Canadian Rockies - Banff / Lake Louise / Jasper

From suburban Calgary we moved back into the scenic areas of the Canadian Rockies and stayed in a great hostel (HI) on the outskirts of Banff. It had a bar and nightly entertainment so there was no need to make the downhill trip to the town centre. The surrounding sites are spectacular, with snow capped peaks all around. A trip up the Gondola and a subsequent small hike upto the weather station gave a superb 360 degree panoramic view of the area. Banff itself is an idyllic town which seems to have an extraordinary number of eateries for its size. A day trip out to Lake Louise was a good call. The lake itself is very pretty with its blue "cloudy" appearance. The Fairmount Chateau Resort, which sits on the lake, is a great place to lodge (if you can afford it). We clearly do not fit into that category but we did use their toilets and buy a cup of coffee. The hike from the Lake Louise to Lake Agnes is a bit of a slog, but there are superb views of Lake Louise on the way up and at the end of hike there is a great tea house which makes it all worth while. It was a great place to relax at the end. The 4 cups of tea we had on the top made it a bit of a rush to get back to the toilets in the Chateau. On the way back to Banff we had a brief encounter with a Black Bear near to Moraine Lake. We stayed in Banff for two nights before moving on to Jasper via Johnston Canyon, Columbia Icefields, Athabasca falls and Mistaya Canyon which were all on the way. The route would normally take a bout 3 hours to cover but because of the stops and stuff it took in excess of 8 hours. It is a brilliant route along the Icefield Parkway and once again the scenery is exceptional. The hostel was located 7 km out of Jasper and had no bar so we had to be self sufficient in food and drink. It was at this point we realised how expensive Canada is for alcohol. We should have stocked up in the US!! Not to worry the hostel was great, we stayed in 40 bedded rooms, in bunk beds. A bit of advice is not to get there too late as you might get the bunk near the door for the toilets. There always seems to be someone moving about, whatever the time.
Next day took us to Maligne Canyon and lake - we picked up a couple from NZ who needed a lift to the start of the Skyline Trail which they planned to run/walk the 44 km back to there car in a round 7 hrs. "Mad fools". The lake and canyon are good trips from Jasper and we finished it off with a trip to the Hot Springs to relax. The plunge pool they have there can certainly send testicles upwards. A weird sight in the car park was seeing a number of mountain sheep licking the underside of a school bus to get at the salt that had accumulated there. Our final day in Jasper gave us a chance to hike around Mount Edith Cavell. It was a cool morning when we started the trip and it got warmer as started to go upwards, but then Carolyn "the Witch" said "those clouds look like snow clouds" she was wrong, it was hail and a significant amount of rain that came down on our heads. Fortunately we were prepared unlike some other guys on the mountain. There are great views of the glaciers and the lake that has ice floats on it. It was a good hike, even for unfit people like us. Our final night involved a trip into Jasper for a meal and as the whole place is reminiscent of Switzerland we had a fondue. Very 1970's. It was actually really nice, but we got chatting to other travellers when we got back to the hostel and one drink ran into six and the following day Carolyn was a bit fragile and of course we had a 300 mile journey to Kamloops. Although we have travelled a fair bit one guy we spoke to has racked up 80,000 km in the last two years motorcycling up from South America and he was still going northwards.

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