. (Again, as seen in the rain.)

Back in town, I took a few residential pictures.  Notice the fenses.  Nearly every house had a fense of some kind to disuade wildlife from coming into their yard to eat the grass and garden plants. 



Day 7 of 14: Canadian Rockies: Ice Fields and Jasper

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Today's Itinerary:  Columbian Ice Fields to Jasper

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The Athabasca Glacier is easily seen from the Glacier View Inn and from the road.  The red vehicles are used to take tours on the ice fields.  Basically the Columbian Ice Fields comprise a huge area of snow and ice in the mountains that "flows" into eight glaciers, much like a wagon wheel with a huge hub and the spokes being glaciers.  The Athabasca Glacier is, I think, the largest.  In the last 100 years, however, it has lost half of its mass.

In the early 1900's the glacier (at my back) came nearly to the road
you see here in front of the hotel.

The ride to Jasper was beautiful.  The weather held up, more or less, with a spot of rain here or there.  We stopped by the Bow River frequently for picture opportunities and saw a number of waterfalls.  Arrival at our hotel was about 2 p.m.  This gave us time to grab an afternoon cup of coffee in downtown Jasper.  The elk shown further down were right next to the road in downtown Jasper, in the evening. 

Distant view of the Stutfield Glacier

Athabasca River

Sunwapta Falls

Jasper has an active lifestyle

Cow elk with calf. About 9 pm!

Taking a walk through town

Day 6 Part 2: Canadian Rockies: Lake Louise to Ice Fields

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Today's Itinerary: Leaving Banff and arriving at the Columbian Ice Fields,  about half way between Banff and Jasper

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This was one of our finest weather days.  The Bow Valley Parkway is the scenic route to Lake Louise.  It's a bit slower than the Highway Route 1, but well worth it. 

One of my favorite pictures of entire trip

We spied this grizzly cub along the Parkway.  Yes, it is a cub! We learned from the Park's "Guardian of the Bears" that this particular cub is 2 1/2 years old and is an orphan.  This cub’s mother was killed by a train last May, yet the cub and his sibling were able to figure out how to hibernate successfully together this past winter. This day, the male cub was stressed, and the “guardians” were herding traffic around him so he could get to his dandelions on the side of the road without being bothered by people and cars.

These shots are from Lake Louise. Though there were only a couple of chunks of ice left on Lake Louise, many nearby lakes were still frozen over.  The Fairmont Hotel is seen at the edge of Lake Louise in several of these pictures.

We reached our evening's destination later than usual, arriving at the Glacier View Hotel at the foot of the Athabasca Glacier.  (See pictures on tomorrow's post.) A late arrival was no big deal; sunset this far north was about 10:30 or 11:00.

Day 6 Part 1: Canadian Rockies: Banff to Lake Louise to Ice Fields

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Today's Itinerary: Leaving Banff for Lake Louise, and arriving at the Columbian Ice Fields, about half way between Banff and Jasper.

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Looking for wildlife, we headed up the Ski Norquay access road thinking we might get a nice morning view of the bighorn sheep we'd seen the prior day.  No such luck.  But we see that it had snowed at higher elevations during the night

Town of Banff, below

Mount Norquay

After breakfast back at Best Western, we packed up the car with our gear and headed up to Sulphur Mountain to catch the Banff Gondola.  The weather cleared beautifully for us.

Town of Banff and the Bow River

Gondola terminal and restaurant

It was now time to head toward Lake Louise and then to the Columbian Ice Fields.  It was nearly noon as we left Banff, but we decided to take a quick trip up the Ski Norquay access road one more time, with a few stops along Canada Route 1 for some panorama shots of the mountains.

We did see a few bighorn sheep, and we caught sight of a lone black bear on our way down the access road.