Today was our longest drive yet - a 130 mile journey north over mountain roads that took over five hours to complete. We were leaving Banff National Park behind for now and headed to Jasper National Park and our campground at Wabasso.
We joined the Icefield Parkway, the road that would take us all the way there. Within the first few miles we again spotted a gathering of vehicles at the side of the road. Jamie managed to spot what they looking at - another bear! We pulled over onto the side of the road and, camera in hand, quietly ran down the opposite side of the road hoping to get a decent view and better yet, a decent photo. After a while, the bear moved into a clearing and we got a good look at it. It was a Black Bear. It came in and out of the bushes, and eventually after several attempts, we managed to get a decent shot.
Continuing on our way, we drove alongside all kinds of scenery from rivers to marshes, through forests, beside mountains and occasionally over them via perilous mountainside roads with perilous drops that made us thankful that we hadn't chosen a larger vehicle!
Another stop along the way allowed us to see more of the Bighorn Sheep we'd seen at Lake Minnewanka, this time in their national environment in the mountains, and not strutting around a car park dodging vehicles.
Pressing on further, the Colombia Icefield started to come into view in the form of the Athabasca Glacier which spilled over from between two mountains towards the road we were travelling. We stopped off here and joined a tour up onto the glacier itself. We were driven up onto the glacier on a huge offroad bus, over roads that sometimes had a gradient of over 32 degrees.
Our stop was about half way up the glacier, and we were allowed to exit the vehicle for a walk around. It was yet another sunny day, so the top of the glacier had begun to melt and there were streams of freezing water that disappeared into deep holes that we were told went down to the floor of the glacier (which, were we were stood, was as thick as the Eiffel Tower is tall). If you fell in, you wouldn't be getting out.
After taking the opportunity to fill our water bottle with glacial water, we rejoined the bus and made our way back to the bottom. We will be taking a walk up the glacier onto the Icefield later in the week, and hopefully then we'll track down our camera case that we seem to have lost up there!
Getting late, we continued along the remainder of our journey to the Wabasso campgrounds that we'd be staying at for the next four nights. On check in, we were told that there were three bears living within this campground - a grizzly, a black, and a 'cinnamon'. Fingers crossed we'll get to see what the cinnamon one looks like! Our plot was on the edge of the campgrounds, a few metres from the Athabasca River.
After our exhausting drive, we settled down to our second barbecue. Thankfully we had plenty more hours of sunlight to properly have this one without rushing, and also lit a fire to keep us warm. Becky cracked open her Smore Kit that we found in Banff and we had a couple of those to see what the fuss was about whilst trying to plan out our as yet undecided route over to the Pacific Coast for the final third of our adventure. However, yet another approaching thunderstorm forced us to end this early, and we retired inside for our first night here.
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