Icefield Parkway - Driving to Jasper

Well we did one of the best drives in the world and it truly lived up to its name. We set off at 9am and just arrived in Jasper at around 5pm. The driving was not too strenuous just 232km but there were so many beautiful viewpoints along the way, so many trails to check out, and so much scenery to admire. We felt we could have made the drive last a couple of days and still enjoyed every minute. We had to miss out many of the longer trails to get it done in one day. The scenery changed from being above the tree-line with a rugged snow-capped mountain theme and some scary looking drops, to driving at the bottom of the valley dwarfed by the mountains in beautiful sunshine.

The moment finally came when we got to see a black bear. Just driving along and there it was playing at the side of the road. What are you told to do if you see a bear...? Stay in the car. Yeah right, we got out and took some photos. Although we did beat a hasty retreat after this photo when the bear turned towards us and started ambling over. We got to within about five to ten metres of the bear before it turned around and we sprinted back to the car. Certainly wouldn't have got out the car if it had been a big grizzly bear, we aren't stupid.

There were so many sights we are going to break down today's blog into some of the highlights and attach a picture or two. On the wildlife side we saw a big black raven everywhere we went, sure it was following us, some more deer, some bighorn sheep, and plenty of little creatures, but who cares, we only had eyes for the bear!