It snowed!

Thursday 5th
Woke to find that the temperature had plummeted and was sitting on 1 or 2 degrees.  Apparently it rained last night, but we didn't hear a thing.  Clearly however it had snowed at high altitudes and it was good to see some fresh dusting on the higher peaks.  I must now apologise for my comments about lack of snow cover😩. Our drive today was to the Yoho National Park & then to Lake Louise ( by lunchtime).  As we reached a higher altitude, fresh snow was evident and made the real Rockies spectacular.  Apparently there is some debate as to where they start - some say back where we did the helicopter flight yesterday, while others say the start of the National Park.  What we also established is that helicopters are prohibited from all National Parks, which is why we could only fly in adjacent foothills.  All things are explained... eventually!

Our trip took us out of the province of Alberta into British Columbia and the Yoho park and then back to Alberta for Lake Louise.  The defining thing is that water flows east on the Bow River, from Lake Louise and after that the waters flow through BC to the west. At Jasper, waters flow north to the Arctic.  So we are very much travelling the great divide.

Good news - We saw a BEAR, a grizzly grazing beside the main road.  The driver stopped and the bear just ignored us (OK it was behind the animal fence running along the highway).  Unfortunately it was a bit far away for decent photos.  In the Yoho National Park we saw water. Picturesque, postcard material.  Before that we stopped at the historic railway spiral, where the trains go back on themselves threefold.  All goof and back on the bus, when the driver says "here comes a train" so out we all traipse.  It actually takes a good 5 minutes to reach the spiral part we are watching, having already completed a 180 degree turn under the highway.  Probably hard to put this in words, but imagine a train over 1.5 kilometres long (2 locos in front, 1 in the middle and another one at the rear) travelling to the right, then reappearing travelling away from you into a tunnel, reappearing on the right from another tunnel and heading away - all visible at the same time.  Great engineering & of course much bigger than our Rarimu Spiral.

We arrived at Lake Louise about 1.00 and are staying in this magnificent château type hotel.  Very, very expensive and no free internet, hence this post will have to wait!!!!!  All that aside, a most awe inspiring sight, with frozen lake, towering mountains and everything I had imagined.  We arrived in sun, it started snowing just a tad, sun came out, went in, came out (getting the picture?) and then snowed quite heavily for a while.  Couldn't be more perfect as we sat and ate and later drank with this vista. It is supposed to be -3 overnight, so am looking forward to the morning.

Friday 6 June
Well, it lived up to expectation and while it did snow somewhat higher up, nothing settled around the hotel, but it was cold enough to refreeze that part of the lake that had thawed yesterday.  The sun was out, not a cloud in the sky - perfection.

We had a great drive heading to Jasper, & while we saw numerous (ABG, rather than the usual ABC we experience in Europe) glaciers and had a full description of what and where etc.  The highlight however was the Ice Explorer on the Athabasca Glacier.  We went up onto the glacier in these special buses, which cost $1.5m and all but one in the world are on this glacier - I think it is 20+.  The only other one is at McMurdo Base.  Hugh wheels and they are needed to traverse the ice and one of the slopes down/up the Moraine is the steepest commercial roadway in the world.  Just as well it was in all wheel traction mode.  Our driver on this machine was a young girl from Brisbane.  Once again a great experience and more importantly, used our Kathmandu jackets & shoes, although it was actually colder at the Cafe downhill.  Funnily, although we seemed quite a long way up the glacier, we were probably only a third of the way.

Some more waterfalls and we headed off to Jasper, our driver turned off his commentary so people could rest/sleep.  After 3/4 hour the bus comes to as sudden halt and sure enough there is a black bear grazing on the side of the road.  He backed up the bus, so got a reasonable photo.  The bear got tired of the attention and wandered behind a bush.  The driver said that the bear was about 3 years old and clearly it had recently kicked out of home ( which apparently happens after 2 years - Mum just gets tired of them and is looking for more fun with a new "husband"!!).  I am pretty sure that the grizzly we saw yesterday was in the same boat.

Got into Jasper just before 6.00 and we have a cute hotel opposite the train station, in the centre of town.  We are very fortunate as the group (which has grown to 36) are spread over numerous hotels, many are miles out of town.  Great to have WiFi again and also we haver 2 days here, with a city tour tomorrow morning.  At least it is not too early and we don't have to pack our bags before breakfast.  One of the annoying things about conducted tours - not complaining however, just commenting.