Canada: Three idiots in an RV part 2

Wow, the schedule I'd somehow been managing to keep for the last 2 and a bit months appears to have gone a bit wonky. No worries. Ever onwards and all that.

So, having driven from Vancouver to Jasper, via Whistler and a number of other places, my second week with Mum and Amy in the RV began with a celebration, because guess what, it was my birthday.

Happy Birthday To Me

Birthday fun began with a trip to the Other Paw Bakery in Jasper, which I'd visited on my brief stop in Jasper on my way across on the train. Birthday cake consisted of a big chunk of Java Cheesecake Brownie and it was delicious. Om nom nom.

Cake hastily nommed, we set off for our next adrenaline fix - rafting down the Athabasca River. I've never been rafting before. I need to go again.

Who knew bobbing down a river, paddling through rapids and getting soaked by (once again) glacial water could be so much fun? Delightful adrenaline rush, discounting the fact that Jhett, our guide, on hearing that it was my birthday decided to find a special birthday wave for me. Cue getting thoroughly soaked again.

Once back on dry land and back into dry clothes, we headed to the Bear's Paw Bakery, forerunner of the Other Paw and home to equally delicious baked goods. Oh, and London Fog, to which I've taken quite a liking. Following that and a stroll around the tat shops of Jasper - and there are many - we popped into the Jasper Brewhouse for a birthday meal and I finally got my hands on a glass of cider for the first time in over 2 months.

Joy.

Then off back to the campground, where Mum and I had afters in the form of bannock - a sort of scone-mix wrapped around a stick and cooked over a fire, while the Wildlife Guardians from Parks Canada told us how to stay safe around wildlife.

What a lovely day.

Ah, un ours

The following day we set out for a long drive down the Icefields Parkway from Jasper to Lake Louise. It should have been fairly uneventful, but just after we pulled out of the campground onto the main road, a grizzly bear ran out in front of us.

I feel I should mention that said bear was nowhere near actually getting hit by the RV. But while I was happily going "WE SAW A BEAR!" and trying to decide which species it was, Amy was clinging to the steering wheel for grim death and apparently felt a bit sick. Understandable, I suppose.

Unfortunately, the bear rather having taken us by surprise, I have no photographic evidence. This is rather annoying.

Onwards down the lumpy bumpy Icefields Parkway. Which we had to pull off not far down because the right hand wing mirror had wiggled itself loose and was now absolutely no use to Amy in the driving seat. Wiggled it back, set off again, and it wiggled loose. Again. Buggeration.

On the plus side, there are some stunning views down the Parkway. I had to giggle at this one, purely because the mountain is apparently callled Mushroom Peak.

Further on, and with a still-non-functional wing mirror, we pulled in at the Icefields Centre to take a break and admire the Athabasca Glacier across the road. We briefly considered taking one of the bus trips to actually go on the glacier, but it was a) expensive, b) crammed and c) there are better places to get up close to a glacier (*cough* New Zealand *cough*). Instead, we settled for a hot drink and a seat out on the observation deck.

On the way out, we found this excellent sign.

Apparently there is a mountain behind the centre called Nigel. We found this overly amusing. Anyways...

Pootling on down the Parkway, we had another stop at the Crossing, where the Sasketchewan River passes under the road and where Mum and Amy tried poutine. Pretty sure the poutine there was not as good as the poutine I had in Quebec - the cheese curds weren't right.

And onwards with the driving, stopping again when we came to the Weeping Wall. I suppose it's a waterfall, but it really does look like the wall is crying.

And still onwards. Long drive, much. We started passing a few more icefields, one of which I couldn't find a name for on the map, so we christened it Bobstevedave, because we couldn't agree. Of course, once we pulled in at the Bow Glacier and looked at the map there, we found that Bobstevedave, or the Bobster as it'd swiftly become known, was actually the Crowfoot Glacier. Ah well.

Shortly after that we arrived into Lake Louise, successfully negotiated the texas gates (cattle grids to us Brits), and parked up. It was still fairly early, so we popped into the village to grab some groceries and explore the visitor centre. All good, until on the way back we passed a ranger near the camp entrance, shouting "Woah, bear" and firing what we think was an air gun. Probably walked back to the RV a bit quicker after that...

Snow in August?

It rained all night. It was still raining in the morning. Not to be deterred, we drove up to the Lake Louise gondola and ski resort, thinking it might clear up. Plus, for an extra $3 on top of the gondola ticket, we got breakfast. And not just a drink and choice of pastry. Proper buffet breakfast. Which meant I was a pig and had waffles and bacon and sausages and eggs and syrup and tater tots. And just to make it marginally less unhealthly, a cup of chamomile tea. Yum.

After breakfast, we took the gondola up the Whitehorn mountain. We had wanted to take the chairlift, but it was still damp and horrible, so we thought better of it.

