June 4

June 4 – David Thompson Campground to Jasper and Back

Spent the morning traveling the Ice Fields Parkway toward Jasper. Did not see any wildlife yet with all the views all you can say is WOW! At one of the passes we had snow and the temperature dropped to 32 degrees. That’s the lowest we have seen on the trip so far while we were in the truck. After a good lunch in Jasper we started back south on the Icefields Parkway. We took a short hike to visit a falls then back to truck. Not long afterwards there was a mountain goat in the road. We got a good view but not any great photos.

My inspiration to bicycle to Alberta in 1975 was from a photo on the cover of Bicycling Magazine (my memory says in was the April 1975 cover shot) of two cyclists with their bikes on an overview of Peyto Lake. It was an iconic view of the Canadian Rockies. I could not find the location and the Peyto Lake seems to be renamed to Bow Lake. I am not sure if things changed so much or was it just my memories changing. Well, no luck there but just before we gave up around the next turn was a grizzly bear in the middle of the road! We got great views but did not linger as to disturb the bear. On back to the campground after traveling over 300 miles.