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Calgary to Jasper
By John | September 8, 2009
Apologies to all ‘watchers’ for 48 hours of silence from “uncle jack” and me. Computer connection and Firefox problems have jointly conspired to make things difficult. But maybe it’s nothing more than me being technically challenged? Ergo, writing this on a hotel computer with additional issues on uploading pix – so just text for yesterday and today, I’m afraid.
But to bring you all up to date …
MONDAY
Fred Griffiths, Henri and Nicole Lefebvre plus several others from Vintage Sports Car Club of Calgary came to meet Liz and I, mid-morning at our hotel. We then formed a caravan and moved north-west out of Calgary, pausing for the (by now) ritual handover photographs at the Calgary Winter Olympic site - except for the fact that John Robertson from Kamloops wasn’t in attendance – so you’ll just have to use your imaginations! We then moved off in caravan along part of the Trans Canada Highway until it was time to turn off on to the more scenic older road with Cranmore as our lunch destination and Lake Louise for the overnight halt.
A most pleasant stop in Cranmore for lunch and then we were on our own after the last caravanner waved us goodbye as we entered the Banff National Park. Drawing heavily on local knowledge and recommendations, we took the Bow Valley Parkway and found ourselves plunging ever deeper into The Rockies with truly spectacular scenery at each hillcrest or turn of the road. What a difference after effectively three whole days of prairie – but I’m not knocking the prairies; matter of fact, I really enjoyed their vastness.
Eventually, Lake Louise was upon us and after some essential shopping, we made our way to the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise hotel for just ONE night of luxurious decadence – and thoroughly spoiled ourselves. Particular thanks to the hotel management who responded to the TTACD fundraising and awareness concept and offered us a heavily discounted room rate with an upgraded suite overlooking the lake!!! It seems there had been snow earlier in the day at lake level, although all of it had gone by the time we arrived. But we had commanding views of the surrounding mountains – even though their summits were in cloud. So, while snow had fallen around the hotel during the day – and melted, that which was at a higher altitude was still clearly visible. We enjoyed a bottle of wine in our room, marvelled at the incredible luminescence of the aqua-marine colour of the water in the lake – and then it was dark, so we went for Dinner – and slept very well indeed.
TUESDAY
After a hearty breakfast, “uncle jack” swallowed our luggage and it was off along more mind-blowingly impressive road with towering mountains on either side, ahead and behind us. We stopped for an early lunch (and refuel)Â at The Saskatchewan Crossing where our arrival coincided with a busload of departing Japanese visitors and another arriving busload of Germans who all seemed to have problems in working out why they couldn’t have their preferred type of sausage for lunch.
We set off once more, with the scenery becoming ever more impressive and then found ourselves facing a fairly stiff uphill grade over a Pass – name unknown. About 3/4 of the way up, there was a convenient pull-off and ‘overlook’ so we pulled off and looked over – as you do. Incredible views and some extremely inquisitive crows squabbling with one another for food from those who had stopped for photographs.
On again, with “uncle jack’s” exhaust note blaring comfortingly off the roadside structures, with rain drops starting to spatter the windscreen. Then the rain turned to a light dusting of the white stuff – which got Liz all excited. She loves snow! We then paused at an impressive glacier but as time was marching on and we had no hotel reservation in Jasper, we decided not to go for a bus ride across the glacier itself. Got up close-ish to admire it – but it was very, very cold and as “uj’s” heater was doing such a sterling job, it seemed a shame to waste the warmth by opening both doors!
Some miles later, we paused and did get out to admire the Athabascar Falls (hope I’ve got the name right?) and took lots of pix. Finally, into Jasper where we found somewhere pleasant to stay. Between racing back and forth ‘twixt hotel laundry and my errant laptop, eventually gave up with the Compaq and came to the Business Centre to file this report.
On tomorrow to Kamloops where I’ll try to make amends for the lack of pix and update the site with some visuals. It’s been a tiring but very pleasant day – and I’m just wondering if we’ll wake up tomorrow morning to find more snow?
Special interest item for the Day. I’m greatly impressed at the ingenuity of the guy who designed the latch on ’bear-proof’ trash bins. A simple mechanism that really would be difficult for a bear’s paw to operate – and probably very frustrating for the bear when he/she discovers they can’t access the contents of the bin. Haven’t seen bear, elk or moose today – but on the lookout!
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