Day 1With the season over in Fernie, we packed our lives and all our worldly possessions into Felix (our Dodge Caravan), who would constitute our home (more so than we anticipated) for the next 2 weeks.
Bella sadly walking away from our shoebox house that housed us and up to 6 others for the winter.
Felix from the rear.
Our competition in the RV parks. Just a little bigger than Felix.
Some of the beauty we were looking forward to. This is Colombia Lake, about an hour out of Fernie.
Wasting no time, we got straight into the hiking on the first day. We headed to Kootenay National Park. Our first attempt was going to illustrate to us the longevity of a Canadian Winter. And the difference between out of the mountains (as above at Colombia Lake) and in the mountains (as below).
Bella straying slightly off the trodden path and ended up to her waist in snow. Something we were use to when snowboarding and hiking to find powder, but not something we expected 3 weeks into Spring on a national park trail. Our first hike to something or other ended up with us turning around after 10 minutes with the path becoming less stable and us ending up at our waist after each step. Luckily I had borrowed some snowshoes from the rental shop. These were going to get more use than I expected.
We abandoned our first attempt and proceeded onto our next stop, Stanley Glacier. A solid 5kms one way to see a glacier. Something of a novelty to us at this time.
The path. Everyone else we saw on the path (about 6 people) were all on cross-country skis.
Bella snow-shoeing on what we determined to be a snow bridge over the creek.
A cool but common occurence. Water that seeps out of the mountain and freezes as icy waterfalls.
Find the Ptarmigan. A bird.
Stanley glacier.
Some snowsnoeing shots.
Spot the bear. A final highlight for Day1 that set in paranoia for the rest of the trip. A Grizzly wandering along the railway tracks. The grizzlies were starting to wake up from hibernation. To me that means they're hungry.
Day 2We soon discovered why none of the campgrounds were open. So we ended up in the RV parks.
Our first campsite at Lake Louise.
Yeah, I guess it still looks nice with all the snow around.
Johnstone Canyon, upper falls. Again, water seeping out of the limestone, but this time in spectacular fashion.
From above.
A typical Canadian Rockies mountain.
The Paint Pots. We continued past the falls to the paint pots. About 5 pools that are dyed differing shades of blue and green due to some geological somethingorother (it's technical).
They look nice.
Day 3It was back to Canmore where we met up with Cindy, a cousin of a cousin of Bella's, who once again put us up for a few nights, including a funny night out in Calgary.
A bit of local advice and we found another hike for the day. But this time, much to our excitement, we wouldn't need our snoeshoes. It was a great sunny day, about 18 degrees (which we now considered hot). I didn't take a picture from the bottom but it looks nice from the top.
A view up the Bow Valley. Carved by glaciers during the ice age. For some reason all the valleys run North-South.
Canmore town. Settled nicely in the valley.
The peak of Mount Lady Macdonald. The snow is melted on the south facing side but remains on the north facing.
The usuals.
A Rocky Mountain up close. Yep, it's rocky.
Day 4We actually got a rare powder day riding at Lake Louise. About 15cm and a complete white-out. Hence no photos.
To illustrate the micro climates around here. Lake Louise is 4 hours drive from Fernie. They had a terrible season. About 3m of snow for the year and a base around 1.5m.
Day 5Back to the snoeshoes, this time around the Lake Louise. The opposite side of the valley to it's ski hill namesake. We hiked up the right hand side of this valley to an upper lake, Lake Agnes.
A view up a frozen Lake Louise. Famous for the colour of its glacial fed water. But frozen over more often than not.
The trail with a nice sunny break. In true Canadian fashion, we went from this, to cloud, to snow and back again within an hour.
Lake Agnes, suprise, its frozen too.
The big beehive. The mountain on the right looks like a beehive from afar. But not at this angle. I just liked the photo.
The glaciers that feed Lake Louise.
Where we were, with the beehive.
Our home for the next two nights. The all-season campground. A plowed car park with a little shelter and a drop-box toilet. We liked it.
Day 6Again, Peyto Lake, famous for its colour, frozen over.
A famous but typical log cabin.
So once again, strap the snoeshoes on. And this time straight out over Bow Lake, with the ever present wind absolutely howling.
Some nice scenery along the way. Very peaceful and tranquil when we could get out of the wind.
Bow Glacier. At the end of our walk.
The usuals before we cross the lake again on the way home.
Some cross country skiers returning after an overnight trip.
Day 7By now the weather is starting to get really cold. About -10 overnight is not the best in the back of a van. Full thermals and lots of blankets and we were just warm enough to sleep. The previous morning we had tried to have a cooked breakfast that we thought would warm us up, instead our hands froze while trying to cook. So this morning we jumped straight in the driver's seat and started driving to warm up the car. We stopped about half an hour down the road and had some cereal in the car. A much warmer alternative.
We headed up the Icefields Parkway. One of the best drives in Canada. More glaciers than you can poke a stick at. We had a typical Canadian weather day. Sun, snow, cloud and the ever present wind.
