Monday, June 21, 2004
Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was ..... a glacier!!!
Hey there,
I'm still recovering from a fabulous weekend on the road. Sinead and I made the trip to Jasper for the weekend, and a stop at Lake Louise on the way back. We rented a car for the weekend. It worked out to be pretty reasonable, even with the charge for being under 25. I hadn't driven for the last 7 months so it was so good to get behind the wheel again and the fact that it was a Chevy Impala made the experience all the better.
The trip to Jasper was about 400km (i.e. the length of Ireland!!!), but with automatic transmission, cruise control, straight roads/highways and beautiful scenery around every corner, it really was a joy to do it. Our trip there involved quick stops at the look-out points along the way, along with the odd picture of elk, deer, and Sinead said she saw a moose, but I think it was like the time she said she saw Christy Moore walking down Patrick Street!!...so Sinead saw a Christy Moore moose!!!
I organised accomodation at the last minute on Friday morning for a B&B in Jasper, so we only left Calgary after Sinead finished work at 4:30 so we didn't arrive in Jasper until 10pm. We went for food then and got ourselves organised for Saturday.
We were planning to go to Lake Louise on Saturday evening and go to a campsite there but there was too much to do and see in Jasper so we said we would stay there again Saturday night. We had to go across the road to a different B&B though but it worked out fine. We went for an early breakfast of Vegetable Omlette and a Grand Slam Special! in 'Miss Italia' in Jasper before heading to the Jasper tramway, a cable car that whisks you 3,191 vertical feet up Whistlers mountain for a really impressive view of the town and the surrounding rivers and mountains and lakes which we would hit later on in the day.
B&B in Jasper.........$60
Jasper Tramway........$21
Realising on Saturday morning that you had no film in the camera, for all of the pictures you took on the way to Jasper on Friday night.......priceless!!!
We were going to be heading home the same route anyway so we could get all those photos again, so nothing lost, thank God, but it just means that Sinead's Christy Moore moose is without pictorial evidence!!
We had a fabulous day for sight seeing, 24 degrees. From the tramway we went to Lac Beauvert and took a couple of photos of the Athabasca river. From there we wnt to the Maligne Canyon, which is a 1 and a half hour walking trip but we cheated a bit with the car but still got to see all of it. It was really spectacular and the photos we got of it don't do it justice at all. The waterfalls there can be frozen even up until May but they were in full flow on Saturday. The Canyon is very deep due to the glacial erosion but what really makes it spectacular is how narrow it is, in width, and there have even been a few deaths of people trying to jump across it in places, where it actually looks possible - that gives you an idea of the width - it's only a yard wide, but a hundred feet deep. Unfortunately I can't get the time to post pictures here, so I went looking on other peoples websites for pictures so that you would have an idea of what the views are like, but I'll show the actual pictures we took, when we get home, so here they are... 1 , 2 . Walkin through the canyon you get views of everything from waterfalls and springs to crystalline pools - really beautiful. From there we travelled to the small and peaceful Patricia Lake and onto Pyramid Lake where we paddled...pretty cold water but nice in the 28 degree sun!!!
By that time we were all "laked out" for the day but decided we would make the half-hour trip to see the Athabasca falls and it really was worth it. At the Athabasca Falls, the Athabasca River is compressed through a narrow gorge, producing a violent torrent of water, and supposedly they are more dramatic at this time of year when the river is swollen by snowmelt. (You'd know I had read the guide books, wouldn't you?!?!?!) We went for food then after a long hard day of sight seeing and were planning an early departure to Lake Louise on Sunday.
We left Jasper for Lake Louise at 7:30 am and halfway betweeen Jasper and Lake Louise we planned to stop at the Icefield centre at the Columbia Icefield to take the glacier ice walk. We got there just in time to be the first tour of the day onto the ice. The icefield itself covers 325sq km and parts of it are over 300m thick (we made sure we were standing on that part!!) The tour guide of the SnoCoach had a couple of scary stories of people swallowed into crevasses but we survived ok!! If we knew we could have brought a cup up to drink the glacier meltwater, seeing as its 99% pure, (a bit like myself!) but we weren't told about it till we got up there. The actual carpark of the Icefield centre has the terminal moraine in it (the rock deposits from the last advance of the glacier). The actual moraines of rock were over a hundred feet high. The route the SnoCoach takes has to change very year due to the movement, and mainly the retreat of the glacier. More pics - SnoCoach , Standing on the glacier...Haven't I changed a lot in the last 7 months!
We travelled on then to Lake Louise, where the photos probably won't do it any justice either..really fabulous, surronded by snow-capped mountains and of course, the really expensive and huge Chateau Lake Louise Hotel. It's amazing how they got permission to build that there and there is more construction going on there for a visitor centre and of course...gift-shop!!
I was all sad today though having to drop the car off and jump back on public transit but it was a fabulous weekend and hopefully, much more to come.
