The Icefields Parkway to Jasper
Today we visited the Columbia Icefields Centre along the Icefields Parkway, which is where the Athabasca and Dome glaciers are visible from the road. You can go for a walk on the glacier, which takes you out on the ice in some very expensive all terrain ice vehicles of which there are only 23 in the world, 22 of them owned by the company doing the glacier walks and the other owned by the U.S. government.Lunch was at a stunning picnic spot on Horseshoe Lake, creatively named for its shape. The water was a stunning deep blue, and very crystal clear – it comes from meltwaters from the glaciers in the region. There was a rock which was perfect for jumping off into the lakewaters, and Kent, Heidi and Richard all had a go. (note: I was content to just laze around in the sun.) We saw a guy jump of cliffs that must have been at least ten metres high on the opposite side of the river. It gave me heart palpitations just thinking of it. He made it okay, but we left before we could witness another attempt.
We had a half hour hike up old fort point just outside of jasper, which offered 360 degree views of all the mountains. It was really stunning. I tried to get a photo montage then realised I just should have made a video. :(
We got into Jasper at about 5pm and had a wander around. It’s smaller than Banff, but a touch less touristy and very quaint. We splashed out on thai food for dinner, then regretted it later when it didn’t taste anything like thai. But we took the food out to a picnic spot in front of Pyramid lake, and the colours in the sky were beautiful at sunset.
Checked into the hostel pretty late, where we discovered that we were in a 60 bed dorm! Insanity! The mattresses were covered with plastic and the lights were automatically shut off at 11pm and turned on again at 8am, making it really hard to do anything late at night or in the morning. On the plus side, they had wireless internet, and we all enjoyed our first showers in 48 hours.
I feel like I should mention that I've been eating a lot of bananas in Canada. They're a whole lot cheaper than at home.
posted by d @ 2:00 pm
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