May 25,2011

  The rain we travel in over to Banff NP stopped and we had a great time there. Downtown was very touristy but we had a good time walking around there. Our 1st stop was the visitor center where we picked up several maps including the most important , a trails map. The lady at the center marked all the trails that were suitable for us older folks. We did all the trails we were interested in. My favorite was the Cave & Basin. We went through marshy land feed by hot springs. In the 60’s as an experiment several varieties of tropical fish were placed in one of the warm marshy areas and they are still there. It was neat to look in the water and see Mollies swimming around.Several. On our 2nd fell day in the area we traveled about an hour up to Lake Louise. The visitor center had a lot of history of the area and was very interesting. The lake was still frozen and most of the trails were closed because of snow and avalanche conditions. We did walk part way around the lake. On the way back we took 1A a route with more scenic overlooks. We filled our days in the area with trails and scenic drives. One stop took us to an old mining town. Paula & I were very surprised to discover that they mined anthracite coal there. We always thought that hard coal was only mined in the area of the country where we are from.

  Yesterday we traveled from Banff to Jasper about 180 miles but it took us over 8 1/2 hours. We traveled the Icefields parkway which is called The Most Beautiful Road In The World. And it probably is. It travel continuously through 2 national parks. It has many scenic pull offs of which we took advantage.  As we were coming up one especially steep area next to us walking down was a mountain goat and here little one. In another area we saw cars pulled off the side of the road so I told Paula to get the camera ready. It was a grizzly not far off the road trying his best to find something to munch on. Further down the road was the Columbia Icefields. We stopped there to eat lunch and enjoy the magnificent glaciers. Our last stop before our campground was  Athabasca Falls. I love water falls and this was a good one. We walked the trails all around the falls. We are now set up in Jasper NP and this morning we’ll head to the visitor center to get information on the area and decide what we’ll do and how log we’ll stay here. It’ll have a tough time topping Banff.