2.5 KM Away from Alaska Highway – Dawson Creek Walmart

 
Two days of travel has taken us from Banff to the Walmart just shy of Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway…560 miles of driving.  Hinton, AB, was pretty much in the middle of the drive, so that is why we stayed there last night…and I was so tired from driving through the rain, the snow, the mountains…don’t think I could have driven much further.  Above is one of the highlights of the drive in Banff headed for Jasper, Bridal Veil Falls.  To the right is a picture of the upper area of the falls…hidden in the clouds, which is the story of the day, along with the snow.

A mile before Bridal Veil was this series of waterfalls…waterfalls that seem to have no name because they only appear for a short time.

It wasn’t much further away that we hit the snow in force.  Lucky for us, nothing was sticking on the ground…but it still makes for tougher driving conditions, and higher tension on Marcia’s nerves. 

Here you can see what we were dealing with all day long…

Here is our last bear sighting, just as we entering the Jasper (town) area.  And if you thought that sighting was bad…

Here are four of the six Bighorn Sheep we saw as we entered the Columbia Icefield Discovery Centre as we entered Jasper National Park.  Amazingly, people were still taking the Icefield Tour…bet those pictures all turned out well.     

It was such a hard days driving, Skruffy volunteered to take over.






Asked Marcia what she thought of it, and she said, “Couldn’t be any worse than what you have been doing.”  Even Skruffy got a kick out of that one.






Asked Bubba, and he said he could sleep through anything.  Well, I decided to keep driving myself...but thanks for asking Skruffy.

Today was a totally different day…the storm clouds still lingered up in the high mountains of upper Jasper National Park, but we had blue skies.  Went into Hinton to get gas, and sure enough, little to no snow on the ground in Hinton.  Back tracked, which is when we got this picture, to Highway 40, and headed for Dawson Creek.

They advertise this route as the “Scenic Way to Alaska”, which is a bit of hype considering most people just drove from Banff to Jasper…but it did have its scenic areas.

A better advertisement might be, “The road which will prepare you for all the rough patches along the Alaska Highway.”  It sure had its moments today…had to give it a break in Grande Prairie, AB because it was giving Marcia such a headache with all the jolts.  At one point they were working on this bridge, and had created a temporary dirt road which lead down 4 feet and back up 4 feet right next to where the bridge was be built.  With all this rain and snow the past few days, it gives on a moment of “should I”, followed by, “what are my choices”.   We made it through just fine, hope the four RVs going the other way (we just beat them, and it is only one vehicle at a time) made it ok.

Rivers seemed to be the theme of today.  Lots of trees, lots of hills, and lots of river sightings.

   

For about 50 miles before Grande Prairie, and for a good 30 miles, there were lots and lots of Pine Trees, and areas where they had harvested them.  We also saw many what seemed to us as Natural Gas, but possibly oil, holding tanks, and lots of trucks which seemed to be hauling it out of the area.  Saw a few logging trucks, and just before the city saw a huge lumber yard.  With all these heavy trucks along the highway, the roadway was definitely messed up from all of this…and little signs that they (Government) was doing much about repairing it. 

    

Personally I found much of the drive between Hinton and Grande Prairie to be a familiar one…lots of hills similar to the hills along the Sierra Nevada.  Yet these hills have lots of trees, which was refreshing.  However, I love driving Highway 49 in California along the foothills…so rich in California mining history, and well, that area was not far from my native home.

As we headed west from Grande Prairie to Dawson Creek, you quickly see how Grande prairie got its name.

It was refreshing to see a bit of farming of things besides trees.  No problem on my end with trees as a crop, but there is something about man working the ground, planting, harvesting all within the same year…or in some cases, many crops per year.  We had not seen much of this since we left Idaho.

So we are in Dawson Creek.  Tomorrow we will get a RV park for a day or two, and then we will start out on the Alaska Highway.

