Banff, AB to Jasper, AB

Jasper National Park     Saturday July 21st  2001           164 miles      

This was by far the most impressive drive of the entire trip. While only 164 miles the trip takes about 3 1/2 hours to drive. You wouldn't want to drive it any faster anyway.

First off is beautiful Lake Louise, where we stopped and rode the ski lift to the top of the mountain.

The view was spectacular, off in the distance you can see Lake Louise.

A rain storm blew in across the valley.

Then we got back in the car and kept heading up to Jasper. Along the way there are several of the most gorgeously colored lakes. Here is a couple of pictures of Hector Lake.

Then you begin to get into the Columbia Ice Fields and the glaciers begin. We spent 2 days in the US's Glacier National Park, where there are no glaciers. But Canada had many.

You can actually stop at the Athabasca Glacier and take a short hike to the "toe" of the glacier. There are signs warning you all the way up and when you arrive NOT to hike up on the glacier. As it melts it leaves unseen crevaces that people fall into and usually die of hypo-thermia prior to rescue. The most recent death was on July 4th 2001, less than 2 weeks prior, so we went up only about 20 feet for photos.

Back in the car for some more beautiful driving and we arrive in Jasper.

We stayed a resort about 5 kilometers (that is how everyone in the world measures stuff, except for Britan and the US, so it is 3 miles all us "special" people) outside of town at Pyramid Lake.

We even rented a boat and went fishing, Sofi got a little ornery. You can see my shoe in the bottom.

Jasper also has a tram ride to the top of Whistler peak. This is a serious ride, you climb 3500 feet in a tram car.

Click on the image below for some animation.

On top is a tram station and a resturaunt with an amazing view.

This is the town of jasper, the two lakes in the left are Patricia and Pyramid lake where we stayed.

Here is a close up of the lakes, the one on the top is Pyramid Lake.

And a close up of the town of Jasper. I liked Jasper better than Banff, it was smaller and not so developed.

The kids posed for a photo (this was after an angry German man yelled at us for letting my nephew David throw sticks at the Marmot, which I explained we didn't "let" him do it, he just did, he is a boy after all. He did not seem to understand).

The sun began to set and was very picturesque.

The next day the kids and I went on a 5 mile (round trip) hike up Maligne Canyon. After many "are we there yet" and "how much farther" we arrived at the tea house for lunch.

The canyon is a geological wonder (don't I sound like I am writing brochures), that at its apogee is 3 feet wide and 160 feet deep.

The next day we awoke at 5 AM. and began our descent to the US.

It was begining to rain, so we picked a good time to leave.

On to Bozeman.