Crow foot glacier. Supposedly with 3 toes although the bottom one has dropped off.
We then stopped at Mistaya Canyon. The creeks wind along until they hit a patch of limestone and then they form a canyon after years of erosion.
We then made it to the main tourist centre, the Colombia Icefields, where they take tours on an bus up to and onto the glaciers. One of the largest accumulations of ice and snow south of the Arctic Circle, it covers an area of nearly 325 square kilometres.
Above is what it apparently looks like. Below is what we got.
No matter, we were planning on coming back this way and will get another look at it.
Mt Athabasca
Next stop, another limestone waterfall canyon thing, Athabasca Falls.
This one is frozen though.
Just like us.
Nice water though.
Day 8By this stage we were in Jasper and it was really cold. We decided to take some accomodation. Jasper is actually such a popular tourist town, that the hotels can't handle it, so people take tourists into their homes. We ended up in the home of 2 park rangers (yogi's). They were great and it was a really nice, personalised accomodation alternative to staying in a dodgy hotel on the highway.
Some more fresh tracks. The snow followed us everywhere.
This is Maligne Canyon. Another one but it is really deep, 53m in the deepest point. The water level slowly lowers and yet get to see the whirlpools and rapids the water carves out.
Me.
Medicine Lake. We wanted to drive further on but there was too much snow on the road and the view probably wasn't going to be worth it.
An elk.
Bella at the beachside of a lake. That's snow, not white sand.
Bella loving the outdoors, with a view over the river that runs next to Jasper. It got to a maximum of -6 today. Luckily we had just come from a Winter and managed to deal with this OK.
Big horn sheep.
Day 9 and onwards
The weather was only getting worse and there was 30cm of snow on the road back down the Icefields Parkway, so being on no real set plan, we changed our plans and headed west out of the rockies, in an attempt to run away from the snow. It worked to some degree. While it wasn't the balmy spring days we were hoping for, it was definitely an improvement.
Our campsite the day we left Jasper in a lovely spot called Clearwater. Notice the sunshine and lack of snow on the ground. A welcome relief.
We slowly made our way south again, following an endless flow of lakes and rivers. This is a free ferry that crosses over one of the lakes on one of the minor highways. It's the scenic drive and we had the time.
The ferries take an amazing load, including about 4 semi's including this one full of another ample canadian resource. The sizes of the piles of timber lying in timber yards over here is amazing. As is the number of these that pass you on the highway. I don't think I have mentioned anything about driving but Canadians are bad at it and are always in a rush. Either that, or we just have too much time on our hands.
There is a heap of history in the area. Originally the rivers and lakes were the highways as the land routes were too tough. They discovered silver all throughout the area in the late 1800's and it set off the usual rush of development. Now they are just ghost towns, kept alive as tourist attractions. But we can tell you in the middle of Winter, they are ghost towns, and no tourists apart from ignorant Australians. I was wondering why the road was a little dodgy on the way in.
The bridge to the town of Nelson. A cool little hippie town. That apparently gets good snow, they had a 40cm day on the mountain in April, days before we got there.
Lunch spot.
The town.
Finally we arrived where we were meant to be, although we didn't know it until we got there.
Osoyoos. Wine Region.
Oh yeah.
Canada's only desert, although it still get 12 inches of rain a year, and prime wine and stonefruit producing region.
From the bottom up: Vineyard, monstrous RV park, lake, Osoyoos town.
Yep, we stumbled upon more snow tops. Retirees everywhere with their massive RV's obviously trying to escape a Canadian Winter. We turn up in Felix, pull out our camping stove on the table and they just stared as they did their daily walking lap of the park.
The orchards were also in full bloom. I only wish it was picking season.
With spent 2 days in this great part of Canada. Trying some wine and just generally relaxing, not that we were really stressed beforehand. From here it was a short 5 hour drive to Vancouver. In total we did over 2700kms. Our introduction in to big city living didn't take long. There were 2 accidents about 500m apart that took us about half an hour to travel 2kms. A sound welcome back into to traffic that is synonomous with lots of people living in the same area. I'm impressed if you made it this far. Vancouver entry to come.
It's got a great little grassy courtyard out the back which is a bit of a luxury around here. It gets a lot of sunshine and is not too boxed in by surrounding buildings.
Our room is great, apart from being a little dark, as it is on the side on the house. We have a bed (again, a step up on felix and the holey air mattress) and some great hardwood floors from around the 1940s. The sun shines in brilliantly through the living room and kitchen, at the front and back of the house respectively.
Gratuitous photos. In hindsight we were actually lucky to see them as now they are all dead and gone.
Vancouverites (as they are known) are super active people and are out and about in these early days of spring. Volleyball, gridiron, frizbee, hackey-sack, tight-rope walking and cheerleading (Yes, it's not that far to the US) are all evident on the packed beaches and parks. (The above photo is a little earlier in the day when it was not so busy, but still shows the nice park next to the beach)
Our local beach, Kitsilano Beach, with the CBD in the background, Stanley Park of the left and the local mountains in the distance with snow on top.
