On a clear day you can see for miles and miles............

A lovely day again with the sun shining and temperatures rising rapidly after a cool start. Giriish had prepared us a full cooked breakfast and we sat down with our co-residents, a young couple from Barcelona who were having their honeymoon before the wedding! They had been to Jasper the previous day and seen elk, wolf and bear in the morning! The thing they said to us that they had had difficulty in getting their heads around was the scale of everything here – from mountains and rivers to roads, vehicles and trains. Something we echoed.

Mount Robson & Visitor Centre

Well set up for the rigours ahead, we made for Mount Robson info centre. A few kilometres before we got there, we pulled into a rest area because we had just had our first, unmistakeable view of the white-tipped giant. The rest area was not too busy and we were able to enjoy the views without disruption. On to the official information centre; it was predictably commercialised and packed with coaches, Rvs, cars and people. Despite this we managed to get some magical views of Mount Robson itself and some of the less lofty, craggy peaks around it. We also got instructions as to how to get to Overlander Falls, on the Frazer River, a few kilometres further on.

Overlander Falls

This involved a 10 minute walk to the falls from the car park and what seemed like a vertical ascent back up the path. The falls were another spectacular sight; the energy being generated by the force of the water is quite thrilling. It was mesmerising to see the thundering waters pouring over the rocks and ledges to emerge downstream apparently tamed, betrayed only by vicious eddies and swirls.

Squirrel

We found a place to have our picnic lunch and the rustle of the crisp bag was enough to allow us our wildlife encounter of the day as an inquisitive squirrel came down to peer at us and check out if we had anything that might be of interest. After finding we were miserable Britons who wouldn't share anything he disappeared back up a tree.

We hit Alberta and were immediately faced with a toll booth; we hadn't appreciated that travelling through the National Park on a highway was sufficient to generate a need for a permit to be issued for each day of our stay. Five days cost us just under $100; when you think that it is used to maintain the park itself, it is not too bad but it was a surprise. Imagine a toll booth at Tebay on the M6 for travelling through the Lake District! Now being in the Mountains officially, we are on Mountain time and have had to put our watches forward an hour.

Another thing that happened as we reached Alberta was that we received a signal for the 'phone again and it immediately started to receive the messages people had sent yesterday – well better late than never!

Trolley from the top

We made for Whistler Mountain; so named, apparently for the Hoary Marmot whose claim to fame is sleeping for 8 months of the year and spending the remaining 4 feeding, resting, sunbathing and whistling!

We caught one of the trolleys up to the top station, noticing a 10°C drop in temperature with the height being almost 1 mile up. We chose not to make the 1.5 kilometre hike to the summit itself but pottered around just above the station. The views here were stupendous and truly mind boggling.

Mount Robson from The Whistlers

Mount Robson, which must be about 50 miles away, could be seen very clearly; we were very lucky, the guide told us that this was the first day in a couple of weeks that the mountain was free of cloud and we overheard one guy say that he has visited many times and this was the first time he has been able to see Mount Robson. It makes up for the poor luck at Grouse Mountain. The vast majority of the lift personnel were Australian – perhaps it is a job requirement. The equipment itself was installed in 1964 by a German firm and the cars being used were the originals. The laconic Aussie guide's assurance that they had an excellent maintenance team left one wondering....

View from The Whistlers

We looked around and under stones, searched out sunbathing stations but couldn't find any of the eponymous marmots, so we had to come back down disappointed.

Once back at the car, we set TomTom for our B&B but once in town, she seemed to get lost, requiring a U-turn, which didn't seem right. As we reached the town limits, we rang the place and found that TomTom had been right and the U-turn was necessary to get across a central divide. We are in the basement self-contained flat for a girl who is an event organiser and her husband who is a photographer – and yes, they do do weddings too. Fronc eat your heart out!

We have internet again, so have booked our trip on Lake Maligne and on the Columbia Iceway tomorrow and the next day. Tomorrow morning we plan to spend some time downloading some photos and inserting some in the text again so we are back up to date.

written by

rickandsuejohnson on August 14, 2010 from Jasper, Canada

from the travel blog: Go west, then go west some more.

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