Day 5: Trip

Okay, so we are back home.... I'm going to try to remember what we did on which days...


July 15th, 2010 Thursday



Today was another long day in the car, about five hours total. We drove from Edson, Alberta down to Lake Louise, which is just about 45 minutes north of Banff. The drive was simply beautiful! All of the mountains along the way were just totally unbelievable. The lakes, rivers, waterfalls, creeks and ponds were pretty amazing too. Today was one of the better days in regards to animal viewing. Saw Big Horn Sheep, Caribou, Fox with a baby, Deer, Elk, Black Bear and a Grizzly Bear too! Yes, I said a Grizzly Bear, it was right on the side of the road, same with the black bear, but a little further up the road. It was the very first time I’d ever seen a Grizzly. They are such an enormous creature – thank God it was afar and not on the trail where we were hiking!

Funny story while we were watching the Caribou… it was DIRECTLY on the side of the road. Here in Canada when you see a PILE of vehicles pulled over on both shoulders of the road, you know it’s something good, usually! So being curious as to what they were looking at, we pulled over. All these people were literally TWO FEET away approaching closer and closer and this animal wasn’t even frightened. How stupid it was to do that – one little swipe of those huge antlers and you would have been in for a treat.

Something not so great happened this morning; by mistake I accidentally deleted all of the pictures from the first few days thus far. It hasn’t been so great of a day in that realm. I’m totally going to make up for it over the next few days though. I find myself greatly wishing that I had a wide angle lens for these mountains and bodies of water. The Canadian Rockies will definitely be a place I’m coming back to.

We also went to the Athabasca Falls – it’s between Jasper and the Columbia Ice fields. It was pretty darn spectacular! I’ll tell you one thing; I really am wishing I knew a little French. People come up to you asking if you would take their picture and they didn’t know any English. It’s very amusing trying to communicate with people when they don’t understand a thing you are saying, or vice versa.

The highlight of the day was visiting the Columbia Ice fields located between Jasper and Lake Louise. One word describes that experience “Amazing” I don’t even know where to begin… Well that pretty much sums up the day. We’re almost in Lake Louise now. Have a wonderful day, thanks for reading!