At the shower block this morning we saw a herd of Wapiti deer, eating and relaxing in the long grass. At first, Katie thought that the ones in the grass were rabbits, but then we realised that we were looking at the ears of some fawns lying down. Katie watched them playing around and suckling on their mum. While she was standing there, another big daddy deer appeared out of the bushes next to her, giving her a little fright. We saw another on the side of the road on the way back to our campsite.
We packed up camp, ready to go exploring along the Icefields Parkway. We're getting so quick at folding up the tent! First stop was for a coffee at Wicked Cup in Jasper. Katie went in while I stayed in the car, and got herself into a strange discussion where she had to explain the word 'queue' to a lady when Katie asked her if she was lining up.
From Jasper, we headed to Athabasca Falls. Water runs down the Athabasca River from the glacier that we walked on yesterday. The park had installed lots of stairs and pathways so we could walk through dry canyons that the river had carved out thousands of years ago before some geological event occurred that shifted the course of the river. At the bottom of the falls, we saw a group of whitewater rafters, preparing to set out into the rapids. We had our photo taken by a group of Scottish tourists who we had helped take a photo the day before at Pyramid Lake.
On the way to our next stop, we passed a sign for a lookout point called Goats & Glaciers. Just as I was thinking what a weird name that was, Katie excitedly started pointing out a herd of goats on the side of the road! I wonder how they knew to hang out next to their sign? We've found that whenever you want to see some wildlife, on trails, campsites, or on the highway, just look for random groups of cars or people. There's always a few tourists there, pointing excitedly and taking photos with half-metre long lenses. It's an interesting phenomenon, but not one we're immune to ourselves.
Next stop was Honeymoon Lake, down a small poorly sign-posted gravel road. This lake had been recommended to us by a retired couple we'd befriended at a brewery in Golden. It had a small unserviced campground (no power or water), with sites nestled in amongst the pine trees. We sat on a seat by the lake for a while and watched a chipmunk scampering around and spying on us from behind trees. We felt compelled to whisper so that we didn't disturb the serenity of the place.
Down the road a few minutes further we came to Sunwapta Falls. At the entrance to the road, there was a gift shop and lodge, which we aren't really used to seeing at natural attractions like this. Sunwapta Falls is yet another water feature fed by the Athabasca Glacier. We walked around the edge of the massive gorge and marvelled at the potholes (round hollows that the river carves out with eddies and backwaters) high up on the cliffs, showing just how much bedrock had been worn away over an unimaginable amount of time. After wandering around for a bit, we sat on Anders' tailgate and ate some sandwiches.
We pulled off the road again at Stutfield Lookout and gazed across a braided river at Stutfield Glacier. The exposed faces of the glacier were a magnificent blue colour, apparent even from this far away. We watched ravens swooping around, and flying low across the ground. Katie thinks that the snow covering on the tops of the rounded mountain tops looks like icing sugar on a strawberry when you've put way too much on.
We almost missed the next turnoff to Bow Summit but managed to brake just in time to tack the land yacht into the parking lot. We took a 10-minute up-hill walk through clouds of mosquitoes to a lookout platform over Peyto Lake. This lake is probably the most incredible we've seen so far; the rock flour carried down from the glacier has turned the water a cloudy opaque turquoise colour. It was cool being able to see the glacier, the river, silt flats, and the lake all from the same spot. It was like a "How it's made" documentary!
On the highway again, approaching Banff, we came across one of the aforementioned groups of cars stopped on the side of the road, hazard lights flashing. We pulled over too, knowing what this meant. We managed to spot a black bear mum and her cub, casually looking for berries on the side of the road! The cub didn't hang around in the open very long, but its' parent meandered along for about 5 minutes, before slowly disappearing back into the tree line.
We walked around Banff for a while and had a beer and nachos at the Banff Brewing Co. It turned out that this was run by the same company as the Jasper Brewing Co., which we'd visited the day before, and had exactly the same menu!
We're camping tonight in Banff Tunnel Mountain Village Campground 1, a 5-minute drive outside of Banff town centre. This place is enormous; there are over 800 campsites here! After setting up camp and sitting down to write today's blog, the family camping next to us came over to say hi and ask about our rooftop tent. We talked to them for a while, extolling the virtues of camping on top of the car. As they were leaving the next day, they gave us some leftover sausages and a bottle of Jack Daniels! A few minutes after they'd gone back to their own camp, their young daughter ran over with a plate of cheese and crackers. Canadians are so nice!