We arrived to one of the most elegant hotels in the world at 9 at night in the dark, had a speed dinner at a fabulous Italian restaurant and were on the bus in the dark today by 7am. From what I could gather, the Fairmont Banff Springs is spectacular and I truly need to come back and spend at least 5 days here. Today we were taking a bus coach from Banff to Jasper. Our journey was through the Icefields parkway and Banff National Park. Our first stop was lake Louise, whose color and splendor is world famous. Our driver, Bob, made of point of asking how many of us disliked when a guide/driver talked for the entire trip. He assured us he agreed, but proceeded to talk the ENTIRE trip. Mind you, he was very informative and very knowledgeable. I just found it humorous after his initial intro.

What was so fabulous about today was that we stopped every half hour to 40 minutes to see yet another spectacular site . Our primary destination, on the way to Jasper, was the Athabasca glacier or as Bob would pronounce… "Glay cee eer" One highlight from today was when Ted tried to take our picture at Bow Lake and queried “Why am I in the picture?”  (He was taking a selfie and didn't know it) We drove to an elevation of over 6500 feet through multiple passes and Mountain peaks. We arrived at the discovery center to take a bus to the specially designed “ice explorer” driven by Colin. (If we didn’t like the tour, Richard) These vehicles are designed to drive on top of the glacier on over 8 sets of HUGE tires inflated to only 16 psi. Each tire costs over $30,000. We headed along the lateral moraine (or collection of rocks and debris left by the receding glacier) At one point we were driving on a 36% incline/decline that is the steepest I have ever seen. We stopped directly on the glacier and were able to walk about. We were warned to not go past some boundaries as we might slip into a cravace (not a crevice) or a Moulin (a hole that can’t be measured) Of course, we see the predictable tourist, who this rule doesn’t apply to .

When you look at the pictures, you can see a pin dot of vehicles on the glacier and then note the actual size of the vehicles and buses heading to the site.

We drove through the Valley of the five lakes, by spectacular mountains, each one more majestic than the next. We stopped at Athabasca falls, whose color was bluer than the blue grotto of Capri.

We are staying at the Jasper Park Lodge, a gorgeous facility on a small lake. On the last leg of our journey we got to see Elk. We had been warned multiple times to be very wary of male Elk, as this is their rutting season. We drove by a bunch of IDIOTS, who with their cameras, were walking directly towards, around and at many of them. The sad thing is, should one of the Elk attack, the park ranger would be forced to put that animal down as “aggressive”. Put that darn tourist down instead! (Be a responsible tourist and know the guidelines and customs of the location you are going to visit)

Tomorrow, we are back on the train heading back to Vancouver.