Day 14 Jasper to Windermere

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Day 14 July 17
Jasper to Windermere
Jasper National Park, just north of Banff National Park contains northern part of the Rocky Mountains. There are numerous glaciers. Our day started out with a trip to the grocery store to buy picnic items. We always like to visit grocery stores to see what different regions carry and it’s always interesting. This store didn’t disappoint. Many local brands and Canadian brands of food that we had never seen before plus some old favorites that seem universal. Heading down the Icefields Parkway we immediately spied a large black bear walking down the side of the road. We a saw other bears later and bighorn sheep, one with a collar. There seems to be a haze hanging over the mountains and many of the trees have died from bark beetle infestation. We have them in Ruidoso and I was surprised to see them featured at the British Columbia Museum of Natural History. Due to draught everywhere they are killing trees by the millions. And there were tourists everywhere. Big tour buses, RVs, shuttle buses taking people from site to site. We stopped at Athabasca Falls and walked from the top of the falls to the lake they empty into dodging tourists and amateur photographers from all over the world getting their picture taken at various points. Next stop is the Athabasca Glacier. We walked up the trail to the toe of the glacier. Along the trail were benchmarks denoting how far down the mountain the glacier had extended at different times over the past 130 years. They provided graphic illustration of how much it had melted over relatively recent years. We stopped for lunch with several squirrels who appeared to be professional tourist picnic assistants. After a nice meal we proceeded to Lake Louise. Nature smiled on us and the dense clouds lifted and the rain stopped just as we go to the observation point. It was magnificent. All the rivers and lakes in these glacier parks have a beautiful blue color, almost turquoise, and Lake Louise is spectacular. It’s framed between several peaks and seems to go on forever. The area seems to be more of an upscale tourist site with a huge Fairmont hotel at the lake and many more hotels in the village. Lake Louise is in Banff National Park. We continued driving through Banff and then entered Kootenay National Park. It’s not as dramatic as Banff or Jasper. We stopped at Windermere for the night and stayed at a new Super 8. Being Friday night rooms were harder to find and very expensive in the national parks. We had dinner at The Black Forest Steak and Schnitzel, both of us having schnitzel, and were entertained by an accordion player, singer, bell ringer who kept it up the whole time. He was very enthusiastic and it made for a festive evening. We got back in time to set up the projector and watch some sling box.

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