Canadian Rockies National Parks, What a Week

We arrived on a Sunday, and we leave on a Sunday.  What we have seen leaves us in awe…and tomorrow when we depart Banff, we have one of the most gorgeous drives there is, from Banff to Jasper.  What will it be like?  Well, it might be raining when we leave Banff…we “might” wake up to some snow, but it is too warm to stick around long…and the further north we go, the better the weather is suppose to be.  But I think we all have experienced the weather person’s “suppose to be” before.  Either way, we should make it to Hinton without problems, and we will enjoy the drive even if every mountain is shrouded in clouds.

We came to the area without any expectations.  We leave with many memories. Memories of Black Bears.  Memories of glacier waters which display the most extraordinary colors of blue and green – like turquoise and emeralds.  Memories of mountains that reach out all around, of forests full of wildlife, and some forests ravaged by fires fighting to regain their glory and life.  Memories of people from all over the world, most very polite, a few how are ignorant to those around them, most who are tourist as ourselves, in awe of that which abounds, busy taking pictures to share with those back home.

We will always have kind reflections of this place…even though something is telling us that we have many more memories that lay before us as we travel north to Alaska.  In two days this trip hits a new plateau…if all goes well, we will be at Mile Zero of the Alaska Highway in Dawson Creek.  There we will stay for a few days to savor the moment, to further plan our trip northward, and explore the town.  It has been 22 days since we left Sacramento…we have seen so much, and there is so much more that is before us.  As many others who have made this journey before us, we feel honored, we appreciate all that we have seen, we anticipate that which is ahead of us, and we have a gratitude to the almighty which neither words nor pictures can fully describe.

Lake Louise

We said we wanted to be out the door by 7 am, well, we were in the car by 6:30.  I knew that Lake Louise is a very popular spot, and the more people there, the worse your picture opportunities are.  We had very little problems as there were only 20 people around when we arrived, about 30 as we left. 

In this reflection you can see the greenness in the water, which is increased by the reflection of the green trees.

This straight shot shows the Victoria Glacier that helps to feed the lake.  Glacial sediment is what gives the glacier lakes their different colors.

Here is the right side of the lake, and again you can see the greenish color of the lake.

The lake feeds Louise Creek, which runs down to the Bow River.  This area of the lake is very accessible with fine paved walkways, areas to sit, and numerous locations to take pictures from.

Here you can see Marcia in her scooter.  Other than temperatures of 38 degrees, she got around fine on her own, taking pictures, some of which are used above.  She does have a blanket over her legs to help keep warm.  The dogs stayed in the car.

This shows the handful of the people around the lake.  The folks on the left were taking lots and lots of pictures, each one with one or more of them in the pictures.  They did not seem to mind that others might not want them in their pictures…but I was just happy that it was one small group doing this and not a huge crowd.

I was also glad that the canoes were all locked up for future use during the day.  I have seen many pictures of Lake Louise with many of these canoes out on the water.  I am sure glad we beat the crowds, it made the morning very special.

The Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise butts right up to the lake.

Look at all these rooms which look out onto the lake!  The cost is around $900 (Canadian) per night during September…not sure you could even book a room right now looking over the lake.  After we left we headed to the small town of Lake Louise to get a coffee.  As we were there, we saw no fewer than six tour buses pull in, and we saw many more headed that way when we traveled back to Banff later. 

      

The trip up to Lake Louise was full of many mountains, and the early morning sun made for some very interesting images.  Beyond Lake Louise it just seemed to get better.  We only traveled a short distance up the Icefields Parkway, perhaps 30 miles or so.  Fatigue was starting to set in on both of us, and I wanted to take the Bow Valley Parkway back from Lake Louise to Banff, which would take much longer than Canada Highway 1 took coming up to Lake Louise.  Below are some of the pictures we took north of Lake Louise.

    

    

    

    

I think one could spend years up here taking pictures…there is so much beauty everywhere you look.  How lucky we are to be able to enjoy even a few days of our lives here.   Later in the early evening we went for a drive around the outskirts of Banff, which perhaps I will post pictures of another day.