Yukon Ho!

May 30, 2006: Pembina River to Banff

June 7, 2006 on 8:45 pm | In Uncategorized |

Woke up early and found a bakery/cafe near the park that sold supercheap everything, including two fresh pizza buns for $1.30 and the most massive head-sized apple fritters ever. Again, everyone in the place out-aged us by a few decades but at least they were all nice this time.
An hour later we stopped for more coffee and gas, then continued on to Jasper.
Turns out there’s an $18 per car fee to drive into Jasper National Park, which might not have been such a huge deal if the hag working at the gate hadn’t been such a heinous bitch. Because we are understanding Ontarians (and Aussie and Brit) though we paid it without complaint and headed into the park where we immediately saw three mountain goats.
In Jasper we walked around the village, watched it hail for a while, bought some bear spray and bear bells, and got a quick lesson in bear-ology from old John who was working at one of the outdoor stores. We also learned all about his friend Lee -bikingest guy in all of Alberta. There’s not a trail Lee hasn’t ridden -not a forest that Lee hasn’t made his own trail through. Lee even rode his bike smack into the side of a grizzly and lived to tell the tale! As Lee was fumbling for his bear spray that bear took clean off into the woods, whimpering like a cub so let that be a lesson to you. Good ‘ol Lee. I think we’ll all miss him now that we’re in Banff.
Anywhooooo the HI Jasper where we dropped Campbell was awesome because it had three hostel dogs, one of which was a very chilled-out husky with blue eyes and soft ears who let us maul him for a while.
En route to Banff we took some pictures at Athabasca Pass where Mr. Rogers (aka Sean) offered to take some photos for two old guys who were taking turns taking pictures of each other in front of mountains. We also took some shots of a mountain goat PARTY that was happening near the Columbia Icefields.
In Lake Louise we spent about five minutes taking pictures of the lake and laughing at this hilarious bird that was hopping around, as well as at this intense hiker who was using not one, but two titanium walking sticks to traverse the flat, flat ground around in front of the lake.
We got to Banff around 730pm and went straight to Safeway for some food, and the LCBO for some beer. Tuesday was the one night We got to leave the tent in the van because Dave’s friend Colleen was nice enough to let all three of us stink her place up for the night. The night’s activities included the cooking of sausages and vegetables, the opening of chips and beer, the planning of Wednesday’s route and the general avoidance of Banff’s college-town party scene.
Amy

PS -It’s duck hunting season and the feathers are flyin’! Go Oilers Go!