The Icefields Parkway.

 We left Jasper quite early, and were immediately rewarded with our first wildlife sighting of the day. Two fully antlered Elk were grazing by the roadside, they are still growing this years antlers so they are still in velvet, these two will be forces to be reckoned with when it comes to the rut in September.

We had intended to go up the sky tram, a cable cabin up the Whistler mountain, but when we arrived there the top was in the clouds, so there was little point in going up there to see white cloud!

We were following the Athabasca river, up to the Athabasca Glacier in the Columbus Icefields. The Athabasca, the same river we rafted yesterday, runs 6200 kms to the arctic ocean in the Hudson Bay, through several lakes and the Mackenzie river on the way.

At one point we left the main road to view the Athabasca Falls, It falls into a canyon some 50 mtrs, at such a rate that a huge fast flowing river is compressed into six foot wide falls in places, to emerge equally fast flowing 60 mtrs wide below.

The day is brightening up a little as we go along, still following the river, some of the mountain views are really stunning, some still in cloud but improving as we go along.

Soon we turned off the road again to visit another falls, the Sunwapta. The same river, not quite as high a drop as the last, but we could see where the river had scoured out a large section of the rock at a turn.

Many of the mountains we pass are over 10,000 feet, Tangle Ridge is a small one at 10,000, there is no snow on the top!

But soon we were to spot our first glacier, the Stutfield. Look closely at the left side and you will see a major avalanche which has fallen several hundred feet.

Then the spectacular Columbus Icefield with huge moraines at it’s base. It falls 2000 feet, indeed we had to go up to 6000 feet to reach the present foot of the Athabasca Glacier. It was quite a climb at that height, but it was more than the climb which took our breath away.

This is just one of the glaciers that flow from the icefield, the runoff from it reaches three oceans, the Pacific, the Atlantic, and from this glacier, the Arctic.

We travelled on past more stunning mountain sights, to Bow Summit. Again it was quite a walk to the top, we nearly gave up, but when we got there the view was spectacular, we looked over the Bow river and the beautiful blue Peyto lake below us, at the foot of the Bow Glacier. At that point we were at 7000 feet, and we knew it!

As we travelled on we came across these two Mountain sheep, they are completely wild and rarely come off the mountains, We think they may have been trying to take salt from the grit at the roadside, which is used for snow clearing in the winter.

I’ll leave you with some of the more spectacular views we enjoyed during the day.

Another glacier.

We had to descend about 1500 ft to the road below.

A snow overhang on Stuttfield Glacier.

Just to prove we were really at the top of Bow Summit.

We called this one Lizard Mountain. (Not his real name!)

Glacier after glacier.

Tangle Creek.

This cheeky chappie almost climbed up my leg!

A Little White Water

Good fun! We rafted for 15 Kms down the Athabasca, not too rough, although it had it's moments. 

This was one of the best patches, but we got wetter from the occasional rain shower than from the river!

Quite a few rocks in the river, we managed to avoid most.

But the odd wetting did occur.

As here.

A rock formation reputed to have carried here in the last ice age from Montana, a couple of thousand miles away

No comment.

Even less to say.

.An evening street scene in Jasper.

Jasper- Rocky Mountains.

Travelling up from Edmonton was pretty mundane- until we sighted the Rockies themselves. From the first they were majestic- rising up to 10 thousand feet Some of the views were fantastic, awesome as the North Americans are prone to say.

Unfortunately the weather wasn't always on our side; often overcast, occasional rain, not good for taking photos. However while we were travelling we almost ran down a wolf, ran across the road and we had to brake sharply. But once again, too fast for our camera.





As we travelled we came across a lot of small rivers, this one feeds into the main river in this area, the Athabasca. (below) The Athabasca runs from the glaciers down to the plains and then empties into the Arctic Ocean, many many  miles away, and drains all this North West  side of the Rockies.
Here it is white, still extremely cold, just as it came off the glacier, the white is glacial silt, very fine powder ground from the underside of the falling ice.

Today we travelled up the Maligne river road, visiting the Maligne Canyon of the way. It is certainly impressive, sometimes over 100 mtrs deep, with a river running through.At times it disappears underground, to re-appear a few metres later.




















We travelled on to Medicine Lake, the home of Caribou, unfortunately they were feeling shy today, so they did not come out to play. We did see a huge black bear in the distance, too far, and as usual, too quick for us to get a shot.

Some more pics from our travels:

Maligne Lake

Some snow still left on the tops.

360 million years old limestone ridge.

A few sharp peaks, around 8-10 thousand feet.

Canada Day In Edmonton.

1st of July is Canada Day- and the people celebrate the first holiday in Summer, young and old taking to the fountains of Alberta capital Edmonton in the heat. This is the Province's legislative building which sits high above the North Saskatchewan river, very traditional, built in the late 19th century.
On this day many immigrants are sworn in as new citizens of their country in the front of this building, before going on to celebrate in their own way.

The contrast between the legislative building and this one, the Civic Centre, is striking. An ultra modern building, from 1957, this town hall is also markedly different from the monstrosity built at the same time in my home town of Carlisle UK. Again both children and adults play under the fountains in an open air paddling pool, celebrating the birth of their nation.

Inside the building a children's Twai Kondo demonstration was taking place, just one of the many events that would happen here today.

Further along, in Churchill square, a major art project was taking place, including this display of pallets, old tyres, and pieces of wood. In the background, to the right, we can just see the top of the Art Gallery, an ultra-modern building that could have been imagined by Picasso. A big band played on a stage further along.

This convex building behind the Casino is the new Ice Hockey stadium, not yet completed. Edmonton has an Underground railway, which links with "Pedways", walkways in buildings and shopping malls covered against the heavy snows and freezing temperatures they have here in winter.

Today we walked across the smaller of the two bridges in this picture, after walking down a very steep hill. The white bridge you see is still under construction to replace the green one, the roadway has not yet been completed.We then had to climb another steep hill at the other side, a total of about two kms, to visit Strathcona, a smart yuppie type area. By the time we got there we were tired and sweating profusely, those hills drop and rise about 200 metres!

We had gone to see the sand sculptures which are made here at this time every year. We spoke to one man who was working on his exhibit and he told us they had put in 5 man days already, and not really started. The one above however was complete, and represented the fairy tale, "The Princess and the Pea", most of the exhibits featured Fairy Tales.

Then we had a bit of luck; this streetcar was just behind the exhibits, and travels from Strathcona almost to our hotel. For $2-50 each we travelled over the high level bridge, which is basically a skeleton. It has run across the bridge since 1910, linking the two cities since the main line from Calgary stopped south of the river. This streetcar was donated from Melbourne Australia, many is the time we have travelled on similar ones in that city.

Another view of the Civic Centre.

A  Pizza oven in a fire engine!

A patriotic driver goes down the street!

The streetcar travels over the High Level Bridge.