The Canadian Rockies, 11-15 May 2011

The Rocky Mountains lie like the spine of the North American continent, straddling the US and Canada for some 3,000 miles, from northern New Mexico to the upper stretches of British Colombia.  They skirt some 230 miles to the west of Edmonton, about a four-hour drive across relatively flat and windy plains, on a road known as Highway 16.  You know the Rockies are coming, but the transformation in the landscape is still something to behold, a true natural wonder of the world.  Being driven through Jasper National Park, I was overwhelmed by the snow-capped peaks and raw cutting rivers - and surprised to learn that in landscape terms, Jasper is known as the "gentle giant" of the national parks, in comparison to its even more rugged neighbours.

Jasper National Park

The town of Jasper itself is cute, clean and tidy, and mostly full of gift shops and cafes.  In the centre of the town, an early 20th century train station is a reminder that the town grew up on the railways, and still has a direct line to Toronto, a good 1,700 miles away.  Everything in Canada is massive - as I sit for a while at the station, I watch and count as a 171-carriage freight train passed through, which was simply astonishing.  A small crowd also gathers ready to catch the 4pm service to Toronto, showing that the route still has its fans, despite ever-decreasing air fares.  Our lodgings for the next couple of nights is called Alpine Park, a series of log cabins in the woods, a stone's throw from the powerful and fast-flowing Athabasca River.  The cabins are cosy and contain modern amenities, most importantly a firm lock on the door to keep our four-pawed intruders - we are in classic bear country here.  Leaving the cabin, I stroll down to the river and walk along the shore, hoping to catch a glimpse of a moose or bear, but all I see are a few chipmunks darting around the bases of the trees.

Alpine Park

The Athabasca River

Waking the next morning in slight bemusement, it takes a moment to remember quite where I am.  After a cooked breakfast in Jasper, we take off to explore some of the many mountainous lakes that form the landscape around here.  The weather is defiantly wintry - not yet snowing, but fairly cold with a slightly ominous sky - as we visit Pyramid Lake, Patricia Lake (where we see a loon, a beautiful water bird), and then the beautiful Maligne Lake, still fringed with snow.  The road to Maligne Lake is not without its obstacles - firstly, a cautious group of mountain sheep cross our path, before a series of wildlife warning signs, including a stark warning to stay inside our cars should we encounter bears.  Maligne Lake sits much higher than Jasper, and it tells, the well-frozen lake sitting deep in the grip of winter, with snow coming up to my knees at some points.  Despite this, encountering Maligne Lake will be one of my most favourite memories - I'll never forget first gazing upon its sullen, almost Arctic waters.

A loon at Patricia Lake, popping up at just the right time for my camera

Maligne Lake in a haunting winter shroud

With the sleet closing in around us, we bid farewell to Maligne Lake to head back to Jasper and lower ground,  Once close to Jasper, Ed suddenly takes a left turning, purely out of curiosity for where the road leads, and we are soon in a dense pine forest, before crossing a small bride over a river.  Suddenly out of nowhere, a brown bear moves away from the bridge and and into the trees - I prepare for a camera shot, but as my finger lingers on the shutter the bear bolts out of view.  I'm gutted to miss the shot, but that feeling is quickly eclipsed - many people come to the Rockies and never see a bear, and I know how lucky I've been.

The next morning we go for a walk at Maligne Canyon, the deepest canyon in the national park, in which flows the Maligne River, mainly underground, but popping up here-and-there through a series of natural springs.  At the top of the canyon, the river is still frozen, but towards the bottom and under the protection of the forest, water rushes at a fast pace.  The Maligne River is fed by Maligne and Medicine Lake, which often means there's large fluctuations in water flow through the course of the year.  It seems quite powerful on my visit, and the landscape is somewhat raw, but extremely beautiful.

Moving on from Maligne Canyon, we're heading in the direction of Athabasca Falls, but not before we decide to try our luck once more at yesterday's bear site.  We aren't quite as lucky today, but a big-horned sheep peers over a precipice far above, so it certainly is not a wasted journey.  My feeling about the Rockies is that you never quite know what you're going to see, so you always need to stay alert - as we drive off from this spot, a coyote crosses the road in front of us.

Maligne Canyon

Big-horned sheep

Athabasca Falls is billed as providing some of the most dramatic water falls in the national park, in which the Athabasca River plunges some 23 metres through a narrow gorge.  It's not actually the height which separates this waterfall from others, but the sheer force of the flow, for a great quantity of water is pushed through a relatively small space.  So powerful is this effect, that it is causing the rockface to slowly erode here, so that the whole site is slowly moving backwards.  Dry gorges exist where the water used to flow, before erosion forced it take another course, resulting in a dramatic landscape, and one that is popular with tourists, sometimes to devastating effect.  Most recently, a young German student took one step too far beyond the barriers to get the perfect photo, fell into the falls and was swept away.  I stay on the right side of the barriers, from which you still get an excellent view, and for the hundredth time in the last two days, I'm standing in awe of nature.

Athabasca Falls

It's time to leave Jasper, but not the Rockies.  The Icefields Parkway connects Jasper with the town of Banff, around 150 miles away and it known globally for being one of the word's most picturesque roads.  Here the Columbia Icefield sits astride the Continental Divide between Alberta and British Columbia.  Part of this icefield is the Athabasca Glacier, open for visits and accessed via the enormous Ice Explorer all-terrain vehicles.  Incidentally, Brewster, the company who operates tours here, owns 22 of the 23 vehicles of this type that exist in the world - the only other one is used by the US Army for research trips in the Antarctic.  The glacier itself is some 10,000 years old, and makes for an amazing excursion. It's all pretty hard to comprehend - the ice beneath our feet is as deep as the Eiffel Tower.  Even more amazing, I am lucky enough to have witnessed a distant avalanche, a volume of snow and ice falling in the far distance, followed by a rumble of late-arrived sound waves.

The Athabasca Glacier

The Icefields Parkway, one of the world's most beautiful roads

Following the Icefields Parkway south, we stop off at the famous Lake Louise, known for its turquoise beauty, but entirely frozen over during the prolonged winter of 2011.  From here, it's on to the town of Banff, a delightful town for the snow sports enthusiast, and for anyone else in need of a beer and a bowl of fries.  We find our way to Tommy's Bar, which is showing the latest hockey match (Boston are losing to Tampa Bay), and has a whole load of fascinating wall decor, old tin signs and car registration plates.  What I love about Banff is its situation - for it is surrounded by mountains - and its Cascade T Shirt store, which sells a phenomenal array of sports merchandise - jerseys, T-shirts, caps, hockey pucks, wall tapestries, and so much more.  As well as treating myself here, I also found a Native-made necklace and a small soft toy Mountie wolf dog for Lizzie.

Banff Avenue, Banff

Cascade T Shirts store, Banff

My time in the Rockies comes to an end in Banff, and in no time at all we are riding back to Edmonton (which involved spying Calgary from a distance, including the ski-jump made famous by 1988 Winter Olympic hero Eddie the Eagle) along the wide, empty and windy plains.  Ed says these featureless plains extend all the way to Ontario, an expanse that I will be bridging tomorrow when a four-hour flight will take me to the Canadian capital, a long way from the plunging rivers and frozen glaciers of this stunning mountain range.