Blogs from Jasper, Alberta, Canada, North America - page 5

1st Aug ’12 Banff to Jasper, Alberta Today we travelled along the Icefields Parkway from just past Lake Louise to Jasper. We followed mountains that looked like the spine of the Rockies – all sharp, jagged angles leading one into another forming a massive long ridge. The other side of the valley were equally huge mountains and lots of glaciers. We stopped several times to take photos and then arrived at the Icefields Centre. Yesterday at the Banff Gondola we bought double attraction tickets so today were were going on our other attraction – the Ice Explorer. The tyres of the vehicle were 5 foot in diameter! We set off down a 32 degree slope and then out onto the blue glacier ice, past glacier meltwater streams and hanging glaciers in the mountains at the sides. ... read more

Ce matin, le réveil se fait lentement, il 9h et tout le monde dort encore. Le ciel est clair et on peut voir la montagne de neige qui se dresse de ma fenêtre. Une journée parfaite pour une randonnée pédestre à la montagne. Après un arrêt au bureau de poste, on se dirige vers les sentiers Old Fort Point. C’est un promontoire qui se dresse à 130m au-dessus de la rivière Athabasca. Un sentier qui est abrupt par endroit et qui nous offre des paysages différents, soit le long de la rivière, soit des forêts de conifères là où LiamAntoine a rempli ses poches de cocottes dures et lancer l’attaque. Joseph s’est mis de mon côté et malgré tout LAF avait plus de forces avec ses grandes réserves. Après 3h de marche, les gémissements des garçons ... read more

Today is the end of my second week in Jasper so it's about time for another update. This entry should be considerably shorter than the last one, however I do tend to find a lot of words to write about everything so I may have jumped the gun with that comment. I arrived here at 6.30am on Thursday, 29th March. I first had to go to reception at the Chateau Jasper to receive my keys and an "Introduction to Jasper" package (which I still haven't read). I was housed in Wapta House, which is a staff building behind the Lobstick Lodge (situated next to Chateau). I had an appointment with Human Resources at 10.00am so once I finally found my place, it didn't leave long to get some sleep. Like a zombie i headed up to ... read more

We rode the Ice Fields Parkway from Banff to Jasper Yesterday. It's listed as 180 miles long, but took us nearly 5 hours to drive. Not because of traffic or windy mountain roads, but because of all of the breathtaking scenery along the way! The highway gets its name from the Columbia Ice Fields which straddle the border between Alberta and British Columbia, also forms part of the continental divide. It is an ice field, not a glacier, but ice and snow that fills the valley between mountains. These fields feed into eight major glaciers that cascade down from the mountains along the road. The river that flows from the glaciers is milky-white from all of the glacier flour suspended in it, but when it forms a lake the water settles and becomes a jade green. ... read more

Sunday July 10, 2011 Almost There I woke up well rested this morning. I sleep much better in the tent then I do in the hostels; hostels are just nice to get a shower, your gear organized, laundry, blogs updated and a quick movie on the lap top. I am only kilometers to the Banff / Jasper border. Heading to the ice fields for (an expensive) breakfast. I took a bit of a break at the Icefields Center to catch up on my blog notes. I ended up taking another break an hour down the road. Weather looked rough ahead and I thought it would be better to let it pass then get wet. I stopped in a camping area later in the afternoon to top up my drinking water. I noticed a weekly weather forecast; ... read more