Jasper to Canmore

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Today we had to leave our wonderful B&B, but not before we were treated to yet another gourmet breakfast - really going to miss the smell of fresh baking every morning. We knew we had a long journey ahead of us as we were travelling the whole Icefield Parkway (143 miles) and then going on to Canmore (50 miles). Our fellow guests at the B&B, a lovely English couple, recommended we try the Wilcox Pass hike on our way, so that was the plan.

After refuelling Dora, she is a bit of a thirsty girl, we left the delightful town of Jasper for our second ride along the scenic drive that is the Icefield Parkway. Our host at the B&B had suggested we tried a trip along the old Banff - Jasper highway, which runs parallel with the newer route for 15 miles on the opposite shore of the Athabasca river. It was certainly a quieter route, with a few pot holes thrown in for good measure - well it's not our car so we didn't mind! We eventually rejoined the newer road and as we had expected the views going this way, south, were completely different from those we had experienced when we were heading north. We had found this on all our journeys around Jasper, the return ride always offered completely different views to the initial ride.

Suddenly, in front of us, we could see yet again, vehicles parked along the side of the road with their hazard lights on. Another bear jam we thought, but on looking over to see what was the cause of the jam, we saw it was in fact a moose!! YES we were beginning to think they didn't exist. The moose was grazing on the other side of the Athabasca river, but could still be clearly seen. Photos duly taken we carried on, feeling very pleased with ourselves. We reached the beginning of the Wilcox trail and we were soon climbing up high above the treeline, with brilliant views of Mount Athabasca and the Athabasca Glacier. The weather was much improved from the snow we had experienced in this area earlier this week, but it was still very windy and cool. We were on our way back down the trail when we met our friends from the B&B climbing up again. They had missed the moose on their drive here, which shows it is all very much a question of luck when it comes to seeing wildlife. In fact that one moose was to be our solitary spot of the day.

After stopping for our breakfast takeaway lunch at the border of Jasper and Banff National Parks we continued along the Parkway, although our journey today was unfortunately plagued by road works, as they are resurfacing the road. They do not have traffic lights here, just someone with a lollipop sign saying stop and they hold the traffic for ages at each end. It is engine off and get out the car to take pictures time! This seemed to really slow our progress down and we didn't reach our destination until after 6 pm, despite making very few stops along the way. Canmore seems quite a small town surrounded by mountains and here we are staying in a chain hotel for the first time on our trip. Tomorrow's weather forecast is not very good - here's hoping that's as unreliable as usual.

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