26.05.2012 – 26.05.2012  15 °C

Another fairly full day of driving, Jasper to Golden. Golden is a small town an hour and a bit west of Lake Louise between Yoho and Glacier NPs. It is also the home of the Kicking Horse ski resort (what else would you expect to find in the Rocky Mountains?). The drive followed yesterday’s course down the Iceland’s Parkway from Jasper to Lake Louise then a westerly turn onto the Trans Canada highway and on our way towards Vancouver.

On our route back down the parkway we took a slight detour so that we could see the Athabasca falls. Because we had left early we were on bear watch and weren’t too surprised when we again didn’t see any animals! It can make for a bit of a boring journey when you just have pine forests for scenery (how blasé am I getting??) J! The Athabasca falls must be one of the key stops on the tourist route because when we arrived two buses had just pulled up and at least fifty Aussie grey haired tourists (scenic tours) were all wandering around with their name badges and their point and shoots! We decided to wait a bit before we bothered to take a look!! Aussie tourists (when in a big group) are pretty amusing.. you hear comments like “come over here love” and “aw that’s beautiful”… Too funny!

Our next stop on the Iceland’s parkway was to get up close to the Athabasca glacier. You can spend the money and get a bus tour onto the field or you can park at the base and walk up to the toe of the glacier. D and I did the walk. It wasn’t too far or too strenuous and the view at the end was worth the effort. The sad thing is that the glacier is retreating at a fairly rapid pace. The walking route is marked with the locations of the toe of the glacier over the past hundred years.. I would estimate that the glacier is retreating about a metre per year.. I guess at the rate its going give it another hundred years and the largest ice pack under the arctic circle may be getting close to extinction! Mmm…

The remainder of the day saw us just do some hard core driving.. We need to be in Kamloops by tomorrow evening and the distance is fairly significant from Jasper so we had to get a bit of a move on. The good thing is that even though we are driving a lot there is plenty to see on the way! Plenty more snow capped mountains, fast flowing streams, pine forests and of course if you keep your eyes open you might just see a bear or two….. (Not that we did today!)

Once past Lake Louise the Trans Canada highway takes you thru Yoho NP so plenty of beautiful vistas. We made a brief stop to see the train line that the Rocky Mountaineer uses (by the way, for anyone thinking of taking the Rocky Mountaineer… the road follows the rail lines so you get the same view by road and you get the advantage of stopping when you want.. my advice, save some dollars, give yourself plenty of time and drive the TC Highway…). To allow the trains to get up the Kicking Horse pass the train actually goes into the mountains to enable the train to do a complete 360 deg loop. In this way the ascent (and descent) is easier and less dangerous.. Apparently if you get your timings right you can stand and watch the rear of the train enter the tunnel whilst the front of the train is exiting!!

Our last stop of the day was to this gorgeous green coloured lake (which I can imagine is the colour of Lake Louise in the summer time). The creek and the lake are a real aquamarine colour. Almost to the point where you are looking for who is adding the green dye to the water to get it so green!!

We finally arrived in the little town of Golden (home to Kicking Horse ski field) just before dinner time and found ourselves the usual cheap accom, bought some dinner and cooked ourselves up a baked dinner (well we had a cooked chook, pan fried roasted spuds and pumpkin and some cauliflower and broccoli)… Pretty funny though, M and I were cooking the veges (I had the spuds and pumpkin on our little two burner elec stove and M was using the micro for the cauli and broc) when we managed to blow the fuse!! Now remember that we aren’t really allowed to cook in our room, so D rang the dude to flick the fuse and I had to run into the bathroom with the elec stove and the fry pan!! Pretty funny all around!! Even funnier when I mention that we managed to trip the fuse that morning in our hotel room in Jasper!!! Two in one day is good going!

Song of the Day– Leonard Cohen, Hallelujah  (possibly my favourite song of all time and another great Canadian singer/ songwriter.. additionally, I think the KD Lang version is one of the best around…)