Good job as well, because when we got to the top of the lift, it was snowing. Yes, snowing. In August. In the northern hemisphere. And not nice fluffy snow either. The sort of sharp icy stuff. It's that bloody Storm again. As I said to Amy, it's like Taranaki all over again, where an icy rainstorm followed us into Mordor...

Yeah... explanation of that here: The Weather Stabbed Me In The Face

We sought refuge in the little interpretive centre, which was interesting, if a bit small.

And then tramped upstairs to grab a hot drink and attempt to admire the view out of the window. Clearly not many people were willing to brave the lift, because as we walked through the door, one of the waiters came over and said something along the lines of "yay, customers!" Made me smile.

As did the hot chocolate. Not so much the view...

And then back down the gondola and across to Lake Louise proper. As in the lake itself, not the village.

Even in the appalling weather, it manages to be pretty. A surreal sort of green colour. We weren't willing to stay outside in the cold and the drizzle very long though, and disappeared into the Chateau Lake Louise hotel in search of warmth. Definitely warm. Also full of fellow tourists. Another hot drink and roam through the shops later and we headed back outside.

At this point, the weather was beginning to improve and after a little while sitting around at the campground in the RV, we decided to brave the outdoors again. Took a nice stroll out to the end of the campground, where you could see the mountaintops just beginning to poke out from beneath the clouds.

Very peaceful.

And then something coughed.

Or maybe snorted.

And we turned almost as one to find a fucking big bear standing on the bank behind us. "It's OK," says Mum, "just stay calm and keep walking." So we do. And I don't dare look behind me to see where the bear has gone, even though I really want to know where it is in case it's creeping up behind me or something. "It's all right," Mum says, "it's gone away." And indeed, it did go running off into the other side of the campground. Away from us.

At this point, all my brain wants to do is laugh hysterically. So it does. A bit. Amy looks like she did the day before when the other bear ran in front of the RV.

I love wildlife and everything, but I'd rather not be that close to a bear again without something between us.

If they can get a bus up here...

After our close encounter with the bear, we started the following day with a slow drive up to Moraine Lake. Supposedly, this lake is even more awesome than Lake Louise. To be fair, Lake Louise wasn't perhaps at its best due to the rain and everything, but Moraine Lake is definitely beautiful. Of the many colourful lakes we saw on this trip, I think Moraine is the only one where my camera actually captured the colour I saw.

Brilliant, bright blue. I've never seen a natural water body that colour.

My admiration of the lake was somewhat marred by all the idiot tourists trampling over the rockfall which dams the lake. There are signs everywhere asking you to stay on the trail, but who cares? I want to take a photo for Facebook/Instagram/insert self-absorbed-social-media-here. What do you mean these lichens take hundreds of years to grow? They're just plants. Sensitive ecosystem? What's that?

Basically, I spent most of my time on that rockfall grumbling under my breath about how I hoped they'd all fall and hurt themselves and it'd serve them damn well right. People have no respect for nature.

/rant

Oh, and I saw a pika. These are basically just cute little balls of fluff. Clever little fluffballs - they gather plants and store them in a sort of pantry for the winter.

After a leisurely morning at the lake, we set off on our drive to that evening's campground. Plenty of time for other stops though, including a drive up to Takakkaw Falls at the end of the Yoho Valley Road. Said road involves a set of switchbacks that are much too tight to get an RV round in one go. Amy had to reverse into the bend in order to get round them. As we found later, there are actually coach trips up this road, so we figured if they can get the buses up there, an RV shouldn't be too much of a problem.

It was worth the farting about, because the falls really live up to their name - Takakkaw translates to something like "it is magnificent" in Cree.

And the view back down the valley towards Kicking Horse Pass is equally spectacular.

After successfully returning down the switchbacks, we carried on a little way down the road to the railway settlement of Field. Field only exists because of the railway - the incline through Kicking Horse Pass is pretty damn steep and was even steeper in the early days, so Field existed only as a place to add extra locomotives to trains climbing the pass.

It's not that much bigger now, although it does have a visitor information centre and a little gas station where we grabbed some lunch (which showed up as JUNKFOOD on the register. I was amused).

From there, a fairly straightforward drive out of Yoho National Park to the town of Golden. Straightforward apart from the very long, winding hill which drops out of the park towards the town There were a group of bighorn sheep (we think) at the side of the road, which managed to freak Amy out only because I shouted GOAT on seeing them. My bad.

Golden's only a tiny place, but the campground was lovely and the sunset behind the mountains... well...

My feet have gone soft

After a delicious second breakfast in a bakery in Golden and having tightened up the still wiggly wing mirror with an allen key we'd had to buy in Golden (because the RV came with no toolkit?!), we set off for a slow drive down the Columbia River Valley.

