Monday June 16, 2014 Jasper, Alberta, Canada

We were up at 7 AM.  During the night the tire monitor sounded, so I had been up to turn that off.  I made coffee and started getting ready to leave.  There was no internet connection.  The part of our routine of catching up on e-mail and Facebook wasn’t included.  I had checked last night and got no service on the MiFi.  Also last night Gerri had started a bean soup with sausage cooking in the crock pot.  When we did get on the road the crock pot was set in the sink to keep it in place while it kept cooking.  The inside of the coach smelled good all day.

I went outside and got out the air tank and everything I needed to air up the low tire.  When I screwed off the sender the entire valve extension came off with it.  I had this problem before but it seemed especially difficult to get the extension back on.  After replacing the extension I checked the air pressure and had to add 10 pounds.  Then I had difficulty getting the sender back on.  Susan again came to my rescue with her nimble fingers.

We left Lake Louse and were on the Highway at 9:30.  We had until 1:30 PM to get to the Columbia Ice Fields Visitor Center about 80 miles away.  

A drink of glacier water

The Athabasca Glacier

The road onto the glacier

Our Ice Explorer 

Bighorns on the moraine

The route started with a mile and a half on Trans Canada Highway 1.  We turned northwest on Alberta Route 93, also known as the Ice Fields  Parkway, for the rest of the trip to Jasper.  Before turning off TC-1 we went through one of the tunnels under a game crossing.  Canada has built these tunnels along heavily traveled routes to lessen the problem of collisions involving wild life and vehicles.  It is similar to the one on US-93 just east of Hoover Dam.  Of course they are landscaped to suit this part of Canada rather than the Arizona desert.

It was overcast and raining lightly most of the way, some times enough that I needed the wipers more than the intermittent setting would handle.  We stopped at some of the turnouts along the way. Picture taking was limited.  We did stop at the Crowfoot Glacier.  There was a bus load of Asian tourists taking pictures of a crow that was begging in the parking lot.  They seemed oblivious to the coach when I pulled in, I got as close as 10’ from one woman before she looked up and got out of the way.  After we were there awhile some of the tourists were taking pictures of the coaches and tow vehicles.  Most of the way we were alongside the Athabasca River.  The river doesn’t have a distinctly defined riverbed.  The course of the river is filled with gravel and the river flows through changing paths of least resistance.  Sometimes a meandering stream and other times a raging torrent.  Before reaching our meeting point we went up a very steep grade.  I stopped near the top to take a picture of the road below and behind us.  There was also a ribbon waterfall in view across the canyon.. 

We, and most of the group, were two hours early getting to the Ice Fields.  It was only an 80 mile drive.  Even considering the stops and having to slow for rough road we made good time.

As part of our tour Fantasy had arranged a trip up on to the Athabasca Glacier.  The trip was set up by the home office.  We lined up at 1:40 and were loaded onto a bus to take us to the glacier.  This bus was a regular tour bus, an MCI if it matters.  They had a station built off the ice where we transferred to an ice crawler.  This is like a bus on huge wheels like the big car crushing monster trucks.  Before going onto the ice the crawler had to go through a pool of water to wash the tires.  The dark rock heats up and melts the ice if it dragged onto the glacier by the vehicles.  When we got to the stopping point it was snowing.  Ben had brought cups and we drank water coming right out of the ice.

Back on the road we had 30 miles to go to Whistlers Campground near the town of Jasper.  We got there about 7 PM and were assigned to Loop 50 site E.  It was an easy pull through with full hook ups, 30 amp electric.

For supper we had the beans that Gerri cooked in the crock pot along the way and cornbread.  We ate the entire 10” skillet of cornbread.

We called it a night about 10:30 with an alarm set for 7 AM.