Day 7 The Rockies (September 23rd)

I know it is not the same but we thought that we would complete the blog though we are now home.   Even if it is only for us it is a quick reference of where we were and what we did on each day.  My computer was in a bad way and since arriving home it has meant ordering a new hard drive and so we will continue this on the home laptop.  It was not very good for me to use my phone!

Back to the holiday! An incident worthy of mention happened to us at the end of last evening.  We ate at a restaurant in Jasper and as we were walking back to the hotel we almost stumbled into an elk which was eating away at a local's garden hedge.  There were few streetlights and neither of us had a camera to record the moment.  She kept on eating and we gave her a wide berth and carried on!   

Some days of the holiday were more active than others and Day 7 turned out to be a superb full day. We had booked an extra trip to go to the Columbian ice field.  The day was overcast as we joined the coach but we soon saw some elk grazing in some woodland close to the road. We were in the Jasper National Park and were following the Athabasca River which flows through Jasper up to its source. 


Elk near the road

Athabasca Falls

 Our first stop was the Athabasca gorge where the river/ice has worn a deep channel in the rock and the site provides special views of mountains and dramatic waterfalls. Soon after we came to the visitor centre where we soon transferred to our ice explorer special vehicle for travelling to the glacier.  These amazing 6-wheel drive vehicles are able to take us over some steep terrain and are equally at home on the ice.  We had some time to explore the cleared area of the glacier and take in the magnificence of the surroundings. 


Ice Explorer

sky clearing

Several photos later we climbed back on our vehicle and went back to the visitor centre/café. We had a snack and then returned outside to take some more pics of the mountains etc as the sky was clearing as if on cue.  Eventually we were ushered back to the coach for the scenic journey back to Jasper.  A trip on the holiday we were looking forward to and we were not disappointed.

 

The glacier