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We have been on the road less than a week and I can’t believe how much we have seen and done. The first few days was just driving and although it made for long days it wasn’t bad. Wisconsin, Minnesota and North Dakota were all new for me and I found them all to be beautiful so they passed along quickly as I took them all in.

We crossed into Canada in Manitoba on Saturday night and stayed in Winnipeg. We got up on Sunday morning and drove west on the Trans-Canada Highway through Manitoba and Saskatchewan and into Alberta and made it to Drumheller that night. Western Canada is really pretty going from huge fields of sunflowers, wheat, canola and more all the way to Alberta with the Canadian Rockies standing majestic up ahead. It is hard to describe what they look like and pictures just don’t do them justice.

The next morning we headed out to see the Hoo Doos, the badlands and the world’s largest dinosaur and then headed west again to visit the Calgary Zoo and finally made it to Banff National Park and to our campground at Lake Louise.

We spent two nights there and one feature of the campground that was both comforting and disconcerting was the electric fence around the perimeter. It is their bear prevention efforts. I have to admit I did rest great knowing it was there.

We did a bit of exploring round the Banff area and one of my favorite spots was Peyto Lake. This lake is beautiful! The water is blue because of the “Rock Flour” made when the glacier ice grinds the rock and the sediments in the lake water absorb every color but this brilliant turquoise color.

Wednesday morning we drove up the Icefields Parkway to Jasper. It is probably one of the most beautiful drives I have ever made.

We stopped at the Athabasca Glacier and hiked up to the base. You can see below the very bottom of the glacier. “Sadly, the overall meltoff of the glacier has become more noticeable in recent years, due to warming trends and lower than average snowfall. At present time it recedes about two or three meters a year.” – climbwild.net

We Made it to Jasper in the early afternoon and grabbed a spot at the Whistler Campground just outside of town and then took a ride to the top of Mt Whistler on the Jasper Tramway. The tramway only takes you to the top but you have to hike up another 2km (1.24 miles) to make it to the summit.  It was quite the climb since it is at 8100 ft and straight up! It was totally worth it once we made it though.

Unlike the campground at Banff, the Whistler campground did not have a fence and all along the path to the bathroom was elk tracks and elk poo and bears were seen in the area recently. We did not see either but we did get a wake up call from an elk (a very loud and honking call with snort) at about 3 am that sounded very close to our car. While we tried to go back to sleep, we finally got up and headed out to Fort Nelson, where we are now. Tonight we are in a hotel room with cable, a hot shower, internet access and no wild animals!

The agenda for tomorrow is Whitehorse and then Fairbanks on Saturday. Has it only been one week??

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