Day 9 - Tuesday 22 May 2012

JASPER, CANADA - Day 1
　Weather: Overcast, slightly cold. Sun kept coming out every now and then.
　
Oh my God!! What a way to start a morning - sighting of a mama grizzly bear and her 3 cubs!\
Pauline, our tour director, was late getting on the bus as she had to run over to Safeway to get us a map of our way up to Jasper. She was 10 minutes late as Safeway didn't open until 8am.
　
On our way out of Banff, someone shouted out "bear, bear!!" and, as I was sitting in the back of the bus, I managed to glimpse a bear. Victor, our driver was really great as he illegally turned our bus around and drove slowly back to where the sighting occured.
　

As we approached, mama and company decide to cross over to the other side. We had a great view!! They were soooo cute!!! Pauline said that the cubs were at least 2 years old.

If Pauline hadn't been late, we would've missed them.
　


Lake Louise

 That was such a great start, everyone was on a high as we all got to see them disappear into the forest.

We continued on our way andn to our first stop - Lake Louise. It was partly frozen over and it looked great as there were some melted ice and you could just glimpse some of the icy blue water. We had our gorup photograph taken with the lake and glacier as a background. Took loads of photos and then it started to drizzle which created a really pretty rainbow reaching from the lake into the surrounding forest.
　

Athabasca Glacier

Our next stop was the most exciting of all - the Columbia Icefield where we boarded an Ice Explorer and walked on the massive Athabasca Glacier. While we were there, it actually started to snow!! I was in heaven. Marilyn just looked at me as if I'd lost my mind - she gets snow all the time.
　

Athabasca waterfall

Then it was on the road again and to the Athabasca waterfall on the Athabasca river in the Jasper National Park. The drive through the part is simply sensational - green trees and snow capped mountains. There was even a mama mountain sheep and her baby grazing by the side of the road on our way to Jasper!
　
We dropped the people off that were going rafting then we then drove into town and to our hotel. I dumped my stuff and walking into town. Jasper is a really small town. Even smaller than Banff. The main road runs parallel to the train track and there are several gift shops and restaurants and not much else. It was about 5pm and not many people were out.
　

Mountain sheep junior

After our barbeque buffet dinner, we had a presentation from a local expert that explained all about bears to us (as we'd seen them in the morning) and talked about elk and other animals we could see on our walk tomorrow.
　
Tomorrow, we're going to Maligne Lake in the morning and going on a nature walk at 6pm until 9pm where we, hopefully, will see more wildlife. It's very exciting when we do!!