Travel to Celebrate (part 2)

Day after we came back from Seattle, we took it easy, made our final bookings for our Rocky Mountain trip, and then went shopping (again!) for our road trip.

Day 1 - Vancouver to Jasper

Woke up with the intention of leaving by 7:00am, but we ended up leaving around 7:30am - not bad, only 30 mins behind schedule. :D We packed the car neatly and then went out to McDonald's for breakfast.

This trip was planned in celebration of Canada 150 and Jen coming to visit the West Coast - and how can you not go see the Rocky Mountains (or the Rockies as we like to call them) when you're here? Our Canada 150 park pass gave us free access to all the national parks and sites this year, and we made good use of it.

Driving from Vancouver to Jasper non-stop takes 8 hours, we decided to take a break every 2 hours - get gas, stretch our legs and get some food. Our first stop was near Hope, BC at the Othello Tunnels. These tunnels were part of the Trans Canada Railway at some point. Now it's part of a National Park and hiking trail. This is one of my favourite Rest Stops on this trip because you get to walk and look at the natural scenery, not just step out of the car and then get in again.

 

We then drove up to Kamloops and stopped for lunch. Ended up choosing a Jaimaican restaurant, and I have to say the food wasn't bad, I actually quite enjoyed it.

Along the way, there was a sudden downpour of rain - this was what we were afraid of - rainy weather during our trip, as all the things we have planned are outdoors. Thankfully it only rained during this part of the drive and for the rest of the trip, we had some cloudy skies that would eventually break with the sun shining to warm us.

We continued up to Blue River, got out, went to the washroom and then continued to Jasper. We arrived in Jasper around 8:00pm (actually 7:00pm in Vancouver, but Mountain Time is 1 hour ahead). We quickly set up our tent - Thank goodness for pop up tents now, we didn't have to wrestle with threading poles through loops, filled up our air mattresses and then started cooking dinner.

tonight's dinner (above): instant noodles with fried egg, kimchi, baby carrots and apple slices

After dinner, we decided to check out the showers, and the facility is actually not bad, hot showers and individual cubicles. It was the warmest place!

We got back to our tent and bundled up into our sleeping bags and I fell asleep almost right away. Poor Jen, she said she couldn't really sleep because the guy in the campsite next to ours would snore, then I snored, it was like we had a conversation. :P


Day 2 - Jasper to Banff via Icefield Parkway

Next morning we had a quick breakfast of instant oats - that were really bland and paste-y, probably because we didn't add enough water, and we were too cold and sleepy-eyed to think about what kind of fruits to take out from our car. We tried adding some coffee to the oatmeal - that was ok, and also added some chocolate koala biscuits. I thought that made it taste good. But for the rest of the trip we didn't have oatmeal again....

We quickly packed up the campsite as we will be driving down to Banff and stopping along the way to see different sites. The one thing that we had trouble with is packing up the pop up tent. It's really easy to open, but so difficult to fold. We spent probably a good 20 mins struggling to pack the tent and were getting frustrated, then we checked Youtube for a video! Why didn't that occur to us sooner!

Cell phone reception is pretty sparse in some parts, but I think most of the campsites actually have good signals. We just kept our phones on airplane mode because we didn't have a place to charge it every night.

Once we saw the video, we were able to quickly pack up the pop-up tent - NOTE TO SELF: download pop up tent video before leaving on trip next time. You would think we would remember how to pack it up when we're done in Banff, but two days later, we forgot again and had to watch the video.

We filled up our gas tank and then started on Icefield Parkway. Driving from Vancouver to Jasper, I felt the roads were not that bad, they were wide and nicely paved. We were going uphill but didn't really notice it. Driving through Icefield Parkway, the roads are almost very flat and well maintained.

Our first stop was Athabasca Falls, the cool thing is that you can walk through a short section known as the Time Tunnels - these are where the water carved through rock over time.

Next is Sunwapta Falls, where the water goes around an island before falling over the edge.

Athabasca Falls and Sunwapta Falls are quite close to each other, then we made our way to the Columbia Icefield Glacier Discovery Centre. Along the way, we saw a pretty waterfall - Tangle Creek.

Columbia Glacier is one of the glaciers that are close enough to see and even walk on (for a price). It doesn't really look like much as the area just looks like a lot of rocks and snow, but the purpose and power of glaciers is actually very significant.

The view all around is like you're at the top of the world, because you see just mountain peaks all around you. Actually that's pretty much the view all along Icefield Parkway. We also had lunch at the discovery centre, enjoyed a Bison Burger, Beef Burger and Poutine!!!!

below: this senior walked into the photo at the last moment... but he was also very nice and offered to take our photo.

After lunch, we drove just a little further (not even 5 mins I would say) and got out for a hike up Wilcox Pass. This is across from Columbia Glacier, so you get a view from up high, and as you walk through the fir trees, you are wrapped in the sweet fir scent. mmmmmmmm.... ahhhhhhhh......

 above: these two hikers just happen to be in front of us, and they blend into the scenery more naturally

Then we drove further south towards Peyto Lake. This is where you will see the bright blue/aquamarine lake (depending on what time of the day/year you come). There's a short, steep hike to the viewing point from the parking lot, but it's short.

We arrived at our campsite earlier - around 6:00pm? and there was still light when we set up our camp. There were also a lot more people around us as there was a school who came for a trip.

The same routine - we cooked dinner, took a shower then went to bed around 8pm or 9pm.