Day 14 Summer 2010 Park to Park Road Trip

This morning we are leaving Hinton AB and heading to Jasper National Park and Banff National Park.
We entered Jasper and paid for 2 days because we will return again tomorrow to visit Banff. I like the US National Parks system better, because you can buy a one year pass to all of their National Parks for only $80.00 Canada does not have a pass system for all of the Canadian National Parks and today's visit is going to cost $20.00

Shortly after entering the park we found some Big Horn Sheep grazing at the side of the road.

Then we came across a herd of Elk.

We stopped in the town of Jasper and wandered around the main street looking for souvenirs.

After leaving the town of Jasper we stopped at Athabasca Falls.

As we were driving along the road, up ahead we spotted a Black Bear crossing the road. We followed along side as he wandered in the ditch searching for berries.

Next stop was at a roadside waterfall that was cascading down the rock face wall.

Then onward to the Columbia Ice Field. This is where glaciers in Jasper National Park are born. There are 6 glaciers that flow off of the Columbia Ice Field and this is the Athabasca Glacier, the only one of the 6 that can be seen and visited from the road.

We bought tickets to ride the “Ice Explorer” out onto the Glacier where we disembarked to actually walk on the ice.

The temporary road from the land down onto the ice is at a 32 degree angle, very very steep, but these machines have the power and the torque to overcome this steep terrain.

In this photo you can see the size of the tires used on these vehicles.

After leaving the Columbia Ice Field Athabasca Glacier, we were driving along the road to enter into Banff National Park and we spotted another Black Bear just off the side of the road.

We took photos of Bow Lake and the snow and ice field above in Banff.

That concludes today’s visit to Jasper and Banff, we will return tomorrow because there are several parts of Banff National Park that we want to visit.
To see all of our photos and videos from today, you can click on this link to my FLICKR site.