Posts from — June 2017

On Friday May 26th we headed off on our Spring Getaway. We planned this trip a few months ago as a way to use our Parks Canada 100 year anniversary free pass.

First night and first stop was Revelstoke. We stayed at the new Best Western Plus which was a really nice property; one neat feature they had was 6 recharging stations for electric cars. 4 alone were dedicated for Tesla Cars, they are really thinking ahead. Revelstoke is quite beautiful surrounded by the mountains and glaciers.

Saturday morning we headed off to the Revelstoke Farmers Market, which was really interesting. Lots of local arts and crafts and one organic produce provider from the Mara Lake area. After the market we hit the road to hike in Revelstoke National Park. Since it is early in the year and the weather has been cooler we could only go up to about kilometre 12 on the road before it was blocked off. So we headed back down the road and found a hike route of about an hour which was perfect. Then we we got back on the Trans-Canada Highway headed for Golden. On the way we stopped at Craigellachie where the last spike in the C.P. rail was driven. After that we stopped for a couple hikes in Glacier Park before stopping in Golden for the evening.

In Golden we did a city hike and then headed for Emerald Lake to do a hike. Emerald Lake parking lot was jammed since there were so few hikes open due to the late spring weather. We did get to hike across the snow and debris from a winter avalanche and almost all the way around the lake before the trail got too muddy.

From here we headed to Banff AB for 4 nights. It was neat to spend a few days in Banff. Lots of tourists, lots of shops and stores and lots to see. We shopped and hiked and toured the town of Banff and saw an Elk Running down one of the main streets. The hotel we were staying at also provided fee bus passes so one day we caught the local bus up to the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel and spent a couple hours touring the hotel, the shops and the grounds before walking back to downtown Banff.

During our stay in Banff we did a day side trip to Moraine Lake and Lake Louise. We expected to see the lakes open and the glaciers feeding right into both of them.  However, since it has been such a long cool spring both lakes were still 95% frozen over. But the glaciers were still very impressive and it was a spectacular day and a fun side trip.

Finally the one real cool thing about our hotel (Fox Hotel and Suites) was that it had a cave/grotto carved out of the rock on the basement of the hotel where they piped in hot springs to the pools that they made in the rocks.

From Banff we headed up the Columbia Icefields to Jasper. We left early in the morning so we could catch one of the early tours of the icefields. The icefield tour consisted of a ride onto the glacier in one of the large bus type vehicles and also a chance to take the new “skywalk” out over a 900′ Canyon. It was all pretty impressive.We had to get our picture taken in the pair of Parks Canada Andirondack Chairs, since we have a similar picture taken at Cape Spear from last years Newfoundland trip.  Probably one of the most surprising thing about the icefields is the size of them. The glacier we were on was called the Athabasca Glacier and as large as it is, this glacier accounts for only 2% of the overall Columbia Icefields.

The first thing you notice when driving the Columbia Icefields is the size and beauty of the glaciers, especially on a clear day like we had. The second thing you see is all of a sudden vehicle brake lights coming on and people stopping cars and jumping out to see the wildlife. Early in our trip up the icefields we saw vehicles brake lights coming on and we spotted a mother Grizzly Bear and her cub just off the side of the road. It was so crazy to see stupid people jump out of their vehicle and run after the bear to get pictures with their cellphones. The closest we were and still in the car was about 150 yards away”……. that’s close enough to see a bear that size. I think in total we saw about 5 black bears and they were all just off the road or in one case a small black bear was sleeping in a tree.

Once in Jasper we toured the town saw the sights and did a day excursion to Maligne Lake, Mailgne Canyon and Falls and stoped at the Farimont Jasper Park Lodge.

From Jasper we head home to Kamloops……… it was a great short Spring Getaway!