Day 3- Mountains Mountains Mountains

Today, after sneaking out of the campsite, we headed out of Banff. We took the Icefields Parkway up through Banff and into Jasper National Park. It had been declared one of 'the most beautiful highways in the world' and who can turn that down. It basically runs through the Canadian Rockies, and we saw some really beautful sights:

Lake Louise:


Crow's Foot Glacier:


Peyto Lake:


Columbia Icefield:


Athabaska Falls:


And mountains mountains mountains, but disappointingly little wild life. Really nothing at all, except the tail-end of a bear running across the road far ahead of us. Oh, we did see a sad thing- some police cars, and ambulance and a helicopter were parked along the road when it was running along a shallow river, and there were some rescue workers standing on a sand bar on the river, and there was a body in a body bag. That was sad. This is an area that I would love to spend a week in, driving through it didn't really do it justice, but we had a lot of ground yet to cover today.

We took the Yellowhead highway out of Jasper Park, which was only about 16 miles, and then took the Bighorn Highway up to Grande Prairie. We decided to get a hotel for the night. Last night cat camping didn't go so well, and we might have a number of camping days up ahead, so we decided to get a hotel again, and Grande Prairie was the biggest town on the way.


(Yellowhead Highway)

The Milepost didn't do the Bighorn highway justice. They just listed it as a short cut to get to the Alaskan Highway. It was INCREDIBLE. We were driving through mountains and steep foothills covered in green evergreen trees. Carpets and layers and thick thick greenery. It was amazingly green, with steep hills and curves and beautiful blue rivers. We loved every minute, and the hills were so steep, it was like one big adrenaline-rush roller coaster. We also finally saw some wild life- a black bear, a coyote, and some Albertians. Rural Alberta drivers have a deathwish. They all drive trucks 85-95 mph through all of the Bighorn highway. It was amazing. There were no shoulders, minimal rail guards, and they were just flying.



(This picture doesn't do the highway justice- all the pictures looked like big green blobs- but imagine 200+ miles of these thick green trees and forrests all the way, with the occasional logging zone)




When we got to the hotel in Grande Prairie, I brought in a second trip and noticed that only Mr. Darcy was visible in the room. So I started calling Bear and looking around under beds for him, and I heard him meow, but it was really faint, and I couldn't figure out where he was, until Katie came and opened the door and he tore in. Apparently he was running down the hall screaming until she herded him back in. We might have ruined some fellow hotelers day- they probably weren't expecting a shrill screaming black cat to cross their path in a hotel corridor....

We are leaving Alberta tomorrow, we are about an hour and a half from Dawson Creek- the start of the Alaska highway, so it should be exciting!