Perhaps the most relaxing day we've had, given that it was a relatively short drive and once we got to Radium Hot Springs, we had no real plans for the day. Mooched around for a while, grabbing a cup of tea followed by a lovely ice cream, before we drove up to the campground and parked.

A little while to just chill out and then we took the 2.5km track over the hill to the hot springs from which the town takes its name. Admittedly, the water from the springs is now channelled into a swimming pool, but it felt pretty good after the walk in the heat.

The only downside to a relaxing soak in the pool was that my feet, hardened by two months of tramping around cities and parks and museums and stuff, got a bit soft and therefore the walk back to camp was a bit... tender. I think I got off fairly easily - Amy really seemed to be struggling with the squishy feet situation.

The Storm is coming

Another fairly leisurely day, driving up through Kootenay National Park from Radium to Banff.

The road crosses three mountain chains and two rivers, so it was pretty expensive to build back in the early 20th Century. We stopped at the info centre for a drink and then headed back up the road. At which point I noticed the big black cloud further up the valley.

Oh dear.

We'd thought about stopping at the Paint Pots - ochre-stained lakes, very cool - and then maybe taking the trail up to the Stanley Glacier. With the Storm apparently intent on making another appearance, I looked at the map again and suggested stopping at Numa Falls, in an attempt to at least see something before the rain came down.

Glad we did. Numa Falls is pretty, well, pretty.

Even if Amy did worry that I'd fallen in at one point, because I'd gone wandering off to take photos and she couldn't see me.

Back in the RV, we entered the very edge of the rain, passed the Paint Pots turn off just as the rain stopped (much to my annoyance) and instead pulled in at Marble Canyon. On reading the first information board, I had to suppress the little voice in my head that was geeking out massively.

See, back up near Field is the Burgess Shale, a fossil bearing rock which includes evidence from around the time of the Cambrian Explosion - the period in which life sort of went a bit mad and all sorts of things were evolving. A couple of years back, scientists found another outcropping of this rock in the vicinity of Marble Canyon and the info board included a note to say that any fossils found should be left and reported to the Parks service (or something along those lines).

Yes, the science geek in me was squeeing over the super faint possibility of finding a fossil. Oh yeah.

As it is, Marble Canyon is pretty impressive in and of itself. It's very narrow and not all that deep, but it's beautiful. And, there's a waterfall at the top end.

And, there's a great view from the top, as Mum and I discovered while making friends with a chipmunk.

From Marble Canyon we headed straight to Banff, where we spent the afternoon raiding tat shops (again) and I found myself an excellent t-shirt.

I've got the la-la horse

The following morning, we went horse riding. My horse, Red, did mostly what he was supposed to do and left off eating things when I told him (i.e., pulling on the reins).

Mum's horse, Dunny, seemed like he was still half asleep.

And Amy's horse, the wonderfully named Soupy Jones... well, he did what he was told to start with...

So there we are, tramping along, occasionally having to pull our horses away from tasty things or trees that they felt like smacking us into. Enjoying the view and the peace. We make it across the Spray River, through the wood at the edge of the golf course. Soupy begins trying to eat whatever he can get his mouth on, despite Amy doing everything the guides are telling her.

And then we come back to the river. Dunny decides to stop in the middle of the river and have a drink. We've been told that the horses get a bit possessive about their place in the line, so if one stops to drink, everyone behind has to stop too.

Soupy has no intention of stopping. As I'm trying to tell Amy she needs to pull back and make him stop, Soupy is blithely tromping past the oblivious Dunny to take his place in the line.

For a moment, Mum is seriously concerned that Dunny's going to flip. Fortunately he doesn't. All the while, Red's just tramping along with the same look on his face that Mum's younger dog gets when he's having a la-la far away moment. All fine by me. At least my horse was behaving.

Meanwhile, not content with his new spot in the line, Soupy has decided that he really wants his lunch. Which means we all have to keep stopping while Amy tries in vain to drag him away from whatever's taken his fancy. Poor Amy.

Which means that when a deer appears right next to the trail and seems completely unfazed by the gaggle of amateurs riding past, Amy misses it at first while we're all going WOW, because she's trying to drag Soupy away from a bunch of delicious thistles.

Fortunately we all made it back in one piece. Hurrah. I love riding. I'll have to find other places to go.

After our little equine adventure, we popped up to the Cave & Basin National Historic Site. This is where the National Park system really started - workers from the railway stumbled upon the cave, which had actually been used by the local indigenous people for centuries, and started marketing it. The government got in on it, bought the site and the first National Park in Canada grew up around it.

Woo, potted history. The site is quite interesting in itself, like the delightfully smelly cave.

And the cafe does some really yummy cakes.

And then another raid of the tat shops before having tea in the Elk & Oarsman. Yummy elk burger and cider for me. Mmm.

Which brings me almost to the end of my Rockies adventure with Mum and Amy. Just 2 more days remained in Canada. Wow.

I wonder how Alaska will compare?