Day 24
Arrived in Grand Prairie, AB this afternoon at Tamarack RV Park. We have a good wifi connection.
We have spent the last five days driving north through the Canadian Rockies. Awesome view after awesome view. Our first stop after Waterton was at Castle Mountain CG in the Banff National Park.
We were late getting there to secure a site but managed to park at the picnic pavillion. The next morning we headed north to Lake Louise and the Icefield Parkway.
We spent time hiking some of the trails. We took the shoreline trail at Lake Louise to get away from the constant crowds. The lake is a beautiful sight but I was disappointed in the commercialization. We did go into the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel there to see the grandeur of that building. It certainly has spectacular views from the lake side rooms.
After leaving the Lake Louise area, we continued north toward the Icefield Parkway. On arriving at the Wilcox CG, we found the road impossible to get into because of hikers parking their cars in such a manner it would have been impossible to get the camper up to the campground.
We spent the night at the Icefield Visitor Center overflow lot with about 30 other campers. There were many rental campers in the lot with visitors from Asia and Europe. I did find three couples from Georgia, Tennessee and Pennsylvania that are on their trip to Alaska also. They were travelling without reservations anyplace. We hiked from the parking lot to the Athabaska Glacier that afternoon. It was about a 3 mile round trip and had about a 200 foot elevation gain each way. The air coming off the glacier was decidedly cooler. I managed to cross a foot bridge to the glacier.
The next morning, we pulled out about 9:30, knowing that we only had about 80 miles to the next campground and we had reservations. Good thing, it was full. On the way, we stopped at two different falls. The first was on the Sunwapta river. Pretty impressive. The river was fairly wide, nearly a half mile in places but as it approached the falls, it was maybe 100yds wide and very fast. All that water had to funnel into a channel only about 6 feet wide in two different places. Just to see the raw power of all that water going into such a narrow channel was astounding. It was impossible to talk above the roar.
The second falls was on the Athabaska river. The Sunwapta river had joined the Athabaska rive just upstream of the falls. We thought it was going to be hard to top the first falls we saw. This one did. Two rivers of similar size joining together and going through a channel that might have been 15 feet wide was not only very loud, but the force was dramatic. There was a lot of mist in the air and in some cases even spray as the tumbling waters slammed into rock faces.The practical side of me thought it unnecessary to have signs telling people not to cross the barrier fence because with the amount of spray, the rocks were very slippery where we were walking. I guess not everyone thinks their safety is a practical view. We saw people ignoring the signs.
We got into the Whistler CG, just south of Jasper, AB, about 3:30pm after hiking about 8 miles during the day. Fortunately, I made a reservation there about 5 weeks ago when I discovered there were only 4 sites available at that time. They were turning away a lot of campers. .
When we arrived, they were dealing with a bear in the camp area, but we never saw it and did not see any elk which they said were pretty prevalent. At 11:15pm, we were surprised at the amount of light outside. As I write this, it is after 9pm and sun won't set for at least a half hour yet and it will be light enough to see to walk around till 11;30. This will take some getting used to. As a result, we don't have a sense of what time it is when we wake in the morning. We did see a big bull elk this morning after coming past Jasper. We took the scenic route north through Grand Cache and arrived here mid afternoon. We were surprised at the amount of coal mining, new oil drilling and logging we saw on this route today. We will be in Dawson Creek the next two nights so should have good internet access and hopefully can get a Sim card for the phone so we can have some phone service. Otherwise, it will be after we get to Alaska.
We have spent the last five days driving north through the Canadian Rockies. Awesome view after awesome view. Our first stop after Waterton was at Castle Mountain CG in the Banff National Park.
We were late getting there to secure a site but managed to park at the picnic pavillion. The next morning we headed north to Lake Louise and the Icefield Parkway.
We spent time hiking some of the trails. We took the shoreline trail at Lake Louise to get away from the constant crowds. The lake is a beautiful sight but I was disappointed in the commercialization. We did go into the lobby of the Fairmont Hotel there to see the grandeur of that building. It certainly has spectacular views from the lake side rooms.
After leaving the Lake Louise area, we continued north toward the Icefield Parkway. On arriving at the Wilcox CG, we found the road impossible to get into because of hikers parking their cars in such a manner it would have been impossible to get the camper up to the campground.
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| Part of the Columbia ice field in background |
The next morning, we pulled out about 9:30, knowing that we only had about 80 miles to the next campground and we had reservations. Good thing, it was full. On the way, we stopped at two different falls. The first was on the Sunwapta river. Pretty impressive. The river was fairly wide, nearly a half mile in places but as it approached the falls, it was maybe 100yds wide and very fast. All that water had to funnel into a channel only about 6 feet wide in two different places. Just to see the raw power of all that water going into such a narrow channel was astounding. It was impossible to talk above the roar.
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| Sunwapta Falls |
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| Athabaska Falls |
When we arrived, they were dealing with a bear in the camp area, but we never saw it and did not see any elk which they said were pretty prevalent. At 11:15pm, we were surprised at the amount of light outside. As I write this, it is after 9pm and sun won't set for at least a half hour yet and it will be light enough to see to walk around till 11;30. This will take some getting used to. As a result, we don't have a sense of what time it is when we wake in the morning. We did see a big bull elk this morning after coming past Jasper. We took the scenic route north through Grand Cache and arrived here mid afternoon. We were surprised at the amount of coal mining, new oil drilling and logging we saw on this route today. We will be in Dawson Creek the next two nights so should have good internet access and hopefully can get a Sim card for the phone so we can have some phone service. Otherwise, it will be after we get to Alaska.
the waterfalls are amazing
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