| About halfway to Jasper
you reach the Columbia Glacier. Here you can take a bus onto the glacier and
thousands of tourists do each year. |  |
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The two black dots are glacier crawlers climbing up to the main glacier.
Given the visibility and the cold and the fact we have done this trip before
we decided to travel on. After all we haven't even got to mile zero on the
Alaska highway yet. |
| Lake Louise to Jasper is
about 150 miles with no services, no radio, no phone coverage. Just
mountains and trees and rivers - and glaciers! |  |
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And it can seem endless. I remember last time it was 'Wow - a glacier' at
the beginning, and by the end it was 'Oh - another glacier'. Besides by now
it was raining! |
| Still you cannot fail to
be awed by the scenery and the emptiness of it all. |  |
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I marvel at the people who created the original access to these places. They
must have had a reason other than tourism. There is little sign that the
area is managed for timber or mined. |
| So, approaching Jasper,
we reached the Athabascan Falls. They have a drop of 80ft and a width of
60ft. Although not a great drop, the narrowness of the gorge through which
the water falls creates the enormous force for which these falls are chiefly
known. |  |
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The Athabasca River starts at the Columbia glacier and is already impressive
by this point. |
| A layer of quartzite has
assisted the water to cut through the limestone creating potholes where the
swirl of the water has eaten the rock away. |  |
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There are several other channels where the water has flowed in the past only
to run dry when the river found an easier path. |
| Again there were lots of
visitors, mainly English this time although there was a busload of Asian
teenagers. |  |
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The power at this point is just awesome. |
| A reminder of just how
powerful nature can be. |  |
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It also brings pleasure since white water rafting starts just below the
falls. It looked fairly innocuous but...... |
| Just before we reached
the campsite, we spotted a number of stopped cars all watching mama bear and
her two cubs. One seemed to be permanently hidden behind a bush but the
other and mama were unconcerned by the tourists only feet away. |  |
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