David
I'm still recovering from a fabulous weekend on the road. Sinead and I made the trip to Jasper for the weekend, and a stop at Lake Louise on the way back. We rented a car for the weekend. It worked out to be pretty reasonable, even with the charge for being under 25. I hadn't driven for the last 7 months so it was so good to get behind the wheel again and the fact that it was a Chevy Impala made the experience all the better.
The trip to Jasper was about 400km (i.e. the length of Ireland!!!), but with automatic transmission, cruise control, straight roads/highways and beautiful scenery around every corner, it really was a joy to do it. Our trip there involved quick stops at the look-out points along the way, along with the odd picture of elk, deer, and Sinead said she saw a moose, but I think it was like the time she said she saw Christy Moore walking down Patrick Street!!...so Sinead saw a Christy Moore moose!!!
I organised accomodation at the last minute on Friday morning for a B&B in Jasper, so we only left Calgary after Sinead finished work at 4:30 so we didn't arrive in Jasper until 10pm. We went for food then and got ourselves organised for Saturday.
We were planning to go to Lake Louise on Saturday evening and go to a campsite there but there was too much to do and see in Jasper so we said we would stay there again Saturday night. We had to go across the road to a different B&B though but it worked out fine. We went for an early breakfast of Vegetable Omlette and a Grand Slam Special! in 'Miss Italia' in Jasper before heading to the Jasper tramway, a cable car that whisks you 3,191 vertical feet up Whistlers mountain for a really impressive view of the town and the surrounding rivers and mountains and lakes which we would hit later on in the day.
B&B in Jasper.........$60
Jasper Tramway........$21
Realising on Saturday morning that you had no film in the camera, for all of the pictures you took on the way to Jasper on Friday night.......priceless!!!
We were going to be heading home the same route anyway so we could get all those photos again, so nothing lost, thank God, but it just means that Sinead's Christy Moore moose is without pictorial evidence!!
We had a fabulous day for sight seeing, 24 degrees. From the tramway we went to Lac Beauvert and took a couple of photos of the Athabasca river. From there we wnt to the Maligne Canyon, which is a 1 and a half hour walking trip but we cheated a bit with the car but still got to see all of it. It was really spectacular and the photos we got of it don't do it justice at all. The waterfalls there can be frozen even up until May but they were in full flow on Saturday. The Canyon is very deep due to the glacial erosion but what really makes it spectacular is how narrow it is, in width, and there have even been a few deaths of people trying to jump across it in places, where it actually looks possible - that gives you an idea of the width - it's only a yard wide, but a hundred feet deep. Unfortunately I can't get the time to post pictures here, so I went looking on other peoples websites for pictures so that you would have an idea of what the views are like, but I'll show the actual pictures we took, when we get home, so here they are... 1 , 2 . Walkin through the canyon you get views of everything from waterfalls and springs to crystalline pools - really beautiful. From there we travelled to the small and peaceful Patricia Lake and onto Pyramid Lake where we paddled...pretty cold water but nice in the 28 degree sun!!!
By that time we were all "laked out" for the day but decided we would make the half-hour trip to see the Athabasca falls and it really was worth it. At the Athabasca Falls, the Athabasca River is compressed through a narrow gorge, producing a violent torrent of water, and supposedly they are more dramatic at this time of year when the river is swollen by snowmelt. (You'd know I had read the guide books, wouldn't you?!?!?!) We went for food then after a long hard day of sight seeing and were planning an early departure to Lake Louise on Sunday.
We left Jasper for Lake Louise at 7:30 am and halfway betweeen Jasper and Lake Louise we planned to stop at the Icefield centre at the Columbia Icefield to take the glacier ice walk. We got there just in time to be the first tour of the day onto the ice. The icefield itself covers 325sq km and parts of it are over 300m thick (we made sure we were standing on that part!!) The tour guide of the SnoCoach had a couple of scary stories of people swallowed into crevasses but we survived ok!! If we knew we could have brought a cup up to drink the glacier meltwater, seeing as its 99% pure, (a bit like myself!) but we weren't told about it till we got up there. The actual carpark of the Icefield centre has the terminal moraine in it (the rock deposits from the last advance of the glacier). The actual moraines of rock were over a hundred feet high. The route the SnoCoach takes has to change very year due to the movement, and mainly the retreat of the glacier. More pics - SnoCoach , Standing on the glacier...Haven't I changed a lot in the last 7 months!
We travelled on then to Lake Louise, where the photos probably won't do it any justice either..really fabulous, surronded by snow-capped mountains and of course, the really expensive and huge Chateau Lake Louise Hotel. It's amazing how they got permission to build that there and there is more construction going on there for a visitor centre and of course...gift-shop!!
I was all sad today though having to drop the car off and jump back on public transit but it was a fabulous weekend and hopefully, much more to come.
David
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