Day 4

Tuesday, June 23rd

If I had only one phrase to describe today it would be: "Banff and Jasper National Park are easily one of the most beautiful spots on planet Earth." But I have more so I will go into detail :) I tried hard to wake the girls up early because I knew there would be a lot to see. First, we stopped at Johnston canyon where we walked on catwalks that were drilled into the side of the Canyon walls. [insert pic] Then we headed towards Lake Louise. The drive generated tons of 'holy cow's' and many 'that is incredible's'. Castle mountain was truly spectacular. [insert pic] Next, we pulled into Lake Louise where we saw the Fairmont Chateau, a HUGE 5 star hotel in a National Park. I just couldn't get over how Canada does their National Parks. There were towns and resorts inside the park! Crazy! After scoping the sites on Lake Louise [insert pic] We headed North on the Icefields Parkway. This was voted one of the Word's 10 Best Drives, and it cracked my top three best drives list. There was mountain after mountain and Glacier after glacier. After multiple stops to scope the sights, we did a short hike down into Mistaya Canyon. The river and waterfall that was below us in the canyon was nearly 100 feet deep and only about 5 feet across from one wall to the other! [insert pic] I was pumping full of adrenaline hiking along the canyon because I was entertained by the idea of trying to reach across and wedge myself against the other side. After realizing that I would plummet to certain death in the violent washing machine and rock grinder below, I decided against it :) After stopping several more times, we reached the entrance of Jasper National Park, which we instantly decided was a little wilder than Banff. Banff had glaciers, Jasper had gnarly glaciers. Banff has awesome peaks, Jasper has +10,000-11,000 ft. peaks. After driving over a pass at nearly 7,000 ft., We pulled up to the Columbia Ice field. We drove to the base of Athabasca glacier and hiked right up to the toe of the glacier. There were warning signs and ropes everywhere about the rushing glacial river and crevasses at the toe. I wanted to lay in the glacier with my shirt off, but then I read the last three crevasse rescue attempts were unsuccessful and that I'd get a fatty fine, so I didn't. [insert glacier pic] There were tours that would take you right up high on the glacier. The machines that took you up there followed a road much higher up on the glacier and then just drove right across it! These machines were beefy! [insert machine pic] Athabasca glacier is the only glacier in the world that drains to the Pacific, Atlantic, and Arctic Oceans. Next we saw several falls. We saw the weeping wall, Sunwapta falls, and Athabasca falls. [insert pics] Sunwapta and Athabasca were definitely man-sized falls. Then, we pulled into the town of Jasper and had dinner, Susan's treat! She told us that'd probably be the only non-moho meal for the next week since we'd be on the road a lot, so Tana and I quickly agreed to the sit down meal. We ate at Evil Dave's, which was a spicy, wild themed restaurant in the little mountain town. After getting to Jasper, the sun was out and the skies were clear. The girls were pretty tired so we didn't stop many more times on our way out of Jasper park. We viewed the wide and maze like rivers, majectic mountains, and lakes from the moho.

We were planning on staying right outside of Jasper park but didn't want to pay for an RV park, so we decided to keep driving until we found a pull out. Unfortunately, the highway was pretty small so the pullouts would have put us almost on the road, which was pretty dangerous. We busted out the mile marker book and saw there was a nordic center high in the mountains and we decided to go looking there since nordic season was over. After being on a gravel road for a while and running low on gas, I had my first heart sink moment of "Oh no, are we gonna be able to turn around in here and make it to a gas station in the morning?" Then we came to a small pullout and flipped a U-ey. After driving up the the Nordic lodge which was closed up for the summer, I got out of the moho to do some reconnaissance work to see if we could stay there. That's when I ventured out on to the biathalon field and saw my first elk of the trip. It was huge! We both took off running: It to the woods and me to the moho. We got back on the highway and stopped at a pullout where we thought we'd sleep. But we were at the beginnings of a Provincial Park and saw a map for many lakes and campsites! So, at 9:30 pm with the sun and mosquitos still up and roarin', we headed on. We pulled into several camp sites and realized that although it was on the honor system, we'd have to pay, so we made the decision to move on and sleep somewhere on the site of the main highway road so as to better our chances of seeing the Northern lights. Tana busted out the mike marker book and we realized there wasn't a pull out for a while. But there was a free camp ground just outside of Muskeg. Tana told us it was only 50 km away! Which wasn't too many miles further. After driving for 20 mins. she re-adjusted and told us it would now be 50 km away from where we were. The 10 mins. passed and she said, "Oh shoot! these markers are in miles, not kilometers!" You figure that a MILE marker book might be in miles when the title of the book is MILE post guide to Alaska. Oh well, it added to the adventure. After pressing on to try and reach the free campsite, Susan kept trying to get us to pull off on one of the logging roads. Tana wasn't having it as it'd be tough to back up back onto the freeway. I was rallying behind the wheel at 11:00 pm with the sun slightly out when I saw my first moose of the trip about 5 feet from the freeway. I didn't want to plow into one of those during their prime grazing times, so I quickly became a fan of the road pull out stop. We then came across a pullout that was more like a grassy meadow so we set camp about 60 yds. from the free way. We hopped in bed, and set out clock's for 2am to try and see the northern lights. It was still fairly light out when we went to bed.