E-Jasper-ration looms

Tangle Ride at the background
Jasper National Park, BC

Sunshine, at long last!
Along Bighorn Hwy 40

Entering Grande Cache, BC

Eric found his long lost cousin, Sir Woverine
Grand Cache Visitor Center, BC

Daisy posing very un-PC with a coyote pelt - very soft!
Grande Cache, BC

Three weeks into the Canadian Rockies and it feels like I am just warming up.  After a familiar spa treatment at the local Sanctuary of the Green Umbrellas (aka Starbucks) at Grande Prairie, we forged on the Bighorn Highway (Highway 40) to Grande Cache.  It will eventually junction the Yellowhead Highway 16 and leads us to Jasper National Park.  We “cached” in for some local grande attractions at Grande Cache; by the way, it is pronounced “grand cash”, not “gran-day ca-che…”   A cache is basically a cabin on stilts, a large storage place.  The location was used as a staging area for fur trappers and Natives prior to their departure to trap lines.  Upon their return, they would store large caches of furs while waiting for transportation to trading posts; hence, the name. 

We couldn’t bear to pay $21 for a tiny campsite at the municipal campground that’s crammed with RVs whose generators would be cranking into the night; instead, we drove a bit south of town and found an user-maintained campground and hunkered down for the night.  No charge, of course.  Dry, flat, wildlife-free evening.  Another day in paradise.

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Along the Yellowhead Highway 16
Heading to Jasper National Park, BC

The sceneries on the Yellowhead Highway to Jasper were as magnificent as any tourist brochures have ever claimed; only better.  More sightings of a black bear, deer, and other four-legged animals on road.  The climate is dry; the air clean and crisp; the mountains are huge.  I tried to sketch some images along the way; they just do not do justice.  Slab after slab, cliff after cliff of gneiss rocks. 

Hiking up Sulphur Skyline
Miette Hot Springs in Jasper NP, BC

Slab after slab of gneiss rocks
Jasper National Park, BC

Bighorn ram perched right on top of a hill, it looked
so huge!

Along Icefields Parkway with glaciers at the back
Jasper NP, BC

One of the most beautiful and scenic routes in the North America continent is the Icefields Parkway, which links Jasper National Park and Banff National Park with 230 kilometers of jaw-dropping sceneries and humongous icefields.  The Parkway passes seven icefields and about 25 smaller glaciers.  (Icefields are large, upland glaciers.)  The largest icefield in the Rocky Mountains and the centerpiece is, of course, the Columbia Icefield.  Like other glaciers, it has retreated rapidly in recent years – an indication that the earth’s climate is warming. 

Icefields Parkway off Jasper NP
Humongous glaciers at viewing distance

These mountains have a mysterious draw to me.  Not only because they are magnificent, but a magnetic connection of sort.  Take no offense:  Give me buttery, flaky croissants and the Eiffel Tower all year long, but I will happily trade them all with an One-Pot-Gourmet and the Canadian Rockies for just one day.

I put my binoculars, a most useful and appreciated birthday gift, to work.  Along the way, more wildlife posed for tourists.

Onward to another night of mosquito-swatting.  We slathered another layer of the trusted bug juice with maximum DEET. 

“Cover me; I’m going in…”